ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 13, 1995 TAG: 9512130042
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: AVALANCHE NOTES
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
Two-thirds of the Salem Avalanche's 1996 field staff will be new to the team, the other third will not.
Bill McGuire will be announced today as the manager and Joe Marchese as the hitting coach for next season, new Salem general manager Dave Oster said Tuesday. McGuire and Marchese will join pitching coach Bill Champion, who returns from last year's Salem staff.
McGuire and Marchese are moving up from the Asheville (N.C.) of the South Atlantic League. The Tourists went 76-63 and won the second-half championship of the Northern Division. Asheville lost the opening playoff series to the Piedmont Phillies.
Asheville was a little like last year's Salem team with its strong pitching and so-so hitting. The Tourists had some prospects, one being first baseman Todd Helton. Helton, who played collegiately at Tennessee, was Colorado's top choice in this year's amateur draft and played the second half of the season there, hitting .254 in 201 at-bats. Other solid players included outfielder Derrick Gibson (.292, 32 home runs, 115 RBI, 31 steals) and right-hander Brent Crowther (12-3, 2.28 earned run average), who finished the season with Salem.
Helton and Gibson are playing winter ball with Maui of the Hawaii Winter League, which is being managed by former Salem boss Bill Hayes. Helton and Gibson figure to land in Salem next summer, Colorado Rockies player personnel director Dick Balderson said.
McGuire will be in his second season as a manager when he comes to Salem. Before managing at Asheville, he served as a coach there and at Bend (Ore.) in 1993. The second choice of the Seattle Mariners as a catcher in the 1985 draft, he played for eight seasons and had a couple of big-league stints with Seattle.
Marchese had spent his career in the Boston organization (he coached at Lynchburg in 1993 and '94) before joining the Rockies' chain this past season.
Hayes will manage at Class AA New Haven (Conn.) next year. Tony Torchia, the hitting coach at Salem last year, has moved up to the same spot at AAA Colorado Springs, replacing Amos Otis, Balderson said.
McGuire is expected to be in Salem to be introduced to the media in February, Oster said.
IDEA MAN: Oster was brought to Salem in part because he had some fresh ideas, said Avalanche owner Kelvin Bowles, the man who hired him.
Here are some of the things Oster has in mind:
Fireworks.
``They never could do it at the old ballpark because of the neighborhood,'' Oster said. ``This is one of the many things that the new ballpark will allow us to do. It is going to be one of our biggest promotions, I think.''
More fun and games.
``Last year, they had the dizzy bat race and the crab crawl between innings,'' Oster said. ``This year, instead of two games like that, we might have five or six.''
More giveaways.
Clear your shelves for a fresh pile of caps, bats, gloves and the like.
A higher community profile for the team and the players.
``We're going to introduce something to encourage kids to read,'' he said. ``We'll do something like if they can present a verification from their teacher that they read 10 books, we'll give them a pair of free tickets. We'll also have some more clinics, both at the ballpark and elsewhere where players can talk to kids, show them things and sign some autographs.''
POP-UPS: Troy Pothoff, the new general manager of the Martinsville Phillies, is, at age 22, believed to be the youngest general manager in baseball. He succeeded Lee McDaniel, who left to go to work for the Clearwater Phillies of the Florida State League. ... Brad Clontz, the former Virginia Tech right-hander and the Atlanta Braves setup man, told The Tomahawk, the Braves' fan magazine, that a big factor in his success this year was some tutoring sessions he had with Dan Quisenberry, the former great Kansas City side-armer. ... Eric Owens, the former Ferrum College infielder, expects to be near 100 percent this month after August surgery on the anterior cruciate ligament of his right knee, he told Baseball America. Owens, a second baseman, played for Indianapolis and was voted American Association MVP after batting Jewett will be the manager and Dave Rajsich the pitching coach at AAA Calgary next year. They held those posts in Salem in 1994, Pittsburgh's last season here. ... The Carolina League vs. California League All-Star game is on for Rancho Cucomonga, Calif., in 1996 and at Durham, N.C., in 1997, it was announced at baseball's winter meetings this month.
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) McGuire.by CNB