Soon after designated hitter John Allen took his seat in the visitors’ dugout early in the Fort Worth Cats’ game against the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Canaries on May 23, 2007, he was startled by the actions of the teammate seated next to him.
Max Scherzer was charting the pitches thrown that night by Cats starter Joel Kirsten.
That Scherzer was even with the Cats, a team in the independent American Association, was surprising enough. Eleven months after being drafted 11th overall out of Missouri by the Arizona Diamondbacks, he had not signed with the D-backs under the guidance of agent Scott Boras and signed with Fort Worth to keep in pitching form. If Scherzer remained unsigned through that month, he would go back into the next draft.
“Dude, what are you doing?” Allen asked incredulously.
Scherzer was almost as surprised by the question, replying he needed to know how to attack Sioux Falls’ hitters.
“You know you’re going to dominate these guys tomorrow,” Allen said. “So, what’s the point?”
Scherzer said that he couldn’t be sure he’d dominate, that he needed to be prepared.
Scherzer was indeed prepared and dominated again the following night in his third and final start for the Cats. He limited the Canaries to two hits over six innings, his longest Fort Worth outing, and struck out eight. In 16 innings with the Cats, the 22-year-old right-hander allowed one earned run and nine hits with 25 strikeouts and four walks.
At 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on May 31, Scherzer agreed to the Diamondbacks’ offer of $4.3 million over four years plus incentives. The following morning, he was on his way to join the D-backs’ High-A affiliate in the California League.
Allen recently recalled the dugout exchange of 13 years ago.
“At that point, he was sitting 98, 99 miles per hour,” he said. “Just grippin’ it and rippin’ it. Stupid movement on the ball. For him to sit there and still prepare probably better than a lot of the veterans that I saw was pretty impressive.”
It’s rare for a major leaguer to begin his pro career in independent ball, with a team that isn’t part of a big league club’s system of minor league affiliates. Independent baseball is “somewhere you don’t want to be,” said Kelley Gulledge, a 2000 MLB draftee and the Cats’ primary catcher in 2007. Yet he also called his four seasons playing for Fort Worth “some of the most fun years I ever had.”
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Scherzer’s story is now well known through 12 big league seasons with Arizona, the Detroit Tigers and the Washington Nationals — seven All-Star selections, three Cy Young awards, two no-hitters, a 20-strikeout game and a shiny, new World Series championship ring earned last fall. The Nats were scheduled to visit the Rangers last week.
None of the other 24 members of the 2007 Cats’ opening roster ever played in the major leagues. Three reached Triple-A, each only briefly. Nine played only independent baseball. Three of those nine had pro careers that consisted of playing only for the 2007 Cats, a team that won its third consecutive league championship.
Here are some of their stories.
Mansfield catcher
For Gulledge, playing for the 2007 Cats following a year out of the game amounted to receiving a hometown break. Gulledge, son of longtime Rangers public address announcer Chuck Morgan, graduated from Mansfield before playing for Alabama in 1999-2000. He was a 10th-round draftee of the Minnesota Twins, with a great arm and something of a linebacker’s build, and reached Double-A in three years.
But a young man who’d rarely took a drink before going pro was soon consumed by an addiction to crack cocaine and failed three drug tests.
“I’m an open book; I was one of the top 10 prospects for the Twins and just poo-poo’ed that down the toilet,” Gulledge said. His attempt to catch on with the Cincinnati Reds during spring training 2006 abruptly ended when he lost a teammate’s $70,000 car.
“My name was dirt,” Gulledge said.
With the Cats in early May 2007, he tried his best to handle Scherzer’s fastball in the bullpen. It didn’t always go well, an incorrect turn of the glove giving him a sore thumb for two months.
“He was throwing 95 with sink,” he said. “At that point, I knew he was dirty.”
Gulledge hit .302 that year and led the Cats with 12 home runs, earning him reentry into organized baseball with the Los Angeles Dodgers. After he’d helped explain life in pro ball to young Scherzer, Gulledge spent some of 2008 answering similar questions as the road roommate of young Clayton Kershaw in Double A.
“Still wet behind the ears,” he said of both prospects with a laugh.
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Gulledge earned promotion to Triple-A late that season but went unsigned the following spring. He returned to the Cats for three more years and retired following the 2011 season at age 32.
“If anyone’s ever experienced affiliated ball in the minor leagues, they make investments and they’ve got to capitalize on their investments,” Gulledge said. “You’re not necessarily out there to win; you’re out there to get better, which is a tough atmosphere.”
Gulledge is back in Alabama, living near Birmingham as a pharmaceutical sales rep with wife Sylvia and son Knox, and he said he has been sober for 15 years.
“I was immature as hell,” he said of his early years in pro ball. “If I could go back and have the work ethic I do now ... ”
Aledo pitcher
Lee Gwaltney, a hard-throwing right-hander from Aledo who pitched for Louisiana Tech, learned about big league investments in an unusual manner — a fight in the parking lot of a Florida bar.
The fracas broke out during spring training 2005 and involved Gwaltney and some follow Philadelphia Phillies Double-A prospects tangling with some contentious locals. Gwaltney, a sixth-round draftee three years earlier, was released almost immediately along with one of his teammates. A third Phillies prospect involved in the ruckus, one who broke his pitching hand in the melee, wasn’t released — Cole Hamels, the 17th overall selection in that same 2002 draft.
Phillies executive Ruben Amaro Jr. said of the disparate personnel decisions made following the fight: “We try to treat all of our players fairly, but some players we treat more fairly than others.”
Gwaltney caught on with the Chicago Cubs organization and returned to Double-A only to be released a year later. Fort Worth proved a convenient location for trying to return to organized ball. He went 6-2 in 2007 and was pitching well again in 2008 when he was signed by the San Diego Padres. His time in that organization was only four innings at Double-A.
Gwaltney’s pro career ended back with the Cats in 2009, and he opened a recruiting and staffing company in his hometown three years ago. He lives with wife Kristen, son Jack and daughter Dylan Claire in the house next door to the one where he grew up.
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“Me and Cole are still good friends,” Gwaltney said.
Plano East 3B
Third baseman Terence Green earned local sports fame in high school. As a senior wide receiver and fill-in kicker for Plano East in 1994, Green incredibly executed three onside kicks in the closing minutes of a playoff game against Tyler John Tyler that made possible an unbelievable comeback from a 41-17 deficit that gained national attention — and the last deep kickoff that was returned for the stunning, rally-negating touchdown.
“Some fans would bring it up,” Green said. “I’m blessed to be a part of a game that’s still talked about.”
Green went undrafted after playing for Texas Wesleyan. In 2000, he headed to independent ball. He landed in Fort Worth in 2004 and played four solid seasons. Green led the 2007 Cats hitting .314 with 26 stolen bases. But life in the real world beckoned at age 30, and he left the game.
Green lives in north Fort Worth with his wife, Angie, and sons Camden and Grayson. He works as a recruiter for a medical employment service.
Garland DH
The aforementioned John Allen was named the national junior college player of the year in 2002 for Richland College and was never drafted. He played nine seasons in the American Association, primarily as a DH, and became the league’s career leader in hits, doubles and runs batted in. A graduate of Garland High, he returned to the Cats for 2007 after sitting out a season because of Tommy John surgery.
At age 31 with a second daughter on the way, it was time to give up pro ball.
“I love baseball, but I wanted to see those girls,” he said. That would be wife Melanie and daughters Maci and Josie.
Allen started a company that processes metal for oil and gas companies. Living in Aledo, he also teaches hitting part time at a local sports complex that welcomes major leaguers and NFL players for offseason training. The latter includes the winning quarterback of the most recent Super Bowl.
“Patrick Mahomes works with my pitching guy,” he said.
Dominican OF
The longest pro career for anyone on that opening roster belonged to outfielder Carlos Adolfo from the Dominican Republic: six seasons of affiliated ball and six in independent play over 14 years.
Adolfo signed with the Montreal Expos in 1992 and reached Triple-A in 1999, playing alongside Vladimir Guerrero along the way. He was released in spring 2000 and spent the next two years as a construction worker and airport baggage handler. He then played independent ball 2002-07, the last three seasons with the Cats.
Adolfo retired from baseball at age 31 with a 10-year-old son, Micker (pronounced MY-ker), who’d frolicked in the Cats clubhouse. Five years ago, Carlos was hired by the Boston Red Sox to coach hitting in the Dominican. Six years ago, Micker was given a $1.6 million signing bonus by the Chicago White Sox. He finished 2019 at Double-A and appeared in spring games this year with the big club.
“One day, hopefully, he’ll make it,” Carlos said of Micker, “and my dream will come true.”
Departing gift
The night after Scherzer left for California, the Cats clattered into the home clubhouse behind the right-field stands at LaGrave Field after their game against the Shreveport-Bossier Sports to find dinners from Outback Steakhouse at their lockers, courtesy of their former teammate.
“A good dude,” Gwaltney said. “We knew he was going to have a long career. I didn’t know he was going to do as well as he’s done.”
Green said, “He had that swagger. He was on a pitch count, so we really didn’t get to see his full talent. Still, it was special to watch.”
Jeff Miller is a freelance writer based in DeSoto.
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