Tony Watson’s wife Cassie Watson is part of the couple’s leadership council. What’s a leadership council, you might ask? Well, to get the bottom of that one, we have to travel to Pittsburgh and go straight into the Pirates’ locker room, where only the most esteemed members of the team are chosen for the job.
According to triblive.com, this leadership council is voted on by the players. It’s a small group of players, and each one represents a part of the team. So for instance, there’s a guy representing relief pitchers, a guy representing starting pitchers, a guy representing regular players. The first council did not include Watson, but he’s since been upgraded to councilman. They get together from time to time and talk about how to make the team better. You know, it sounds an awful lot like a coaching staff. Do the Pittsburgh Pirates not have coaches and a manager? Last I checked, they did. The whole thing sounds completely redundant and unnecessary, but I guess the players in Pittsburgh are bored and want to make seniority amongst themselves official. By the way, there is no leadership council between Tony and Cassie, in case you couldn’t guess by now.
Tony’s been throwing some absolute smoke this year. He’s an all-star for the first time, and his record is now at 5-1 with an extremely impressive 1.42 ERA. He throws some nice heat- generally upwards of 95 and 96 mph, and he’s got great placement. It was a longtime struggle for Tony to make his way into the Majors. He was drafted in 2007 but had to drudge through years of playing inconsistent ball in the minors. His first good year came in 2012. Man, if you love baseball, you stick around and play it no matter what. He played 41 innings for the Pirates in 2011 after four years in the minors, then he got sent down to AAA for 34 more innings, and then finally he was planted on the Pirates relief roster for good.
