Local Newspapers Notice Vogelsong

LancasterOnline takes notice of Octorara's Ryan Vogelsong who is enjoying a stellar season with the San Francisco Giants. 

"Octorara's Vogelsong revives career as key member of Giants' pitching staff"

So reads the headline on LancasterOnline's sport page this morning.

The money quote:

"Beat the bushes for the past five years as Octorara grad Ryan Vogelsong has done, spend more than a few of the 1,760 days you're out of the big leagues questioning yourself and your future, and you learn what's important."

Read the entire article here.

And in the Daily Local News this morning a wonderful article by sports writer Andy Edwards detailing Vogelsong's long and winding road from playing infield for Sonny Skiles' Octorara High School squad, becoming a full time pitcher at Kutztown, being drafted by the Giants, then traded to the Pirates, then to Japan, then being cut by the Phillies last Summer and finally signing with the Giants this year.

The Daily Local News article is full of great money quotes.  Here are a few:

Expressing the pain he felt when he was cut by the Phillies in 2010:

"Obviously, being a Philly guy and growing up in the area, they were always my team.  It hurt when I got released, but more so because a dream of mine to be a Phillie died that day. It happens to a lot of people but when it's a team that you really want to play for, and you've always dreamed of playing for them, it hurts, man. At the same time, it took that kind of incident to reevaluate my career and what I was doing to get me to that point."

On playing in Japan:

"It's tough, but it is what you make it.  You can go over there and shelter yourself and not experience Japanese culture, you can go over there and lock yourself in your apartment and do nothing but go to the field, which I saw people do, and those guys didn't really play too well. It's important to try, at least for me and my wife, to live as close to a normal life as we were living in the states. I think trying to live a normal life helped me play better on the field."

About his wife Nicole whom he met while playing in Pittsburgh:

"We balance each other out well.  She's an optimist, I'm a realist, and when I think things are going down the drain she always tells me they're going to be all right. She's been great. I definitely wouldn't be where I'm at without her. Everything I've been through, she's been through with me."

Read the entire Daily Local News article here.

Wife and Grandmother Discuss Vogelsong's Journey To This Year's All-star Game

Octorara alum and Giants' Ryan Vogelsong and his wife Nicole talk about the ups and downs endured during Ryan's career, including losing Nicole's father to a heart attack.

Money quote comes from Vogelsong's All-star wife, Nicole:

"I don't think he would have appreciated pitching the way he is now five years ago in Pittsburgh.  I think it took all the years of struggle and not doing well and wondering why, and then all the years out of America to come back and realize how amazing and great this is."

More on Nicole Vogelsong in this morning's Cumberland County The Sentinel newspaper.

Vogelsong knows what it means to be a journeyman. The Giants sent him to the Pirates organization in 2001, where he stayed through 2006. Vogelsong's grandmother jokes that the best thing he found in Pittsburgh was his wife, Nicole.  "She's a big part of his life," Janice Flury said. "She handles everything so he can play ball. We all laugh about how the only thing he got from Pittsburgh was this beautiful, wonderful girl."

Read the entire Sentinal article here.