Another season of Arizona Fall League begins on a sunny Friday afternoon as the Peoria Saguaros host the Mesa Solar Sox. A lot of featured players today, most notably the starting pitchers: Mike Pelfrey of the Mets (former first round pick) and Gio Gonzalez (former first round pick) who came to the Phillies as part of the Jim Thome trade with the White Sox. After seeing Gonzalez pitch (and we also saw him in the Futures Game in Pittsburgh), the Chisox soon will be sorry the dealt him. Both he and Pelfrey displayed major league stuff in their individual three scoreless innings on the mound.

One humorous note: as a Phillies fan, I stopped young catcher Jason Jaramillo (played with Reading last year) to wish him good luck and identified myself as a Philadelphia native. He pointed to my shirt and asked me why I was wearing a Cubs Spring Training shirt if I was a Phillies fan. He walked away laughing.

One notable player not featured in this clip is 18-year-old Fernando Martinez of the Mets. He is the youngest player in AFL history having just turned 18. In the 5th inning, he came up, flicked his wrists, and hit one out in dead center field. Quite impressive.