OVC Represented on Rockie's Roster

Sam Reynolds told Eastern Kentucky recruiter Larry Marmie that he wanted to play baseball.  The Colonels defensive coordinator strongly preferred the Brownsville, Ohio native concentrate on football.

Reynolds decided to play NCAA Division III football and baseball at Marietta College.  His teammate was Jim Tracy.  When Reynolds finished his athletic days, he moved to the Chicago area to raise his family.

His son Matt was a good enough lefthanded pitcher to get a scholarship to Austin Peay a member of the Ohio Valley Conference along with Eastern Kentucky.  Matt Reynolds was drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the 20th round of the 2007 draft.  A year later Colorado chose Eastern Kentucky's Christian Friedrich with its first round pick (25th overall).

The pair of lefthanders now have lockers next to each other in the Colorado clubhouse at Great American Ball Park.

Tracy became aware of the ties to Reynolds when Matt was invited to his first major league camp in 2009.


"Matt came up to me and asked me if I remembered Sam Reynolds from Marietta," said Tracy, who remembers everyone's name.  "I said oh my god your Sam's son. Sam Reynolds and I don't have to tell him this but he should be really, really proud of his son.  His son in my opinion is just like his dad was when I went to school with him, a class act.  That's how you describe the Reynolds, class acts."

Matt is one of the two lefthanders out of the Rockies bullpen that has had to pick up the slack for a starting rotation that has not given the Rockies a lot of innings to date.

Reynolds is 3-0 out of the bullpen with a 4.26 ERA that mushroomed on Saturday when Ryan Ludwick touched him for a three-run home run.  Two of the runs charged to Reynolds.

"Up to this point his son Matt has done a terrific job for our ballclub," Tracy said.  "We stretched him out further at times than we really wanted to and he's responded to it extremely well.  He's done a really, really nice job."

Friedrich and Reynolds were talking about the OVC baseball tournament.

Eastern was the number two seed and lost to Eastern Illinois on Thursday and was eliminated by Jacksonville State on Friday.  Austin Peay was the top seed but lost to Southeast Missouri on Friday but fought back through the loser's bracket by defeating Jacksonville State on Friday and Southeast Missouri on Saturday.  Saturday afternoon the Governors beat Eastern Illinois to set up the Championship Game on Sunday.