Shipman Rediscovered in Indy Ball

LOSE TRACK OF ANDY SHIPMAN? SO DID WE

Thanks to alert reader Russ Casper we bring you this story from the Gary, Indiana newspaper. The Ship has allowed no earned runs in five games with the Gary South Shore Rail Cats of the independent Northern League.

On every team that ANDY SHIPMAN joins, he knows the subject will come up in the first few days.

Someone will ask the first question, a crowd will gather to hear the answer, then more questions and more explanations will follow. Shipman, a RailCats right-handed pitcher with a resume that includes a season in the Cubs Triple-A farm system, was about a year-and-a-half old when, in a bout of mischief, little Andy pulled an empty fish tank on top of himself. Glass went everywhere, and he suffered three deep cuts in his face and one in his left eye.The doctors couldn't save his eye, but fitted him with a glass replacement.

While in the hospital recovering from the fish tank disaster, Shipman ripped out all of his IVs, climbed out of his crib and alarmed the nursing staff with the sight of a small, bleeding child walking down the hall.With that, a closer was born.

"I was a hell child," Shipman said. "They had to build a cage to keep me in the hospital. That's how I grew up. Out here, this is why I'm in baseball. I love the adrenaline rush of the ninth inning with three outs to go. You step out there and think, 'Here we go.' There's nothing like it."

Shipman was undrafted out of the University of Missouri because of MLB draft requirements that stipulate a draftee have "all paired organs." He went first to a league in Alaska before the Boston Red Sox signed him as a free agent.

The RailCats found him last season, when he was released by the Oakland Athletics and almost immediately picked up by the Kansas City T-Bones, a team that relocated him closer to the family of his wife, Melissa. He won a Northern League title with K.C., beating the RailCats in Game 2 and pitching in all three of the T-Bones' wins during the championship series.He played in five games in Kansas City this season, earned a save and then pitched in 2/3 of an inning on May 24 against Winnipeg when he allowed a hit and a run, took the loss and then was released.

That was 10 days after he and his wife bought a house in the northern suburbs of K.C. The RailCats grabbed him up immediately, but Shipman was considering retirement. Instead, his wife said she'd be fine making the move by herself and insisted her husband continue his career.

"She really locked into my career," Shipman said. "She's like a second pitching coach. I'll call and she'll ask me about second pitches and she told me to keep going.

""He's someone that everyone wanted," RailCats manager Greg Tagert said. "Not only do we think highly of him, but he puts us in a situation to be comfortable to play him whenever we need to use him."

It didn't take long for the questions to start in the RailCats' clubhouse or for shortstop Jay Pecci to take Shipman's left eye in his hand and scare the bejesus out of third baseman Jeff Beachum."This is such a good situation," Shipman said. "They remembered me from last year, and they welcomed me right away. I couldn't be luckier."