Anchor Athlete Blake Davis signs with the Pittsburgh Pirates

The Pittsburgh Pirates have signed shortstop Blake Davis to a minor league deal. He is a 30-year-old, who played part of the 2011 season with the Baltimore Orioles. Davis was a fourth round draft in 2006. He spent his first seven seasons in the Orioles system before signing with the Milwaukee Brewers last year. In 2013, he hit .256/.297/.352 for AAA Nashville, seeing the majority of his playing time at shortstop, though he has also played all three outfield positions, as well as second base and third base. In both 2008 and 2009, Baseball America rated Davis as the best defensive infielder in the Baltimore Orioles farm system.

With the Orioles in 2011, he had a .713 OPS in 25 games while filling in at second base for Brian Roberts. During his brief major league stint, Davis was splitting playing time at second base with Robert Andino, who was also signed this off-season by the Pirates as a minor league free agent. Davis will provide the Pirates with another depth option around the infield.

The Long Beach Match Racing Team will be starting the match racing season promptly by sailing in the Calfornia Dreamin' Series Jan 10th-12th. The team will divide into two smaller teams to complete in the 3 man J-22 type sailboats supplied by San Diego Yacht Club. We decided it would be beneficial to fund two teams in order to maximize our team communication and strengthen overall awareness of key fundamentals. The other team entry will be skippered by Main trimmer and tactician Shane Young. Accompanying him will be match racing veteran Steve Flam. This weekend should be an exciting and valuable training experience as the Congressional Cup quickly approaches.

The LBMR team has been gearing up to commence training by using two identical match race boat supplied by Long Beach Yacht Club. We will also be doing training against Scotty Dickson and Steve Flam as we get closer to the regatta. Our goal is to have our Congressional Cup team sorted out by Butler Cup early March. We will then practice on the upcoming weeks in Catalina 37's used in the regatta. This should give us a significant advantage from the other teams.

We are looking forward to the build up of the 50th Anniversary Congressional Cup and think that this process will allow out team to perform at the highest level.

Dustin Durant

We will be posting many more updates and the racing season progresses. Be sure to get your gloves for the upcoming season here: ANCHORFLAGSHIP 3/4 FINGER, ANCHOR FLAGSHIP 3 FINGER and ANCHOR FLAGSHIP FULL FINGER.

- AGC