James Byrd

James1 Byrd’s major-league career started on May 31, 1993, and ended on June 1, almost exactly 24 hours later. Five-plus previous years of work in the minors had earned him his spot – however briefly – on a big-league roster. Byrd – a 24-year-old infielder whose main position was shortstop – made two appearances for the Boston Red Sox as a pinch-runner. He then returned to Triple-A ball, followed by one final season at Class AA in 1994.

In all, Byrd worked in 733 minor-league games and showed sufficient promise that his career lasted seven seasons. He later went on to manage for five years (1996-2000) in the Texas Rangers organization.

His stay in the majors was fleeting, but James Byrd accomplished something of which many thousands of others have dreamed. In a 2024 interview, he said, “I have tattooed on the back of my left forearm, ‘No regrets.’ Those two days were the best of my life in sports. Definitely.” 2  

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James Edward Byrd Jr. was born on October 3, 1968, in Wewahitchka, Florida, a small city in Gulf County which had a population of 1,733 in 1970. It is inland about 35 miles east of Panama City and 80 miles west and south of Tallahassee. His father, James Edward Byrd Sr. (1946-2005), and mother, Wanda (Monlyn), had married in Florida in 1966. James Jr. had two sisters – Samantha and Taneka.

When James Jr. was two years old, the family moved to Lawton, Oklahoma, where James Sr. worked as a waiter at the Fort Sill Officers Club.  As his son recalled, “We always asked my father, when he was alive, ‘What made you come to Oklahoma?’ He said he didn’t know.”

James Sr. later took a position with the Ken Hall Brick Company. “They also did waste in Lawton. That’s what my dad did. He worked on a truck that picked up waste.” After a number of years, he became head foreman in 1976. Beginning around 1985, James Sr. worked for 20 years for the Lawton Public Schools. “He did a bunch of maintenance – whatever they needed – out to different schools around Lawton.” He was also active in church affairs, a Sunday school teacher, and chairman of the deacon board for Greater Galilee Baptist Church for more than 30 years.3  “He was a deacon, so heavily into church and the Bible. It seemed like we went three or four days a week.”  

Wanda Byrd worked managing a local Burger King.4 “She’s been doing it for as long as I can remember,” her son said in the 2024 interview. “When we first moved to Lawton, that was her first job. She still works there today. She’s done a lot for them. She travels every now and then, when they have different things in Dallas and stuff. She’s heavily into the church, too, and it seems like she’s had good luck the whole time.”5

Byrd was an All-State infielder for the Lawton High School Wolverines. A three-sport athlete, he also became an All-State defensive back for the 1985 football team, as well as receiving honorable mention in All-State honors for basketball. In 1986, he hit .434 with 13 homers and 40 RBIs.6

Byrd graduated from Lawton High and was selected by the Cincinnati Reds in the 31st round of the June 1986 amateur draft at age 17. “I talked with Coach [Carl] Ryker, and he was telling me the best thing to do was go to college. That’s what I did.”7

Byrd went on to attend Seminole Junior College, a public community college based in Seminole, Oklahoma.8 It was at Seminole that he met his future wife, Rachel. “She was a basketball player, and I was a baseball player…the rest is history. We’ve been married since ’88.”

In June 1987, the 6-foot-1, 185-pound righty was drafted by Boston in the eighth round (the 214th overall selection). He was signed by Danny Doyle, whom Byrd called “one of the greatest scouts I ever knew.

“At Seminole, it was a thing of wanting to win the [National Junior College] World Series and then come back. I talked to [Doyle], and he knew where I was at, and what my decision was going to be.  He just told me, ‘Hey, get better and if everything works out, we’ll sign maybe before the draft next year’ – and that’s exactly what I did.

“[Doyle] was my second scout. I had one from Cincinnati when I got drafted out of high school but then I went to Seminole. When Danny Doyle drafted me, he actually came to visit me in the College World Series. He talked like he was a father, like he’d known me for years. There wasn’t any pressure or anything like that. He just basically gave me like the next 20 percent I needed as far as saying, ‘Hey, go with your gut feeling. All you’ve got to do is get better and I promise you that whenever…before the next draft, if everything works out, we’re still going to have you.’ He was more of a friend than just a scout or somebody I signed with.”

As Byrd indicated, his first assignment in professional baseball didn’t come until the following year. Under head coach Lloyd “Zero” Simmons, Seminole made it to the National Junior College World Series both years Byrd was at college, taking third place in his second year. Byrd was named shortstop of the All-America first team. Years later, he remembered and thanked both Coach Ryker and coach Clarence Madden.

It was because of Lloyd Simmons that Byrd stayed another year at Seminole: “I’d never been away from home and Seminole was a different learning process for me. I thought that since I was so good in Oklahoma – one of the top baseball players and athletes – I figured that I’m going to start, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that. Going to Seminole, it was a totally different situation – because there were 25 of me. Everybody could play. Every position. And I was a freshman.

“‘Zero’ treated everybody the same, and I mean…everybody. There was nobody that was above anybody else. He made you grow up. He made me grow up when I was there. The first semester, about two months into the season, I asked one of my best friends to take me to Zero’s house. I said, ‘There’s too many good guys here. I just can’t play here.’

“I told Zero, ‘Hey, I want to go home.’ You want the coach to tell you, ‘No, no. Stay here. Stay here.’ Standing at his front door, at night-time – I can remember it like it was yesterday – he looked at me right in the eye and asked me, ‘What are you going to do? Are you going to go back to Lawton and pump gas?’ I said, ‘I’ll stay here the first semester, but if I don’t like it, I’m going home.’” I promised him that I would be the best player that he ever had. The guy in front of me was a transfer from the University of Texas. I watched him and told myself I was going to be just like him. I would try to develop the tools he had and that’s how it happened.”

For his part, Coach Simmons was effusive years later in his praise of Byrd. “He came to Seminole as a very talented athlete, three-sport gifted young man. James is a special person to me not only as a player, but I watched him develop…also into a very great human being.”9

Byrd began his professional career in 1988, in the Arizona Fall League. There he hit .298 in 33 games, with 13 RBIs. His first full season was in the Florida State League with the 1989 Winter Haven Red Sox, where he played shortstop and second base and appeared in 126 games. He was challenged both defensively (43 errors in 676 chances, .936) and offensively (hitting .197 with 104 strikeouts, driving in 25 runs and scoring 42.) He had a .246 on-base percentage. The Red Sox saw potential, though; indeed, in each of the next three years he advanced to a higher level while performing better each time.

In 1990, he played Advanced-A ball for the Lynchburg Red Sox in the Carolina League, appearing in 131 games and hitting .225 (.296 OBP). He drove in 45 runs and homered eight times. Both were career highs.

He split his 1991 season between Lynchburg (52 games, .238) and the Double-A New Britain Red Sox (Eastern League), where he hit .240 in 79 games.

In 1992, Byrd experienced some shoulder problems. He played in 20 games for New Britain, hitting .222 – but “came on in the second half,” said Ed Kenney, Boston Red Sox director of minor-league operations. “He’s a real good defensive shortstop who showed signs of hitting.”10 In 72 games with the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox, Byrd hit .224. He also played in 18 games for the Winter Haven Red Sox. After the season, the big club purchased his contract, and he signed a one-year deal early in 1993.

He joined the Boston team at spring training but near the end of March was assigned to Pawtucket and spent most of the year there.

It was during this season, however, that Byrd had his brief visit to the majors. Heading into the last day of May, the 1993 Red Sox were in fourth place in the seven-team American League East, but with a record of 27-22 division, they were only 3½ games out of first. Their opponent was the second-place (24-23) Kansas City Royals, three games back in the A.L. West.

It was a Monday night game – a rainy one – at Fenway Park. Byrd had been called up that very day, with pitcher Ken Ryan sent down. It was the first time he’d ever seen Fenway. “It’s beautiful – just like I pictured it,” he said.11

When Byrd was called up, it was known that it might just be for two days, with Mike Greenwell then eligible to come off the disabled list. In 45 games for the PawSox, Byrd had struck out 42 times and committed 12 errors, and was batting just .175, but there had been a need.

Boston manager Butch Hobson had right-hander John Dopson (3-3) start for the Red Sox. David Cone (2-5) started for Hal McRae’s Royals. Both teams scored once in the first inning, but the Royals added two in the fourth and another two in the fifth. It was still 5-1 leading into the bottom of the eighth.

Boston’s Scott Fletcher walked; after Billy Hatcher singled him to third, he then scored on a wild pitch, with Hatcher also moving up. An odd incident ensued on that pitch. The ball went near the wall in the area of the visitors’ on-deck circle and “a fan reached down and tried to fish it off the field with his outstretched umbrella…[catcher Mike] Macfarlane had to jostle with foolhardy Umbrella Man for possession of the ball. When the fan tried to keep the Royals catcher from retrieving the ball and preventing further Boston movement on the basepaths, the frustrated Macfarlane grabbed the umbrella and bent it out of shape. The fan then shoved it back menacingly at Macfarlane.”12 Security came and escorted the fan from the scene.

When play resumed, Mo Vaughn singled, and McRae summoned Mark Gubicza to take over for Cone. DH Andre Dawson singled to third base, scoring Hatcher. The Sox had a rally going, with runners on first and second and still nobody out. Hobson asked James Byrd to run for the 38-year-old Dawson, who was no longer nearly as quick on the basepaths as he had been earlier in his career.

Iván Calderón’s line drive to center-right was the first out. Another wild pitch allowed both Vaughn and Byrd to move up, but there followed a strikeout, a walk loading the bases, and then another strikeout. Byrd got no further than second base.

It was three-up, three-down for both sides in the ninth, and the Royals won, 5-3. Technically, Byrd remained in the lineup at DH and was due to bat fifth. It remains open to speculation whether Hobson would have let him come to the plate, but a pinch-hitter sounds more likely.

The very next night, Byrd got another shot. It was another 7:38 P.M, start, though a faster game (it lasted just 2:35 as opposed to Monday’s 3:08.) The Royals took a 3-0 lead in the top of the third off Boston’s Paul Quantrill; George Brett’s two-run homer drove in the second and third runs. The lead bumped up to 4-0 when Félix José’s fifth-inning double was followed by an error by Scott Cooper at third base.

Red Sox catcher Bob Melvin led off the bottom of the fifth with a solo home run to left to make it 4-1. A two-run Dawson homer in the bottom of the eighth brought the Red Sox to within a run, 4-3, and ended the evening for Royals starter Chris Haney. Still up by one heading into the bottom of the ninth, Jeff Montgomery took over pitching for Kansas City. A groundout and a strikeout brought the Sox down to their final out. Pinch-hitter Ernie Riles singled. Hobson called on Byrd again to run for Riles. This time, Byrd didn’t even get as far as second. Fletcher popped up to shortstop and the game was over.

So, too, was James Byrd’s major-league action. Apart from practice, he never picked up a bat or came to the plate, nor did he put on a glove and take the field. After the second of his back-to-back pinch-running appearances, it was back to the minor leagues in Pawtucket within minutes. It was reported in the next morning’s papers that Greenwell had been activated and “Byrd went back down last night.”13

Globe sportswriter Nick Cafardo mentioned Byrd later in June, but not in a complimentary way, writing, “In Pawtucket, Boston has switch-hitting (if you can call it that) shortstop Jim Byrd at shortstop. Byrd isn’t hitting his weight. He’s an adequate fielder, but this is not the man to give John] Valentin a run for his money.”14 Byrd typically batted right-handed but was “concentrating on switch-hitting for the first time in his career.”15

Byrd hit .177 at Pawtucket that year, then headed to the Arizona Fall League to get additional work with the Mesa Saguaros. He’d played in 117 games for the PawSox, driven in 26 runs and scored 33. He’d drawn 18 walks and had a .232 on-base percentage while striking out 111 times. He’d stolen 10 bases but been caught nine times. He had a .940 fielding percentage at shortstop, with 33 errors in 549 chances.

Byrd appeared in 12 games for New Britain in 1994, with only two hits in 26 at-bats (.077). On June 5, he transitioned to the El Paso Diablos, a Milwaukee Brewers affiliate in the Double-A Texas League. In 71 games, he hit. 228 for the Diablos. It was his last year playing in baseball.

In 1995, the Texas Rangers signed Byrd to be a player/coach for the Tulsa Drillers of the Texas League, but he did not appear in a game.

In 1996, he became manager of the Rangers’ entry in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League. The Port Charlotte-based team won its division but was beaten by the GCL Yankees in the playoffs. He led that club again in 1997, with the Rangers coming in second.  

In 1998, Byrd managed in the Class-A Florida State League, leading the Charlotte Rangers (in Port Charlotte) to a division title, but they were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. They dropped to fifth place in the West Division in 1999. He skippered the team in 2000 as well, but after the first 38 games was replaced by Bob Miscik on May 15. Three days later, he took over as manager of the Tulsa Drillers, which finished third. In October, the team elected not to renew his contract.

Byrd and his wife Rachel moved to Tampa with their daughter Daryan. “She’s 32,” said Byrd in 2024. “And [we have] four grandkids – though one of them passed at birth.

“I drove for Budweiser. That was basically the first job I ever had outside of sports. I worked with Budweiser up until 2011, until we moved here to Oklahoma, from mid-2000 – as a driver, and working at becoming a salesman.” He also gave baseball lessons to kids. 

The Byrds decided to return to Lawton. George Bradshaw, one of the coaches at Lawton High, knew of an opening at Tomlinson Middle School. In the summer of 2013, Byrd began coaching the Lawton Colonels American Legion team. “I’m glad to be able to come back home, and people have welcomed me,” he said that year. “I’m really sincere about transferring my knowledge to these kids. It’s not about me at all. It’s not about what I did. It’s not about where I’ve been. Fortunately, I do have the knowledge to give back to these kids.”16

“I did that for a little bit,” Byrd said in 2024. He added, “I did my own mobile detailing business a little bit and then I got to thinking it was about time to try to get back into the workforce.

“I’m a driver, so I got into driving for a medical waste company, Stericycle, from 2013 up until 2021. I drove the long haul for them, going to hospitals, dropping and picking up trailers.

“I started thinking, I don’t know if I want to keep driving, going over the road. That’s when I moved to Edmond, Oklahoma. Trying to decide what I want to do here. Probably drive for the Postal Service.”

Rachel works as a paralegal. “She went back to school, late in life. She loves it. She works for an attorney downtown.  She’s getting into getting that college degree. She says it’s never too late. That’s what she’s into now, getting certified and all that.”

Beyond having no regrets about his baseball career, James Byrd also remains loyal to the Red Sox. “I played for them. I’m a diehard fan, definitely. I love watching it. I love talking it.”

Last revised: August 20, 2024

Sources and acknowledgments

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and SABR.org.

Special thanks to James Byrd for an enjoyable telephone conversation/interview in June 2024.

Thanks also to:

• Rod Nelson of SABR’s Scouts and Scouting Research Committee
• Lloyd Simmons
• Lana Reynolds, president of Seminole State College
• Ashley Bagwell and Kim Pringle
• Amber Follett, Lawton Public Library

This story was reviewed by Donna Halper and Rory Costello and checked for accuracy by SABR’s fact-checking team.

Photo credit: James Byrd, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Though most sources have dubbed him Jim Byrd, the player himself had always been known as James before baseball and afterwards.  

2 Author interview with James Byrd on June 26, 2024. Unless otherwise attributed, all quotations from James Byrd come from this interview.

3 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/58857338/james-e-byrd

4 Lawton, Oklahoma city directory.

5 A nice appreciation of Wanda Byrd can be accessed online.  See Anthony Wynn and Jordan Gartner, “Burger King employee celebrating 50 years of service: ‘I just love people’,” WBTV.com, January 26, 2014. https://www.wbtv.com/2024/01/27/burger-king-employee-celebrating-50-years-service-i-just-love-people/

6 Herb Jacobs, “Byrd eager to share baseball knowledge,” Lawton Constitution, March 24, 2013.

7 Jacobs.

8 The college was renamed Seminole State College in 1996.

9 Lloyd Simmons, email to author, June 27, 2024.

10 Seth Livingstone, “Lowly Sox: It’s a long road back,” Patriot Ledger, September 19, 1992: 41.

11 Dick Trust, “Ryan loses out in roster shuffle,” Patriot Ledger, June 1, 1993: 22. Ryan was none too pleased, but Trust wrote the Red Sox had “an overload of pitchers (12) and a shortage of infielders.”

12 Dick Trust, “This fan causes stormy scene,” Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Massachusetts), June 1, 1993: 19. Despite having been assaulted, Macfarlane said afterward that he did not want to prosecute and would buy the fan a new umbrella. Dick Kaegel, “Macfarlane, KC survive zany 8th,” Kansas City Star, June 1, 1993: 19. 

13 Nick Cafardo, “Hesketh feels pressure as rumors swirl about,” Boston Globe, June 2, 1993: 55. Greenwell had been out with a strained rib.

14 Nick Cafardo, “Are any Sox cut out as middle men?” Boston Globe, June 25, 1993: 31.

15 Trust.

16 Jacobs.