When scanning a roster of the Vancouver Canadians, one name sticks out.  Barfield, Jeremy.  Look at the stats, and they’re very respectable numbers beside his name, but if you watch him bat, or play in the field, he’s playing much better than the stats say.

Take last Thursday afternoon for example.  He hit a foul ball out of Nat Bailey Stadium, but it was about 15 feet foul.  Jeremy hit his first home-run in Tri-Cities, and is now a threat with the bat, and in the field for the Canadians.  I chatted with the slugger during his off-day.

JK: Congrats on your home-run the other day, does it feel good to have the first one out of the way?

JB: Thanks. Yeah it feels great to get the first one out of the way. Hopefully it is the first of many.

JK: Have the first 42 games of your first professional year gone the way you had hoped/planned?

JB: Yeah
I expected to be challenged and to have a great time and it helped that
I was warned how hard it is to hit at Nat Bailey Stadium. It’s been
great so far.

JK: Is there any current or former major league player that you model your game after?

JB: Ken
Griffey Jr. is a given for me. He’s just that good. Also lately I’ve
been watching Pat Burrell, Ryan Ludwick and especially Alex Rios as of
late. They are impact corner outfielders in their respective leagues
and hopefully I project out to their stature someday.

JK: What’s the craziest/funniest thing you’ve seen a fan do this season home or away, to get a player’s autograph?

JB: I had a guy give me an Ichiro rookie card for one of my broken bats on a road trip. Of course I made the deal, it’s Ichiro!

JK: You
couldn’t stop laughing when the San Diego Chicken was in town and he
kicked you off as being first base coach. Was it your first time seeing
him perform, and more importantly did you enjoy watching him?

JB: Yeah
he called me Marco (Luis) so I couldn’t stop laughing at that. It was
also hilarious to me that the Chicken is just some tiny old man with
glasses, yet he’s made so much money over the years.

JK: Getting to
know a new team, where you know nobody as of Opening Day can be tough,
but has the transition been good from a tight-knit JC team to a
short-season minor league club been pretty good?

JB: Yeah it’s been
great. I actually met David Thomas at a Braves workout in early June
and then we met again at a Reds workout at Great American Ballpark a
week later so I already talked to him before we signed and everything.
That was pretty cool and showed me how small this pro baseball circle
really is.

JK: Finally, will you know you’ve made it big in professional baseball when you can play as yourself in a baseball video game?

JB: That
will be the day. Somebody said this to my brother though and it made
sense.."You know you’ve made it when they make life size cardboard
cutouts & bobbleheads of you. You’ve made it." Hopefully I get a
Fathead vinyl poster someday. That would be awesome.

Thanks a lot to Jeremy for taking time out of his schedule to talk to me, and good luck to him and the C’s as Mike Hart takes the mound tomorrow night against first-place Salem-Keizer.