6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog: Angels Top Pick No Clown

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Wednesday, June 08, 2005

Angels Top Pick No Clown

Trevor Bell knows when he sees a clown. You see, his grandfather was one back when each city had its own Bozo the Clown TV franchise.

Trevor Bell, a power pitcher born two years after his grandfather hung up the clown suit in 1984, flirted with the Cubs before the Angels took one of California's top high school pitchers from Crescenta Valley High off the board. It was the realization of a lifetime goal for the 6-foot-1-inch, 190-pound right-hander with a 94-m.p.h. fastball who announced to his mother, Barbara, at age 7 that baseball was his destiny.
"Since I was 5, there has not been a day that has gone by when I didn't think of being a ballplayer," Bell said.
He used to share those dreams with his famous grandpa before Bob Bell died at 75 on Dec. 8, 1997, after a long illness. Bell's grandson often would sit on his lap and laugh at the Bozo voice that became a fixture in households all over Chicago for more than two decades beginning in 1960.
...
A Minnesota Twins scout peppered the pitcher's father with questions about "Bozo's Circus" for at least an hour one recent afternoon. At the end of the game, the scout showed Craig Bell the written report he planned to file with the team's scouting director.
"The report said, 'This kid's OK with me. He's the grandson of Bob Bell, Bozo,'" Craig Bell said. "My dad would have loved that."

// posted by Rob @ 1:18 PM link // 0 comments