Darnell Coles

During his 18-year professional baseball playing career, Darnell Coles spent complete, consecutive seasons in the same uniform only once. Originally drafted as a shortstop by the Seattle Mariners with the sixth overall pick in June 1980, he played parts of 14 major league seasons (1983-1997) with eight different teams, primarily as a third baseman and outfielder. In 1993, Coles was a member of the World Series champion Toronto Blue Jays.

Velma Clark gave birth to Darnell Coles on June 2, 1962, in San Bernardino, California, and raised him in nearby Rialto. “[Darnell’s] father deserted him and that was the end of it,” she said. “He lived 20 or 30 miles down the road and only saw Darnell three times, once when he was six years old and a couple of times, he saw him play Little League.” Of his mother, Darnell said, “She is the absolute person with the most influence on me. Period… She worked double and triple overtime to get the stuff I needed.”1 He had two siblings, Darlene and Dennis, early on, and younger brother Dunta completed the family after Velma married Wellington Chattman when Darnell was eight.

Darnell began playing baseball the following year.  He earned regular mentions in the San Bernardino County Sun in 1974, batting .846 and tossing a no-hitter as his San-Ri Knights team claimed Southern California’s Little League championship.2 By the time Coles graduated from Frisbie Junior High School, he had earned MVP honors as the Falcons’ top scorer at a basketball tournament and set a national, age-group record in the 70-yard low hurdles.3 He would have competed at the national 1976 Junior Olympics had he been able to afford to travel to Dayton, Ohio.4

At Dwight D. Eisenhower High School, Coles captained the Ikes’ baseball, basketball and track teams, and starred as a football wide receiver and defensive back.5 The school’s athletic director, Roger Reupert, said, “Many people considered him to be the next [Pro Football Hall of Famer] Ronnie Lott.”6 In October of his senior year, however, Coles slipped on a wet field and chipped a bone on the inside of his right knee when an opponent landed on him.7 “I could see these little dollar signs running across my face,” he recalled. “I thought everything was over.”8 After undergoing surgery, Coles missed the basketball and track seasons, but returned to the diamond in time to bat .513 in 14 games and claim team MVP honors for the third straight year. The California Interscholastic Federation named him Southern California’s boys’ athlete of the year for 1980. “Darnell is on the honor roll with a 3.27 grade point average,” remarked Reupert. “I wish he were my own son.”9

Coles had signed a letter of intent to play football at UCLA, but at least nine teams contacted him ahead of baseball’s June Amateur Draft.10 “I watch the scouts sometimes when they’re watching Darnell and I see this big grin come over their faces,” said Eisenhower coach Jerry Magness, a former minor-league pitcher. “If you see him play, you’ll know why.”11 The New York Mets examined Darnell’s knee before drafting Darryl Strawberry first overall, but the Seattle Mariners made Coles the sixth player selected with their first-round choice.12 “The Mariners told me they would have taken me on crutches,” he recalled.13

Seattle scouting director Hal Keller said, “I think he’s the best high school free agent I’ve ever seen.”14 Coles signed for a bonus reported as either $80,000 or $120,000 through scouts Bob Harrison and Willie Harris.15 16 In 1989, Harrison named Coles and Ken Griffey Jr. as two of the five top prep prospects he’d ever witnessed, saying, “Both were about equal in all areas, hitting for power, hitting for average, speed, arm and instinct.”17 After the Rialto chapter of the NAACP presented Coles with its first annual Black Youth of the Year award, he joined Seattle’s Single-A Northwest League affiliate in Bellingham, Washington.18

Bellingham won the circuit’s co-championship in 1980, but Coles batted only .214 in 35 contests and committed 28 errors in 27 games at shortstop. “The pitchers were killing me. They were all college players,” he said.19 The best thing that happened to him that summer was meeting his future wife, Shari Davidson, on an off day in July.20

Coles played for another champion in 1981. Despite making 52 errors in his 111 games at shortstop for the Wausau (Wisconsin) Timbers, Coles earned All-Star honors in the Single-A Midwest League by batting .274 with nine home runs.21 On May 18, each member of the Timbers infield went deep against Waterloo, including Coles, and future Seattle stars Harold Reynolds and Jim Presley.22

In 1982, Coles batted .303 with 11 homers and 27 stolen bases in 136 games for the Bakersfield Mariners in the Single-A California League. His 91 runs scored ranked fifth in the circuit, but his defensive struggles made him wonder if he’d made the right career choice. “I made 73 errors at shortstop,” he recalled. “I was really finding the bleachers. I thought maybe I should have played football.”23

Darnell married Shari in January 1983 and his baseball career took shape that summer. In spring training, he competed against shortstop Spike Owen, Seattle’s 1982 first-round pick out of the University of Texas. “They told us the winner would go to Triple-A and the loser to Double-A,” Coles explained. “I lost and they sent me to Chattanooga, Tennessee.”24 He hit .287 in 72 Southern League games with the Chattanooga Lookouts before advancing to the Triple-A Pacific Coast League on June 28 when Owen moved up to the majors. In 61 contests for the Salt Lake City Gulls, Coles hit .316 with 10 homers to earn his own big-league call up in September. He debuted on September 4, 1983, striking out against the Yankees’ Ron Guidry as an eighth-inning pinch-hitter in Seattle’s 4-3 defeat at the Kingdome.

The following night in Kansas City, Coles started his first professional game at third base and delivered three hits. After beating out a second-inning bunt single against lefty Larry Gura, he homered in the sixth off righthander Keith Creel, who’d allowed an inside-the-park round-tripper to the previous hitter, Dave Henderson. Coles singled against Joe Simpson, an outfielder pitching mop-up relief, for his third hit. On defense, Coles handled six chances and initiated an around-the-horn double play. He started the Mariners’ final 26 games at the hot corner and batted .283 while committing only four errors. “At shortstop, I think too much. At third I feel comfortable. I guess I should have been there all along,” he said.25  Seattle coach Chuck Cottier noted, “The only thing I really had to tell him was to be more aggressive going after the ball. He had a tendency to stay back and let the ball play him, or he’d field it late and have to rush his throw.”26

Coles did daily workouts with a Nautilus machine that offseason and said, “I was just praying that they wouldn’t get another third baseman. I heard they were trying to get [Cleveland’s] Toby Harrah.” In February, Harrrah was dealt to the Yankees instead and Coles became a first-time father when Shari delivered a daughter, DeAnna. “Something drastic would have to happen to keep [Coles] from being our third baseman,” said Seattle skipper Del Crandall in spring training. “He doesn’t have a weakness.”27 As it happened, Coles sprained his left wrist in the third exhibition game and began 1984 at Salt Lake City. On April 24, he returned to Seattle’s lineup, but he didn’t hit or field well. Before one contest, a frustrated Crandall seized Coles’s pre-game hamburger and threw it in the garbage.28 Starting for the first time in 13 days on June 23, Coles made an error and went 0-for-4, dropping his batting average to .190. He was demoted to Triple-A the next day. By the time he rejoined the Mariners in September, Crandall had been fired, but the third base job belonged to Presley, who held it for five-and-a-half years. Coles went 1-for-27 to finish the major-league season hitting .161 without a homer in 48 contests. In the Dominican Republic, his Tigres del Licey club won the winter league championship, but Coles batted only .215 with one homer in 57 regular-season games and went 2-for-26 in the playoffs.29

Seattle sent him to its new PCL affiliate to begin 1985. Coles was leading the Calgary Cannons in RBIs when he was called back up to the majors on May 14. “I’ve gotten my priorities straight,” he said. “Baseball is not life or death. It’s my job, and I have to keep it on an even keel. Now I’m ready,” Keller, now the Mariners GM, insisted, “My line on Darnell Coles hasn’t changed since we’ve signed him in 1980. I think he has as much ability as anybody I’ve ever signed.”30

By the end of July, Coles had started only 16 games – a dozen at shortstop – and batted .237 in 59 at-bats. When Owen returned from the disabled list on August 1, Coles was returned to Calgary where he suffered a season-ending broken hand less than a week later.[31] His fate with the Mariners was sealed in the Instructional League that fall. “[Coach] Bill Plummer tried to make me run after a game. I said, ‘No way’ and went home. That was my last dealing with Seattle,” Coles explained.32 Back in the Dominican League, Coles batted .244 in 25 contests for the Caimanes del Sur.33 On December 12, the Mariners traded him to the Detroit Tigers for Rich Monteleone, a righty who’d gone 6-12 with a 5.08 ERA in Triple-A.

“[Coles] didn’t have an attitude problem,” said Detroit GM Bill Lajoie, insisting that his new player possessed “super intelligence, baseball and otherwise.”34 Still, there was no guarantee that Coles would make the Tigers in spring training 1986. “I’ll take a long look at what he does this spring, then decide whether he goes or stays,” said manager Sparky Anderson. “If he can’t play regularly, I would think he shouldn’t be here.”35 Coles won Detroit’s Opening Day third base job and Anderson – a former infielder – tutored him throughout the season. “For the first time in 17 years, I have the chance to develop a bona fide, excellent third baseman,” the skipper explained.36 “I talk with him before each game to go over both what he did right and what he did wrong the game before. It all sinks in. You can see how much he wants to learn, and how fast he does learn. That’s what will make him succeed.”37

“My defense will make or break me,” Coles acknowledged. “Sparky wants me to be the best I can be… I want that for myself, too.” On May 30, Coles went deep in his first game in Seattle as a visiting player. He walloped his first grand slam the following night off the Mariners’ Mark Langston. On June 11, he enjoyed his first four-hit game. Coles started 57 of Detroit’s first 59 contests and batted .292 with nine home runs. “If I can just keep doing things right as I did this spring, [Anderson] won’t have another worry at third base for the next 15 years,” he said.38 The following night, however, Coles was stricken with chicken pox and missed two weeks.

After a sixth-inning homer on July 19, Coles slipped into a 3-for-49 slump until he collected four hits during an August 7 doubleheader. Then, starting August 8, he made six errors in a 21-game stretch.  “Most of my errors have been on throws,” he said. “I pick up the ball and the people behind first base automatically hold up their seat cushions because they know who’s throwing it.” He finished the year with 23 miscues in 142 games and batted .273 with 30 doubles and 86 RBIs. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s not been good. I can do better,” he said.39 When Coles hit his 20th homer in the final game of the season, it made Detroit the first team since the 1940 Red Sox with at least 20 homers from each of its four starting infielders.40

That offseason, The Sporting News reported that the Tigers would move Coles to the outfield if they could acquire a better third baseman, but no deal materialized.41 He committed 13 errors in spring training, then six in his first seven regular season games. “It’s a mental thing, physical, everything,” he said.42  He was also batting only .133 through May 11 when Anderson removed him early from one contest after a frustrated Coles hurled a ball over Tiger Stadium’s 94-foot-high roof during warmups.[43] Two weeks later, Coles went onto the disabled list with a pulled rib cage muscle. When Detroit sent him to the Triple-A International League to rehab with the Toledo Mud Hens, they told him to shed 13 pounds from his 6-foot-1 frame to return to his previous weight of 185.44

Four days after Coles’ second child, Darnell Jr., was born on June 24, he rejoined the Tigers. Detroit had climbed back into contention with Tom Brookens manning third, so Coles spent most of the next six weeks as a reserve outfielder until he was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates with a player-to-be-named-later (Morris Madden) on August 7 for infielder Jim Morrison. With Pittsburgh, Coles mainly platooned with switch-hitting right-fielder R.J. Reynolds. He finished the season batting .201 in 93 games overall, providing little indication that he was the righthanded power hitter Pittsburgh craved until September 30, when he went 4-for-4 with three homers and six RBIs in the second game of a doubleheader against the Cubs. “There’s no question [Coles] changed my mind the last week of the season,” remarked Pirates GM Syd Thrift that fall.45

“I won’t mind being comeback player of the year at 25,” said Coles in spring training 1988.46 His three-run homer and RBI triple helped the Pirates to an Opening Day victory in Philadelphia. On July 8 in Los Angeles, he made what The Sporting News called “perhaps the season’s most spectacular catch” –bruising his ribs diving to backhand a ball on the warning track and landing on centerfielder Andy Van Slyke.47 Coles started 54 of the first 93 games in right field but batted only .232 with five home runs. On July 22, he was traded back to the Mariners for Glenn Wilson, who’d played for Pittsburgh manager Jim Leyland in the minors. Coles shifted to left field with Seattle and his bat came back to life. In 55 appearances, he batted .292 and went deep 10 times. Between September 16-19, he tied a [then] franchise record with eight consecutive hits. Coles added two four-hit games before the season was over. “I’m finally starting to swing in the vicinity of the ball,” he joked.48

In 1989, Coles stroked eight straight hits again, although they came in spring training.49 In regular season action, he played a career-high 146 games, starting at five different positions (right and left field, third and first base, designated hitter) and every spot in the batting order from first to seventh. Coles enjoyed his best month in July, driving in 20 runs in 25 games and hitting .318. But he jammed his left wrist diving to rob Carney Lansford of a hit in Oakland on July 28. After Coles aggravated the injury robbing Lansford with another dive two days later, he batted only .232 in the remaining two months to finish the year at .259 with 10 homers and 59 RBIs.50

Coles finished the ’89 season at third base –starting 25 games there from the last week of August through the end of the season. That winter, Seattle traded Presley, to open the position up for Edgar Martínez and Coles. “[Coles] showed us that he’s capable of playing [third] and we’re going to put him out there again,” said Mariners’ manager Jim Lefebvre in spring training 1990.51 After Coles started six straight April games at the hot corner and committed five errors, however, he never played there for Seattle again. Making matters worse, in one of the contests, Coles lined a foul ball into the seats that broke a 9-year-old girl’s jaw. He admitted that the experience shook him. “Anyone who says he can divorce [his emotions] is lying,” he said.52 He visited the girl in the hospital and promised to hit a home run. Coles made good on the vow in his first at-bat the following night and sent her the signed ball, but he didn’t hit his second homer of the season until June 17, part of a three-hit performance that lifted his batting average over .200 for the first time in over two months. He was traded back to the Tigers for outfielder Tracy Jones the next day. “I’m overjoyed,” Coles said. “I hoped it would be Detroit, because my family knows the area.” Though Coles had only gone 1-for-7 in three recent games against the Tigers, Anderson said, “I watched Darnell closely and I said to myself, ‘This guy still has some tools.’”53 Coles appeared in 52 of Detroit’s last 95 games, but started only 27 and batted just .204 with one homer and four RBIs. “I have to do something right to play,” he acknowledged. “I’ve been doing something, but it hasn’t been right.”54

In 1991, Coles went to spring training with the Houston Astros, but he was released before Opening Day. He signed with the San Francisco Giants and spent the bulk of the season with the Phoenix Firebirds. Back in the Triple-A PCL, he hit .290 in 83 games, with 28 of his 65 RBIs coming in a red-hot June.55 In two stints with San Francisco, however, he appeared in only 11 contests and went 3-for-14.

Before Coles went to camp with the Cincinnati Reds in 1992, he trimmed his weight from 200 pounds to 180. “I’ve always been able to play a number of positions,” he explained. “When you get over your weight, you get kind of stuck at one position and lose your skills at the others.”56 He began the season in the Triple-A American Association as a corner infielder for the Nashville Sounds but returned to the majors in May and played well for the Reds in a reserve role, batting .312 in 55 games. In St. Louis in July, Coles followed a four-hit performance with his only career five-hit game the next day. On August 25, however, he severely sprained his right ankle.57 He missed the last 38 games and became a free agent again

After passing through five organizations the previous three years, a 30-year-old Coles, joined the reigning World Series champion Toronto Blue Jays in 1993. “I think this offseason, maybe last offseason too, Darnell came pretty close to being out of the game,” remarked Toronto manager Cito Gaston in spring training. “I feel now he’s come to realize what it is he’s got to do.”58 Coles described cutting back on his early-career weightlifting regimen. “I was lifting weights the way a football player might. Now I just do baseball-type stuff,” he said. “Working on my wrists and forearms.”59 Coles stuck with Toronto all season and batted .253 in 64 games, starting occasionally at third base or a corner outfield position. Although he was on the postseason roster, he didn’t appear any games, but nevertheless earned a World Series ring as the Blue Jays repeated as champions. 

Coles returned to the Blue Jays in 1994, aware that playing time for reserves would remain scarce considering Toronto’s set lineup. “Who am I going to pinch-hit for?” asked Gaston. “You don’t get much chance to play, but you can have fun and do a lot of cheerleading.”60 Coles and the other bench players dubbed themselves the “Stuntmen Extraordinaire” and produced customized t-shirts. “I’ve always been a happy-go- lucky guy, but probably more so since my late 20s,” Coles reflected. “I guess it’s because I’ve been around long enough now that I’m not stressing myself too much. I know what my job is.”61 He was batting only .145 on the Fourth of July when he dislocated his left pinky diving back into first base. With regular third baseman Ed Sprague away to attend the birth of his first child, Coles convinced Gaston that he could still make a rare start the following night in Minnesota. He proved it by pulling a two-run homer off Twins’ righty Pat Mahomes in the fifth, and taking lefty Larry Casian deep in both the eighth and ninth innings. “Pure accident,” Coles insisted.62 Only 14 players before him had enjoyed three-homer games in both the American and National Leagues, but it was one of Coles’ last major league highlights. When a players’ strike ended the season prematurely in August, he was batting only .210 with four homers in 48 games.

After spending complete, consecutive years with the same team for the first time in his career, Coles was on the move again, to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1995. “It’s probably more difficult on my wife than me,” he said. “The most important thing is that I’ve been going to teams that want me. The bouncing around is just part of the game.”63 In 63 games for St. Louis, he batted .225 with three homers.

Coles went to the Japan Central League in 1996 and bopped 29 homers to rank fifth in the circuit. He also batted .302 in 130 games for the Chunichi Dragons to earn an invitation to 1997 spring training with the Colorado Rockies. Coles made the club as a pinch-hitter and produced a .318 average in 21 contests. When former Red Sox outfielder Mike Greenwell broke his leg in May, however, Coles was sold back to Japan to replace him on the Hanshin Tigers’ roster, more than tripling his Rockies’ salary in the process.64 In 1998, Coles went to spring training with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but he failed to make the team. The 35-year-old retired with a .245 batting average and 75 homers in 957 games over parts of 14 major league seasons. “I had a pretty darned good career,” he reflected in 2020. “With an exclamation point on winning a world championship in 1993 with the Toronto Blue Jays.”65

Over the next eight years, Coles helped his wife raise their children – DeAnna, Darnell, Jr. and Jared – through crucial developmental years, including coaching his daughter’s volleyball team to a state championship. In 2006, he returned to baseball as a roving hitting instructor in the Washington Nationals organization. He also did ESPN commentary for the Asian portion of the inaugural World Baseball Classic. That August, DeAnna married Zack Segovia, a pitcher in the Phillies organization.

Next, Coles spent two years managing Single-A teams in the Nationals’ chain; the Vermont Lake Monsters of the New York-Pennsylvania League, then the Hagerstown (Maryland) Suns in the South Atlantic League. In 2009, he was the batting coach for Washington’s Triple-A Syracuse Chiefs affiliate. Coles joined the Milwaukee Brewers organization in 2010, spending two seasons as a minor-league hitting instructor before managing the Huntsville Stars in the Double-A Southern League in 2012 and 2013.  He returned to the majors in 2014 as the hitting coach for a Tigers team that won their division while leading the AL in batting, on-base-percentage and slugging.

Coles then became the Brewers’ hitting instructor for four seasons, departing after the club fell one win short of the 2018 NL pennant.

He assumed the same role with the Arizona Diamondbacks from 2019 until June 10, 2021. As of 2023, Coles was in his second season as the Nationals’ hitting coach.

“The game of baseball has given me everything that I have in life,” Coles said. “I just want to make sure that every day that I’m alive that I give back to the game of baseball everything that it’s given to me.”66

This biography was originally published in September 2021. It was most recently updated on February 7, 2023.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Joe DeSantis and David Bilmes and checked for accuracy by members of SABR’s fact-checking team.

In addition to sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted www.ancestry.com, www.baseball-reference.com and www.retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 Tommy George, “Setbacks Bring Out Tiger in Coles,” Detroit Free Press, June 22, 1986: 30.

2 Claude Anderson, “Darnell Coles Named CIF Athlete of Year,” San Bernardino County Sun, June 28, 1980: 29.

3 “Frisbie to Meet Cougars,” San Bernardino County Sun, January 21, 1977: 20.

4 Claude Anderson, “Donations Sought,” San Bernardino County Sun, June 10, 1976: 67.

5 George, “Setbacks Bring Out Tiger in Coles.”

6 Joel Boyd, “Coles Copes with Life on the Bounce,” San Bernardino County Sun, May 14, 1995: 35.

7 Claude Anderson, “Despite an Injury, Ike’s Coles Earns Prep Honors,” San Bernardino County Sun, October 24, 1979: 41.

8 Chris Baker, “Coles Comes Back and So Do Scouts,” Los Angeles Times, April 29, 1980: D5.

9 Anderson, “Darnell Coles Named CIF Athlete of Year.”

10 Claude Anderson, “Ike’s Multi-Talented Coles is Prep Athlete of the Week” San Bernardino County Sun, April 10, 1980: 68.

11 Baker, “Coles Comes Back and So Do Scouts.”

12 Bob Finnigan, “Coles Older and Wiser as Prodigal Son,” Seattle Times, April 5, 1989: H1.

13 Jim Cour, “Coles Has Big (League) Plans for Near Future.” San Bernardino County Sun, June 18, 1980: 31.

14 Cour, “Coles Has Big (League) Plans for Near Future.”

15 “Coles is Honored,” San Bernardino County Sun, June 15, 1980: 16.

16 Katie Castator, “Third Base the Charm?” San Bernardino County Sun, December 13, 1983: 34.

17 Finnigan, “Coles Older and Wiser as Prodigal Son.”

18 “Coles is Honored.”

19 Castator, “Third Base the Charm?”

20 George, “Setbacks Bring Out Tiger in Coles.”

21 Darnell Coles, 1988 Topps Big Baseball Card. 

22 “Well Rounded Support in Wassau,” The Sporting News, June 6, 1981: 45.

23 George, “Setbacks Bring Out Tiger in Coles.”

24 Castator, “Third Base the Charm?”

25 Scott Barry, “M’s Are Very High on Coles at Third,” The Sporting News, March 26, 1984: 16.

26 Castator, “Third Base the Charm?”

27 Barry, “M’s Are Very High on Coles at Third.”

28 Bill Plaschke, “Coles New Position Might Spike Regular,” The Sporting News, May 27, 1985: 16.

29 Darnell Coles’ Dominican League Statistics From https://stats.winterballdata.com/players?key=856 (Subscription service. Last accessed March 20, 2021).

30 Plaschke, “Coles New Position Might Spike Regular.”

31 Bob Finnigan, “Langston’s Back in Form for See-Saw Mariners,” Seattle Times, August 19, 185; D1.

32 George, “Setbacks Bring Out Tiger in Coles.”

33 Darnell Coles’ Dominican League Statistics From https://stats.winterballdata.com/players?key=856 (Subscription service. Last accessed March 20, 2021).

34 George, “Setbacks Bring Out Tiger in Coles.”

35 “Tigers,” The Sporting News, March 17, 1986: 38.

36 Tom Gage, “Coles Gets Sparky’s Special Touch,” The Sporting News, April 28, 1986: 24.

37 Tom Gage, “Coles Gives M’s Food for Thought,” The Sporting News, June 2, 1986: 17.

38 Gage, “Coles Gets Sparky’s Special Touch.”

39 Tom Gage, “Coles Remains Own Toughest Critic,” The Sporting News, September 22, 1986: 19.

40 Home run totals for the 1940 Red Sox infield include: 1B Jimmie Foxx (36), 2B Bobby Doerr (22), 3B Jim Tabor (21) and SS Joe Cronin (24). For the 1986 Tigers, 1B Darrell Evans (22), 2B Lou Whitaker (20) and SS Alan Trammell (21) joined Coles, and Detroit catcher Lance Parrish also hit 22 homers. “Tigers 6, Orioles 3,” Globe and Mail, October 6, 1986: D5.

41 Moss Klein, “A.L. Beat,” The Sporting News, November 3, 1986: 24.

42 “Tigers,” The Sporting News, April 20, 1987: 15.

43 Mike Penner, “Angels Get a Wet and Wild Win,” Los Angeles Times, May 12, 1987, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-05-12-sp-7507-story.html (last accessed March 5, 2021).

44 “Tigers,” The Sporting News, June 29, 1987: 15.

45 “Pirates,” The Sporting News, November 23, 1987: 51.

46 Bob Hertzel, “Coles Could Be Key to Bucs’ Hopes,” The Sporting News, March 14, 1988: 32.

47 “Pirates,” The Sporting News, July 25, 1988: 19.

48 “Mariners,” The Sporting News, October 3, 1988: 29.

49 “Mariners,” The Sporting News, April 17, 1989: 17.

50 “Mariners,” The Sporting News, August 14, 1989: 17.

51 Jim Street, “At Last, Stability is Factor with M’s,” The Sporting News, April 1, 1990: 21.

52 “Coles Hits the HR He Promised,” Hartford Courant, April 19, 1990: D1A.

53 “Tigers Reacquire Coles from Seattle,” The Sporting News, July 2, 1990: 13.

54 Tigers’ Cuyler Makes Speedy Impression,” The Sporting News, September 24, 1990: 15.

55 Mike Eisenbath, “Quick Hits,” The Sporting News, July 15, 1991: 35.

56 Mike Davis, “Braggs, Coles Vying for Spots with Reds,” San Bernardino County Sun, March 7, 1992: 24.

57 “Around the League,” Austin (Texas) American Statesman, August 26, 1992: E5.

58 Steve Milton, “Looking Ahead,” The Sporting News, March 15, 1993: 19.

59 “The Camp,” Globe and Mail, February 25, 1993: C8.

60 Neil A. Campbell, “Jay Bench Destined to Sit and Cheer,” Globe and Mail, April 6, 1994: C6.

61 Jim Byers, “Former ‘Stuntman’ Coles Now Just Regular Kind of Guy,” Toronto Star, July 20, 1994: B4.

62 “For Coles, A Chance to Play,” Hartford Courant, July 7, 1994: D4C.

63 Joel Boyd, “Coles Copes with Life on the Bounce,” San Bernardino County Sun, May 14, 1995: 35.

64 Tony DeMarco, “Sayonara Again,” The Sporting News, June 2, 1997: 40.

65 Joe MacFarland and Ian Wilson, “Coles Notes,” https://albertadugoutstories.com/2020/05/22/coles-notes/ )last accessed March 22, 2021).

66 MacFarland and Wilson, “Coles Notes.”