The popular refrain is ubiquitous throughout the greater Kentucky area, as the Bluegrass state populace has seemed to have fully embraced the light-hitting scrappy rookie shortstop of the Louisville Sluggers.
The twenty-seven year-old North Carolian native would seem an odd choice to become an instant fan favourite, but the Slugger fans have quickly become endeared to his all-out hustle, superlative defence, coupled with his downhome...stupidity...that the general Kentucky populace can readily relate too.
The hottest seller in the Louisville Slugger giftshop has not been the jerseys of fellow rookie sensations, Sam Sung and Jorge Diaz(the catcher), or pitchers Allen Izzatt or Victor Paez, but two t-shirts, one that simply reads 'I was there when Dan James got a base hit' and the other 'What would Dan James Do?'.
"James makes Bopper Kengos look like a geriatric warthog,"proclaimed one Slugger fan,"You'll see...it will be called the Dan James Award instead of the Yogi Zimmer Diamond Glove Award in ten years."
You can forgive the Louisville populace for going slightly off-kilter, as the giddy feeling of playing .500 ball in June has not been experienced in Kentucky since 1997!
Dan James was a college all-star in his freshman and sophmore seasons at Kodak college, and was drafted after a .307/.403/.480/.884 senior year by the Sluggers with the first pick in the third round of the 2004 amateur draft. James was named to the rookie league's all-star team later that season, and excelled in Ocala Single A in 2005. He spent 2006 and 2007 in Double A Alabamba where doubts of him ever having a major league quality bat first surfaced, while he erased all doubts about his glove as he won the SS Glove Wizard in 2007 in Double A. James enjoyed a promising 2008 in Triple A Missouri until he was sidelined in August for the remainder of the season with a ruptured Achilles tendon. James was called up to 'the Show' in early May 2009 and has performed as advertised, playing superlative defence coupled with aggressive base-running...and dismal hitting.
His penchant for rare if timely hits coupled with his 'impossible' snares in the field, has enabled Slugger fans to forgivingly accept his mostly 'lost-looking' at-bats. James often gets a befuddled expression on his face after weakly swinging through a third 'fat' fastball thrown straight through the heart of the plate. His comic expression, his confused shaking of his head, and head hanging down, bat dragging slow walk back to the dugout, completes a picture of utter incomprehension; which gave rise to the popularity of the 'WWDJD' t-shirt.
His twenty-two strike-outs over his 74 plate appearances pro-rated, would crush Pio Vallejo's Slugger single season record of 168 strike-outs.
"Danny or King K, as I call him, is the best fielding shortstop in this league,"proclaimed GM Hopkins,"Just wait...it won't be long until King K mania sweeps up the entire nation!"
