After I published my feature on Tim Collins’ rise to the big leagues the other day, I had quite a few requests from readers to update them on how Tim did – so I thought I’d post a quick blog about it today.

Tim actually made his MLB debut on opening day, entering the game for the ninth inning with the Royals down 4-2.  He pitched one inning, and gave up one hit and one walk, but no runs.  He had one strikeout…of Torii Hunter (who’d hit a mammoth 461-foot HR earlier in the game).

It was a pretty special day for all of us.  Sorry for the grainy photo (taken from my Blackberry), but here’s Tim with my business partner, Pete, and me prior to the game.

As an interesting little aside to all of this, the phrase “Tim Collins” was actually trending on Twitter at the time that he entered the game on Thursday.  My original piece was retweeted 75 times and recommended 270 times on Facebook, making it the busiest traffic day in EricCressey.com history – so that had to get the ball rolling in some regard. More importantly, I think a lot of people had really just been waiting for the debut, as it’s an awesome story.

On a funny aside, we were joking that although he was trending on Twitter, no Kansas City fans would recognize him out of his jersey when we went out to dinner after the opener.  That was true; we had a quiet dinner with Tim and his parents.  The only recognition came when an arm reached back to grab Tim as we left the restaurant at 10:15PM.

It was Torii Hunter, the 13-year MLB veteran who is making $18 million this year and surely meets hundreds of new people every day.  However, he recognized Tim – and took the time to congratulate him on his debut, tell him he was impressed with his stuff, and wish him well this season and beyond. Class act.  Maybe we ought to all be Angels fans for a day in his honor?

Thanks to everyone for your kind words and support.

UPDATE: Tim wound up picking up his first MLB win on Sunday afternoon, pitching the 11th, 12th, and 13th innings for the Royals in their win over the Angels.  His final line was 3IP, 2H, 0BB, 0ER, 5K.  Check out the video highlight of his appearance.

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