![]() ![]() Nottingham caught all nine innings in a 16-4 loss to the Dodgers, but connected for two home runs and drove in three runs. “I love all of those guys,” Nottingham said, “They said, ‘you just left and now you are back!’” His Brewers teammates were a little confused, although happy to see him. On Sunday morning, Nottingham pushed open the clubhouse doors at the ballpark. He didn’t arrive in Milwaukee until 2:30 a.m. He had already been alerted he would start at catcher against the Dodgers the next day. On May 1, Nottingham flew to Chicago, where he rented a car and drove the rest of the way to Milwaukee. Right now, we’re waiting for his new shipment of bats to come through, because I’m getting low.” “He felt some of my bats before I left and said, ‘Dude, I’m going to take some of these.’ Ever since then, he’s been using mine. We went through some of the same pre-draft workouts, so we’ve known each other for a while,” Nottingham said. and I go back to when we were in high school. Crawford, who had taken a liking to them after getting two hits on April 30 and then two more the next day. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to help the team win.”īefore he left Seattle, Nottingham left a few of his bats with Mariners shortstop J.P. You just had to laugh it off a little bit. “It was only weird because I had only been in Seattle two days and now I’m going back to the team that DFA’d me. It even made him chuckle because it seemed so ridiculous. “There’s been a change of plans,” said Dipoto, who traded Nottingham back to the Brewers for cash. “When I got to the field (T-Mobile Park) on Saturday, I got the call that I was getting DFA’d again … and that I had been traded back to the Brewers,” he said. The Brewers promoted Mario Feliciano to back up Pina, but Feliciano was just a short-term fix, having had only caught 14 games above A-ball. That same night, hundreds of miles away, Narváez had to leave the Brewers game against the Angles with a strained left hamstring. “I didn’t play, but caught a couple of bullpens,” said Nottingham, who spent the day meeting his new teammates and coaches and, generally, getting settled in. The next day, Nottingham was activated and in uniform as the Mariners took on the Angels. When the Mariners won the waiver claim, Nottingham hopped on a plane for Seattle, where he arrived on April 29. “He has got receiving skills, has power and is relatively young (26). ![]() “We have always liked him, as potentially a power-oriented part of a catcher platoon, or a backup,” said Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto. The Mariners, looking to add some catcher depth at the major-league level, opted to put in a waiver claim on Nottingham, who had been on their radar for a while. This was the first move in this unlikely chain of events that saw him crisscross the country as he attempted to find a home - for more than two days, at least. On April 22 he was reinstated only to be designated for assignment when the team opted to go with Manny Piña as the backup to Omar Narváez. Nottingham’s wild month began in Milwaukee, where he started the season on the injured list after recovering from offseason thumb surgery. Once you’re able to put that aside, the better off you are,” Nottingham said. “You can’t just let that (getting designated) get you down, because while it didn’t work out for you with one organization, it doesn’t mean your tools aren’t attractive to someone else. Get all that? The list of Nottingham’s transactions spells it all out neatly and cleanly, but it’s the story behind the transactions that make his story so compelling. No one knows this better than Nottingham, who over a dizzying three-week span recently was a Brewer, a Mariner and a Brewer again before returning for yet another stint with the Mariners. ![]() “… Because you never really know what can happen.” “I’m going to tell him that all you can really do is come to the field happy each day,” Nottingham said. ![]()
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