#220 Doug Henry
Wow. Doug Henry is the bullpen coach for the Royals, and has been for a couple of years now, but I just now realized that he actually pitched for the Royals at one time. The bad part is that he didn't pitch for them in the '90s when I was too busy playing baseball to go to pro baseball games. He actually pitched for the Royals in 2001. I became a Royals fan in 2000 after my first year at Kansas State. Manhattan is less than two hours away from Kansas City, so I probably averaged at least a dozen games a year while going to school there. In 2001, I just happened to see Doug pitch in person eight times. He was 2-0 in those games with a 4.96 ERA in 16.1 innings of work. I thought I was pretty good with the Royals of my generation, but I apparently am not nearly as good as I thought I was.
Before coaching with the Royals, Doug was the pitching coach for their AAA team in Omaha. On a whim one day in 2012, I wanted to go to a ballgame and the closest one being played to me that day was in Oklahoma City. So, I made the four hour trek down there and watched the Storm Chasers whoop up on the Redhawks. It was a fun game as I had great seats and got to see my favorite team's top farm club pull out a victory. Plus, I got my then new girlfriend, now fiance, to get her first autographs for me. This was not one of the ones she got, though.
Doug has a simple, yet effective, autograph. While it is by no means readable, if you know who signed that signature, you can say "yeah, I can see that".
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