You may know Jeff Reboulet. But did you know who won this year's Jeff Reboulet Perseverance Award?

Never Give Up!

We won't know until after the season who will win the Pat Listach Rookie of the Year Award, but we do know who will take home the Jeff Reboulet Perseverance Award, which unofficially recognizes the Diamond Mind Baseball League rookie who has finally achieved eligibility after logging the most service time. (To paraphrase Crash Davis, it's "a dubious honor.")

The Reboulet was first awarded, fittingly enough, to Jeff Reboulet, who in 2004 -- at age 39 --  finally became eligible for the DMBL, after toiling for 11 seasons, 925 games and 1,968 at-bats in "the minors," aka MLB. Reboulet still holds the record, as far as we know, for most seasons, games played and at-bats before achieving DMBL eligiblity.

So far, the winners in even years have been more impressive than in odd years. In 2004, with Reboulet, and in 2006, with Mark Sweeney, it's a slam dunk as to who deserves the award. But so far in the odd-numbered years, it's been less interesting.

This year, after carefully reviewing all the candidates, we decided the player most befitting this award is C David Ross, who made his debut in 2002 but finally achieved eligibility for the first time this season. In the intervening four seasons, Ross accumulated 424 at-bats in 169 games, but never enough in any one season to be eligible for the DMBL. He came closest in 2004, when he had 190 plate appearances in 70 games. The 30-year-old catcher was selected by Philadelphia in the 8th round (#105 overall) of this year's draft and had never been previously drafted as a prospect.

Ross just beat out OF Marcus Thames, who also made his debut in 2002; he had 358 at-bats in 136 games before achieving eligibility last year. Other candidates we considered for this year's award: RP Jason Grilli (2000: 18 G, 94.1 IP); RP Brian Sikorski (2000: 10 G, 37.2 IP); RP Chad Paronto (2001: 59 G, 69.1 IP); IF Alfredo Amezaga (2001: 127 G, 217 AB); OF Joe Borchard (2002: 102 G, 298 AB); RP Jon Rauch (2002: 34 G, 90.1 IP); RP Brian Tallet (2002: 9 G, 35.2 IP); and reliever Bryan Corey, who had the longest wait between his MLB debut (1998) and achieving eligibility (2006) -- but only pitched a total of four MLB games (5.0 IP) before finally becoming eligible last year.

Not This Year...

Then we have those players for whom the Reboulet -- and DMBL eligiblity -- remains out of reach. You've got to feel for the plight of the back-up catchers. Todd Pratt, for example, has never achieved DMBL eligiblity -- despite 14 seasons, 662 games and 1,612 at-bats in MLB. Adding to Todd's frustration, he had 212 plate appearances in 2001 -- but at the time, the league eligiblity rule was not based on plate appearances but on at-bats, and he had only 173. Now 40 years old and without an MLB, it appears Pratt's window of making it in the DMBL has closed. Others still waiting for a chance: Tim Laker (11 seasons, 281 games, 651 at-bats); Raul Chavez (9 seasons, 170 games, 405 at-bats); Lou Merloni (9 seasons, 423 games, 1085 at-bats); Kerry Robinson (7 seasons, 463 games, 735 at-bats) and Josh Paul (9 seasons, 290 games, 618 at-bats).

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