There are many types of baseball lifers. Some play, then manage, like Joe Torre. Some play, then move to the front office, like Billy Beane. Some never play but still make a career of the sport, like Roland Hemond or Vin Scully. But perhaps most baseball lifers play, achieving some success but little fame, and then, after their skills decline, stick around in whatever role presents itself — spring training instructor, TV analyst … team owner? Few baseball lifers can add “team owner” to that list, but Andy Ashby can.

Andrew Jason Ashby was born on July 11, 1967, to Glendon and Rose Ashby in Kansas City, Missouri, and attended Park Hill High School, where he moved away from other sports and focused on baseball in his teens to be able to go as far in the sport as he could. He acknowledged the role his father played in his young life, saying, “My father was always there. Growing up I remember playing catch with my dad. The biggest thing for me was once I went to the big leagues, being able to bring my father into the clubhouse, seeing the expression on his face, knowing his son had achieved his goal and dream of being a major-league baseball player.”1

After graduating from high school, Ashby enrolled in Crowder College, in Neosho, Missouri. He played baseball for the Roughriders for one season and then, on May 4, 1986, signed with the Phillies as an amateur free agent. He began his professional career that summer at age 18 for the Bend Phillies and steadily climbed through the minors, playing in Utica, Spartanburg, Batavia, Clearwater, and Reading between 1987 and 1990, and finally for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons in 1991 before getting called up to the Phillies to start on June 10, 1991, in Cincinnati.

Ashby’s major-league debut saw him retiring the first seven batters he faced, including future Hall of Famer Barry Larkin, but the Reds’ bats got to him the second time through the lineup. Five days later, on June 5, Ashby got some payback, pitching an “immaculate inning” by striking out all three Reds batters he faced in the fourth on nine pitches — just the second rookie and 33rd player overall to do so. Still, Ashby was 0-2 with an 8.00 ERA and was sent back to Triple A. He was recalled and pitched six more games at season’s end with more success.

Ashby started the 1992 season in the Phillies rotation and won his first start but then broke his right thumb and missed two months of action.2 He rehabbed in Triple A, was recalled in August, and pitched shakily. The Phillies left him unprotected in the 1992 expansion draft, so instead of playing for the 1993 NL champion Phillies team that Harry Kalas described as the “wacky, wonderful bunch of throwbacks,”3 Ashby was selected 25th by the Colorado Rockies and started the 1993 season in the starting rotation in the thin air of Mile High Stadium in Denver.

Although Ashby served up just five home runs in 54 innings with the 1993 Rockies, his ERA at Mile High Stadium matched the park’s name, and he was sent to Triple-A Colorado Springs. Then on July 27 he was the “player to be named later” in a trade with the last-place Padres. It was good fortune for Ashby, though, as Jack Murphy Stadium had a reputation as being a pitcher’s park, and San Diego was where Ashby was able to get his career on track. He immediately moved into the starting rotation and while he went only 3-6 with a 5.48 ERA in San Diego, it was an improvement from his Colorado performance.

The 1994 through 1997 seasons for the Padres saw Ashby mature to become a legitimate major-league pitcher, starting all four years and posting solid ERAs. The Padres struggled for three of the four years but in 1996, when Ashby was the team’s Opening Day pitcher and led the starting rotation in ERA, the Padres pulled off a surprising division win, and Ashby started NLDS Game Three against the St. Louis Cardinals. Although he left the game in the sixth tied 4-4, the bullpen couldn’t hold and the Cardinals completed a sweep of the Padres. In 1997 the Padres dropped back to fourth place but Ashby continued to pitch well. In 1998 he reflected on his early career:

“[B]y the time Colorado sent me down in 1993, I felt, what in the world is going on? It seemed I was always pitching out of some jam, always one or two balls behind in the count, always just trying to keep the game close — and by the fifth inning I’d be out of there anyway. It was never the same thing. Early in my career I was wild. Sometimes I’d pitch too defensively. … I would just throw — not pitch with a purpose. Just throw. I think it was a maturity thing. I remember being up with Philadelphia and talking on the bench the whole game, until Dale Murphy finally turned to me and said, ‘Ash. Watch the game, watch the game. That’s how you learn.’ He was right. I had to start listening to the guys I should’ve been listening to.”4

While 1998 was the year of the home run, it was also Ashby’s most successful year, marking the first of his two All-Star Game appearances, his only World Series appearance, and career highs in wins (17), starts (33), innings pitched (226⅔), and complete games (5). Ashby’s record was 11-5 with a 2.54 ERA at midseason; in the All-Star Game, in Denver, he pitched the fifth inning, giving up a home run to Alex Rodriguez but retiring future Hall of Famers Ivan Rodriguez and Cal Ripken. The Padres led the NL West nearly wire-to-wire, peaking with a 16-game lead and ultimately winning 98 games.

In the 1998 NLDS, the Padres faced the 102-win Astros and Ashby started Game Two but left the game down 3-0 after four innings. The Padres tied the game to get Ashby off the hook but eventually lost, 5-4. However, San Diego won the series, three games to one. In the NLCS, the Braves were favored but the Padres jumped out to a three-games-to-none lead. Ashby started Game One and pitched brilliantly, going seven innings and surrendering just one run on five hits and a walk. But when Trevor Hoffman blew just his second save of the year, Ashby was denied his first postseason win, although the Padres did go on to win the game. In Game Five, in San Diego, with the Padres leading three games to one, Ashby pitched nearly as well, scattering nine hits over six innings and giving up two runs. He was again in line for the win, but this time starter Kevin Brown came in to relieve and blew the lead, again costing Ashby credit for a victory. The Padres went on to win Game Six to advance to the World Series, against the Yankees. After the excitement of the NLCS win, the World Series was a dénouement. Ashby started Game Two but the Yankee bats were too much, scoring seven runs, three unearned, before Ashby departed for a reliever. The Yankees ended up sweeping the Padres.

The year 1999 began for the Padres with country music superstar Garth Brooks signing a minor-league contract and then, wearing number 77, going 1-for-22 for the Padres in exhibition games before switching back to guitar. From a baseball perspective, the year was much more successful for Ashby than for Brooks (including pitching again on Opening Day) but was a step down from 1998, as he ended up with a 14-10 record and a 3.80 ERA. His performance led to another All-Star Game appearance (where he pitched to just one batter) and to the role of ace of the San Diego staff. However, after failing to re-sign many of the key components of their 1998 pennant-winning squad, the Padres regressed, ending up at 74-88 and in fourth place.

In the 1998-99 offseason, facing the final year of Ashby’s contract and a fading team that would drop to last place in 2000, the Padres traded him to the Phillies for three young pitchers. The Phillies had what they felt was a strong staff in 2000, led by Ashby and Curt Schilling, but both Ashby and the team struggled, and on July 12, the Phillies traded Ashby to Atlanta. The Braves were in first place at that point and, having lost John Smoltz for the season to injury, looked to Ashby to start. The move paid dividends, as Ashby threw a complete-game win in his first appearance and ended the season with an 8-6 record and 4.13 ERA with the Braves, compared with a 4-7 record and 5.68 ERA with the Phillies. Ashby also pitched well for the Braves in the 2000 NLDS, his last postseason appearance, albeit in a mop-up relief role as the Cardinals dominated the Braves.

Ashby signed a three-year free-agent contract with the Dodgers after the 2000 season, but suffered an elbow injury in his second start of 2001, ending his season on April 12 with a 2-0 record. He returned to full strength in 2002, starting 30 games and compiling a near-league-average ERA of 3.91 and a 9-13 record. Plagued by injuries in 2003, starting with back stiffness in spring training, Ashby started just 12 games, finally shutting it down after September 1 with elbow tendinitis, at which point he underwent Tommy John surgery and was expected to miss all of 2004.5 At age 36, it looked as though it might be the end of his career.

However, the Padres signed Ashby to a minor-league contract for the 2004 season, and by May he had begun to throw off a mound. By September he was back to throwing 90 mph and was activated on September 8, throwing a 1-2-3 inning. He pitched again on September 14, retiring three of the four Dodgers hitters he faced, ending with a swinging strikeout of Cesar Izturis in what would turn out to be Ashby’s final major-league appearance.

After the season Ashby underwent another elbow surgery and signed another minor-league deal with the Padres. Returning in August, he made rehab starts for Lake Elsinore and Portland, but despite allowing just earned one run in six innings, he was not recalled to the Padres. Ashby made another valiant effort to return to the Padres in spring training of 2006 at age 38, but after he surrendered 22 hits over 11 innings, it was apparent that a return wasn’t in the cards, and the team released him, putting an end to a 20-year professional career, 14 of which were in the majors.

Ashby remained busy, even without baseball. He and his wife, Tracy Tigue, a native of Pittston, Pennsylvania, whom he had met while playing for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, married in 1993 and raised four daughters, — Eastin, Madison, Taryn, and Ashton. The athletic talent was clearly passed on to that generation, with all four playing NCAA sports. The Ashbys maintained homes in both Pittston and San Diego. In 2014, Ashby described his life and his role as a father: “The majority of the time I’m just being Dad. I do some charity work. I hunt a lot. I fish. When I’m home, I’m running with my kids, watching them do sports. I’m just kind of being Dad, making up for the time that I missed when I was playing. Thank God for my wife. Tracy was really good about flying the girls into a city. We weren’t apart a lot. When school started it was tougher, but if the girls got to a week and half where they hadn’t seen Dad, that was a lot. She’d fly them in to be with Dad, then the team would go on to another city and she’d take them back to San Diego.”6

Although Andy Ashby is not related to former catcher Alan Ashby,7 his nephew, Aaron Ashby, was drafted in the fourth round of the 2018 amateur draft by the Milwaukee Brewers after having followed his uncle both to Park Hill High and Crowder College.8

Ashby returned to baseball in 2013-14 as an analyst during Padres games for Fox Sports San Diego.9 In 2016 he was a spring-training instructor for the Padres, saying at the time, “I would love to be in the big leagues, of course, but I’d just like to be in the game — coaching or scouting or bullpen coach, something like that. This gives me the opportunity to come here and get a little taste of it.”10

Later that year, he did get back into the professional baseball, but in a different role — Ashby bought a share of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders (Triple-A affiliate of the New York Yankees), near his Pittston home. Ashby had played two Triple-A seasons in the same ballpark where he was now an owner. At the official announcement, Ashby said, “I talked to my wife and she was like, ‘Ownership? Are you ready for that?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know, but how do you know until you try it.’ It’s an honor for me to be a part of this. Being here 25 years ago, it’s changed a lot, but for the better. I enjoyed it, the people were great.”11

Andy Ashby has three baseball homes — Missouri (where he started playing), northeast Pennsylvania (where he played two years, met his wife, raised his daughters, and lives most of the year), and San Diego (where he blossomed as a player and was regularly welcomed back by fans). He has come full circle, from playing a season with the Roughriders to owning a piece of the RailRiders; it’s clear that Andy Ashby’s baseball ride continues.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, statistics and game details were retrieved from baseball-reference.com.

Notes

1 “A Major League Dad,” Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Times Leader, June 13, 2014, timesleader.com/archive/396243/news-news-1464912-a-major-league-dad, accessed November 29, 2018.

2 Dan Hafner, “National League Roundup: Williams Makes a Smart Move for the Phillies,” Los Angeles Times, April 27, 1992, articles.latimes.com/1992-04-27/sports/sp-697_1_smart-move, accessed November 29, 2018.

3 Tyler Kepner, “On Baseball: Darren Daulton Was the Heartbeat of a Rowdy Phillies Bunch,” New York Times, August 7, 2017, nytimes.com/2017/08/07/sports/baseball/darren-daulton-phillies-heartbeat.html, accessed November 29, 2018.

4 Johnette Howard, “Better Late Than Never: After Years of Frustrating Underachievement, Padres Righthander Andy Ashby Has Joined the Ranks of the National League’s Pitching Elite,” Sports Illustrated, June 22, 1998, si.com/vault/1998/06/22/245178/better-late-than-never-after-years-of-frustrating-underachievement-padres-righthander-andy-ashby-has-joined-the-ranks-of-the-national-leagues-pitching-elite, accessed November 29, 2018.

5 Rotoworld.com, rotoworld.com/recent/mlb/1659/andy-ashby, accessed November 29, 2018.

6 “A Major League Dad.”

7 Tim Kurkjian, “Baseball,” Sports Illustrated, July 11, 1994, si.com/vault/1994/07/11/106786713/baseball, accessed November 29, 2018.

8 Sam McDowell, “MLB Draft: Two Former Kansas City High School Pitchers Selected,” Kansas City Star, June 5, 2018, kansascity.com/sports/high-school/article212585904.html, accessed November 29, 2018.

9 “A Major League Dad.”

10 Bryce Miller, “Andy Ashby Ditches Makeup, Joins Padres at Spring Training,” San Diego Union Tribune, March 1, 2016, sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/sdut-andy-ashby-ditches-makeup-joins-padres-at-spring-2016mar01-story.html, accessed November 29, 2018.

11 D.J. Eberle, “Andy Ashby Part of Trio Joining Railriders’ Ownership Group,” Wilkes-Barre (Pennsylvania) Times Leader, October 19, 2016, timesleader.com/sports/railriders/598585/andy-ashby-part-of-trio-joining-railriders-ownership-group, accessed November 29, 2018.

Former All-Star Heath Bell uttered these words in March 2015 as he made one final attempt to extend his career with the Washington Nationals. He’d shed 30 pounds after a poor showing for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2014, but the Nationals ultimately decided the 37-year-old from Oceanside, California, didn’t fit in their plans and released him just before Opening Day.

Bell retired knowing he gave it his all and was able to hold his head high, teaching his four children an important lesson in the process. And although in a perfect world he would have left the game on a higher note, he could at least point back to past successes in a league and a sport where failure is far more common.

Born on September 29, 1977, to Jimmie and Edwina Bell, Heath Justin Bell grew up in Tustin, in Southern California, about 50 miles northwest of his birthplace.2 At Tustin High School, which also produced former big leaguers Mark Grace and Shawn Green, Bell lettered in football, basketball, and baseball.3 It was there that he developed habits that would last a lifetime.

Bell credited his father, a former Marine and auto mechanic whose busy schedule wasn’t always conducive to raising a family but who found ways to make it work, for setting a good example. Despite Jimmie’s long hours, hae always made time for Heath: “My father worked his butt off. But if I wanted to go play catch, he could be half-asleep on the couch and he’d go play catch.”4

Following his father’s lead, Bell decided to be present for his own children despite whatever else might be going on in his life. For example, while with the Padres, he biked to school with them. As he told the San Diego Union-Tribune in 2011, “I saw how my dad was, and I thought he was absolutely the coolest father.”5

Jimmie’s work ethic also passed from father to son, serving Heath well as he defied coach after coach who told him he probably wouldn’t reach the next level. Undrafted out of high school, Bell attended nearby Santa Ana College (known briefly as Rancho Santiago College during his time there), which also produced entertainers Steve Martin and Diane Keaton.6

Bell went 8-0 with a 2.17 ERA and nine saves for the Dons as a freshman en route to being named the Orange Empire Conference Co-Pitcher of the Year in 1997.7 He added 12 saves as a sophomore. Although those two seasons would eventually lead to his 2010 induction into the Santa Ana College Hall of Fame, his junior-college success guaranteed nothing in terms of a professional career.8

Again defying his doubters, Bell was selected by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the 69th round of the 1997 draft. The 1,583rd of 1,607 players taken that year, he did not sign, later recalling that when the Devil Rays made an offer, “I actually forgot I got drafted.”9 Instead he signed with the New York Mets as a free agent the following summer, starting his career at Kingsport of the Appalachian League, where he posted a 2.54 ERA and led his team with eight saves.

Bell was promoted to Capital City of the South Atlantic League in 1999 and enjoyed another strong campaign, again leading his team in saves, this time with 25. A year later and a level higher, it was more of the same: 23 saves for St. Lucie of the Florida State League. By this point Bell had played three professional seasons, finishing with an ERA under 3.00 and leading his team in saves each year.

But baseball wouldn’t prove to be so easy in 2001. Bell struggled, posting a 6.02 ERA and earning only four saves with Binghamton of the Eastern League.

Meanwhile, Bell’s life changed in other ways. He married his wife, Nicole, and adopted her young daughter, Jasmyne. Heath and Nicole had three children of their own: Jordyn, born with Down syndrome (“our blessing in disguise”10), Reece, and Rhett.

Back on the field, Bell responded with a stellar return to Binghamton, notching a 1.18 ERA and six saves before a midseason promotion to Triple-A Norfolk. He enjoyed less success at the higher level and again posted pedestrian numbers in a 2003 encore but now found himself just one step away from the big leagues.

From 2004 to 2006, Bell rode the proverbial shuttle between New York and Norfolk, often needed for stretches but never quite able to stick. And while his Triple-A performances dazzled, his stints with the Mets — with irregular roles and usage — didn’t go so well. In 81 appearances with the Mets, he posted a 4.92 ERA and zero saves.

By the end of his tenure in New York he was already 28 years old, an age when most players have either established themselves or started preparing for their next career. As Bell later noted, even his family was ready for him to move on: “At that time, my wife was telling me to quit.”11 But, as usual, he persevered despite the odds against him.

Bell might not have endeared himself to Mets management by riding Rollerblades to spring training in an attempt to get into better shape. As Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson told the New York Times in 2005, “How many times do you hear about someone falling off? You can’t motorcycle or sky-drive or go cliff-jumping in Mexico, and you shouldn’t do this, either.”12 (Years later Bell recalled Peterson’s displeasure and conceded that his training methods weren’t necessarily the best.)13

Bell received a new lease on life when the Mets traded him and fellow reliever Royce Ring to the San Diego Padres for reliever Jon Adkins and outfielder Ben Johnson. Returning to the West Coast, Bell immediately thrived as Trevor Hoffman’s set-up man in 2007, posting a 2.02 ERA in 81 appearances and fanning 102 batters.

Bell also became a legend in the Padres clubhouse, known as much for his zany antics (he was fond of flying remote-control helicopters in the clubhouse) as for his prowess on the mound. As then-teammate Jake Peavy said, “He is in his own world. And it is going to get worse because Heath is really good.”14

Bell slipped a bit the following year in the same role, but when Hoffman departed for Milwaukee via free agency after the season, Bell filled the Hall of Fame closer’s shoes with aplomb, leading the National League with 42 saves and being named to the All-Star team. Perhaps not coincidentally, he’d lost 30 pounds before the season. This time, instead of using Rollerblades to get himself into shape, he used a Nintendo game called Wii Fit that his children had been playing.

Bell cleared the 40-save mark again in 2010 and 2011, making the All-Star team each time. At the 2010 midsummer classic, in Anaheim, Bell brought his father — then fighting lung cancer — to sit with him during media appearances and share the experience. It was the least he could for someone who had always made time for him: “He says he’s a proud father. I’m a proud son.”15

In his third and final All-Star Game appearance, Bell sprinted in from the bullpen as usual before sliding into the pitcher’s mound and retiring the only batter he faced. When asked about the slide, Bell said, “I wanted the fans to have fun with this. The fans are really what matters. They’re the ones that show up. They’re the ones who pay our salary.”16

After the season Bell became a free agent and signed a three-year contract with the Florida Marlins.17 He got off to a rough start with his new team, blowing three of five save opportunities in April 2012, and never recovered. He lost his job as closer after the All-Star break18 and found himself publicly locking horns with manager Ozzie Guillen.19 During his struggles Nicole reminded him how much he had already overcome in life and that he would get through this difficult time as well.20

The Marlins traded Bell to Arizona in October 2012 and he again stumbled with his new team, allowing two home runs in his Diamondbacks debut before posting a 2.22 ERA over his next 25 appearances, notching 11 saves along the way. He held onto the closer role for another month before blowing his fifth save on July 10 and losing his ninth-inning job. Bell finished the season on a fairly strong note, albeit in a lesser role.

In December 2013 Bell found himself on the move once more, this time to Tampa Bay, the team that had originally drafted him. Bell’s Rays career lasted 13 games; he was released on May 10, 2014, a week after allowing three runs in what proved to be his final big-league inning.

The Orioles signed Bell on May 18 but released him less than a month later after just 10 appearances at Triple-A Norfolk. He then spent 11 days in the Yankees organization, again at Triple-A, before being released on June 24 and sitting out the rest of the season. The Washington Nationals signed Bell in December 2014 but released him at the end of 2015 spring training. Even during his brief time with the Nationals, Bell had become known for his free-spirited nature, from making his own smoothies because “I don’t like eating my vegetables” to wearing Star Wars sneakers around camp.21

By this time Bell had spent 11 seasons in the major leagues and made three All-Star teams. He’d led the National League with 42 saves in 2009 and finished with 168 in a career that included 590 appearances (all in relief) and a 3.49 ERA — not bad for a guy who repeatedly wasn’t supposed to reach the next level but did it anyway.

Although it seems this could be where the story ends, it isn’t. In 2016 and 2017 Bell pitched for the independent league Kansas Stars, playing alongside several other former major leaguers. As he told the Wichita Eagle, “I’m just here having a good time. I came here last year and had a great time talking with fans. This year I’m a little more comfortable. I want to be a personable player, not a big leaguer, I guess you could say.”22

In 2018 Bell played with more former big leaguers for the Louisville Stars in a week-long tournament called the Bluegrass World Series.23 As he told San Diego radio station Mighty 1090, his arm felt good: “I don’t pitch as much, but last year I was still throwing 92-94, so I can crank it up for a little bit here and there.”24

These days, Bell saves most of his fastballs for his older son: “He’s 14 now, so for the last three years I’ve been throwing batting practice three times a week to his whole team.”25 When he isn’t coaching his kids or playing in the occasional game himself, Bell is co-owner of 7 Cold Brew, a San Diego company that delivers specialty coffee to local offices, restaurants, and bars.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also relied on Baseball-Reference.com.

Notes

1 Anthony Rieber, “Heath Bell? Name Rings a Bell,” Newsday, March 14, 2015, newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/heath-bell-name-rings-a-bell-1.9988298.

2 HeathBell21.com. web.archive.org/web/20120328125620/http://www.heathbell21.com/?page_id=2.

3 Bob Keisser, “Which Tustin Baseball Players Made It in the Pros?” Orange County Register Anaheim, California), February 19, 2015, ocregister.com/2015/02/19/which-tustin-baseball-players-made-it-in-the-pros/.

4  “For Bell, Every Day Is Father’s Day,” San Diego Union-Tribune, June 18, 2011, sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/sdut-heath-bell-its-father-son-2011jun18-htmlstory.html.

5 Ibid.

6 “Famous Santa Ana College Alumni,” Ranker.com, ranker.com/list/famous-santa-ana-college-alumni-and-students/reference.

7 “Fullerton, Cypress Split Post-Season Softball Honors,” Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1997, articles.latimes.com/1997-05-08/sports/sp-56861_1_orange-empire-conference.

8 sacdons.com/hof/members/members/bell.

9 David Brown, “Answer Man: Padres’ Heath Bell Talks Toys, Conspiracies and Pez,” Yahoo.com, March 25, 2010, sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-david-brown/answer-man-padres-heath-bell-talks-toys-conspiracies–mlb.html.

10 Seth Livingstone, “Padres Reliever Shares First All-Star Game with Family,” USA Today, July 13, 2009, https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/allstar/2009-07-13-bell-day-with_N.htm

11 Scott Allen, “Heath Bell, Who Once Compared Himself to Han Solo, Wears Star Wars Sneakers at Nationals Spring Training,” Washington Post, March 5, 2015, washingtonpost.com/news/dc-sports-bog/wp/2015/03/05/heath-bell-who-once-compared-himself-to-han-solo-wears-star-wars-sneakers-at-nationals-spring-training/.

12 Lee Jenkins, “By Skate or Scooter, Mets’ Bell Has Arrived,” New York Times, February 21, 2005, nytimes.com/2005/02/21/sports/baseball/by-skate-or-scooter-mets-bell-has-arrived.html.

13 James Wagner, “Heath Bell Dropped 40 Pounds This Offseason, Hopes to Compete for Bullpen Spot,” Washington Post, February 18, 2015, washingtonpost.com/news/nationals-journal/wp/2015/02/18/heath-bell-dropped-40-pounds-this-offseason-hopes-to-compete-for-bullpen-spot/.

14 Tim Kurkjian, “Fun-Loving Bell Finally Has His Dream Job,” ESPN.com, April 17, 2009, espn.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=kurkjian_tim&id=4073444.

15 Bill Center, “This All-Star Game Special for Padres’ Bell, Ill Father,” San Diego Union-Tribune, July 12, 2010, sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-all-star-game-special-padres-bell-ill-father-2010jul12-htmlstory.html.

16 Kevin Baxter and Bill Shaikin, “Heath Bell Doesn’t Let Opportunity Slide By at All-Star Game,” Los Angeles Times, July 12, 2011, articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/12/sports/la-sp-0713-all-star-notes-20110713.

17 Bill Center, “Bell, Marlins Agree on 3-Year Contract,” San Diego Union-Tribune, December 1, 2011, sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/sdut-bell-believes-his-future-will-be-decided-next-10-d-2011dec01-story.html.

18 Joe Frisaro, “Marlins Likely Headed to Closer by Committee,” MLB.com, July 10, 2012, joefrisaro.mlblogs.com/marlins-likely-headed-to-closer-by-committee-e80d1cd85f3b.

19 “Heath Bell-Ozzie Guillen Rift Widens as Teammates Support Manager,” The Sporting News, September 26, 2012, sportingnews.com/mlb/news/4167961-heath-bell-ozzie-guillen-fight-rift-radio-fire-trade-miami-marlins.

20 Clark Spencer, “Bell’s Wife Soothes His Soul with Facebook Note,” Miami Herald, April 17, 2012, miamiherald.typepad.com/fish_bytes/2012/04/bells-wife-soothes-his-soul-with-facebook-note.html.

21 Allen, “Heath Bell, Who Once Compared Himself to Han Solo, Wears Star Wars Sneakers at Nationals Spring Training.”

22 Jeffrey Lutz, “Kansas Stars’ Heath Bell Has Major Fun Interacting with Fans,” Wichita Eagle, August 5, 2017, kansas.com/sports/other-sports/nbc-baseball/article165680952.html.

23 bluegrassworldseries.com/roster/

24 Heath Bell, interview with Ben and Woods, May 22, 2018, mighty1090.com/episode/heath-bell-i-really-just-miss-the-guys-we-didnt-always-talk-baseball-we-would-just-talk-about-life/

25 Ibid.

“As great as an athlete he was, he is even a more outstanding individual. He had such great values and such faith and a belief in family and shows by the example he sets. That, to me, is the first thing I think of when I think of Andy Benes – the person that he is.” – Paul Gries, Evansville Central High School baseball coach (1981-2001), in 2010.2

This is the story of a pretty good pitcher who became an even better man.

Andrew Charles Benes was born in Evansville, Indiana, on August 20, 1967. He was the first son born to Charles and Karen Benes. Andy’s sister Amy had come along the prior year. His brother Alan Benes, with whom he played on the St. Louis Cardinals, followed on January 21, 1972. A third brother, Adam, came along on March 12, 1973. Adam signed with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1995 and made it as far as Double A in six seasons.

Andy’s father, a biochemist, worked in the pharmaceutical industry and his mother was a homemaker. Evansville is about 170 miles from St. Louis and Andy grew up a Cardinals fan. He first gained attention in Little League. As a 12-year-old he was named the MVP in a local tournament.3 He spent his elementary-school years at Evansville Lutheran School, then starred in football, basketball, and baseball at Evansville Central High School. In his senior year, he passed for more than 1,400 yards on the gridiron and led the city in scoring in basketball with 19.7 points per game.4 In baseball, he split his time between shortstop, where he was an all-city selection, and the mound, where he was 7-0 with a 0.84 ERA in his senior year.

Benes attended the University of Evansville as a pre-med student and was recruited to play varsity football and baseball. In the fall of his sophomore year, he quarterbacked the football team, and played some at tight end. By the time the baseball season rolled around, he was still recovering from the football season and did not have a good season.

Benes married Jennifer Byers, whom he had started dating in high school, on March 21. 1987. Their first child, Andrew Charles Benes II, was born on November 4, 1988. Drew, as he was known, pitched at Arkansas State University and signed with the St. Louis Cardinals after being selected in the 35th round of the 2010 amateur draft. He played three seasons in the Cardinals organization and then a year of independent ball in 2013. In 2017 he joined the Pittsburgh organization as a minor-league pitching coast and spent 2017 and 2018 with Bradenton in the Florida State League. He and his wife have three children.

Andy and Jennifer’s daughter, Brynn Nicole, was born on November 1, 1993. She became a nurse. She and he husband have one child and when Andy was interviewed for this story, he was babysitting for his nine-month-old grandchild. Two other children, Bailey and Shane, followed during the next two years. In 2018 Bailey was pursuing a career as a speech pathologist and Shane was playing ball in college, hoping to play professionally. The family was not yet complete. In 2009 Andy and Jennifer adopted a 3-year-old boy from Siberia and named him Brock. They adopted a girl in January 2011 and named her Bliss. In 2010 Benes said, “Jennifer and I feel like we’re blessed with so much. The Bible talks about taking care of the less fortunate. We know we can’t give a home to everybody, but we can start with one or two.”5

In his junior year at Evansville, Andy did not play football and decided to concentrate on baseball. The results were spectacular. In what was to be his final collegiate season, he was 15-3 before the NCAA tournament. He struck out 180 batters in 137 innings and his season was highlighted by a 21-strikeout performance against UNC-Wilmington. 

On the eve of the 1988 draft, Benes pitched Evansville to a 1-0 win over Arizona State in the NCAA West Regional, scattering eight hits and striking out nine batters. The performance prompted ASU coach Jim Brock to say, “In all my years of college coaching, he’s the best I’ve seen. He could be in the majors by the end of the summer.”6 The game was his 13th complete game and eighth shutout of the season.

The San Diego Padres chose Benes as the first overall pick in the draft in 1988. After the draft, Benes had a decision to make. Would he sign with the Padres or participate in the Olympic Games? Benes agreed to terms with the Padres, which included a bonus of $230,000. By not actually signing at the time, he kept his amateur status and remained eligible to participate in the 1988 Olympic Games.7

He was grateful to those at Evansville who helped him grow as a player, especially coach Jim Brownlee. He donated a portion of his signing bonus to the university and in 1997 established the Andy Benes Fund to help the university’s athletic program.8

Before the Olympics Team USA played a seven-game exhibition series against Cuba. Although the USA lost four of the games, Benes performed well. In the seventh game, he pitched a complete game, allowed seven hits, and struck out seven batters in a 5-2 win.9

Amateur competition continued for Benes in September at the World Baseball Championships, where the United States lost to Cuba in the final round.

In the preliminary round of the 1988 Olympics, Benes pitched 6⅔ innings in a 12-2 win over Australia, allowing three hits and one earned run. In the medal round, he was put in the bullpen. He was a spectator as Jim Abbott won the game that clinched the Gold Medal for the United States, defeating Japan 5-3.

In 1989, after spring training with the Padres, Benes was assigned to Wichita of the Double-A Texas League. His first few games with Wichita were the stuff of dreams. His record through April 29 was 4-0 with 55 strikeouts in 41 innings. His two-hit shutout of Midland on April 29 lowered his ERA to 0.41.10 He was promoted to Triple-A Las Vegas after going 8-4 with five complete games, three shutouts, and a 2.16 ERA in 16 starts. After five starts at Las Vegas, the 21-year-old was called up to the Padres.

In his Padres debut, at home against the Atlanta Braves on August 11, 1989, Benes pitched the first six innings, striking out seven. A four-run Braves fifth inning, highlighted by a three-run homer by Dale Murphy, was his undoing. Atlanta won the game, 6-5.

After losing his first two big-league starts, Benes rebounded to win his next six decisions, and finished the season with a 6-3 record and a 3.51 ERA. His first win came on August 23 at Philadelphia, when he pitched seven innings, allowing two earned runs in a 7-3 win.

The Padres’ record at that point was 63-64. Including the win on August 23, the they won 27 of their last 36 games and finished second in the AL West, three games behind San Francisco. During those early games with San Diego, Benes displayed a potent bat. On September 3, in a 9-5 win over the Phillies, his two-run homer off Dennis Cook in the bottom of the second inning put San Diego ahead 3-0. He batted .250 (6-for-24) in 10 games.

In 1990 Benes spent the entire season with the Padres, going 10-11 with a 3.60 ERA. He had his first complete-game victory on May 14 at home against the Phillies. In a 5-1 win, he allowed two hits and struck out five. In 1991 Benes improved his record to 15-11 and finished sixth in the Cy Young Award balloting. His ERA, the lowest of his career, was 3.03. He logged a career-high 231⅓ innings in 1992 and finished with a 13-14 record.

On May 17, 1993, Benes pitched his fourth career shutout, a 4-0 three-hitter over the Colorado Rockies at San Diego. At the All-Star break, Benes had a 9-6 record and was named to his only All-Star team. In his last outing before the All-Star Game, on July 7, he pitched the first eight innings as the Padres limited the Mets to one hit in a win at Shea Stadium. He pitched the third and fourth innings of the All-Star Game on July 13 at Baltimore. After yielding a leadoff game-tying homer to Roberto Alomar in the third inning, he pitched scoreless ball, leaving the game with the score tied 2-2 in the middle of the fifth inning of a game the American League went on to win, 9-3. Benes pitched his second shutout of the 1993 season against the Cubs at Wrigley Field on July 27. He had a 13-7 record with a 2.62 ERA on August 6 but tailed off in the remaining weeks of the season. He lost eight of his last 10 decisions to finish at 15-15 with an ERA of 3.78.

In 1994 Benes’s 6-14 record was not indicative of his performance during the season. In 10 of his 14 losses, the Padres scored two runs or less, and he was totally ineffective in only two games, a 15-1 loss on April 9 and a 14-0 loss on July 8. He had one good stretch from May 31 through July 3, going 4-0 with an ERA of 2.52 in seven starts. He topped off this stretch with a 7-0, one-hit shutout of the Mets at San Diego on July 3, striking out 13. He provided all the offense he would need with a three-run double. The no-hitter was broken up by the Mets’ Rico Brogna, who hit an eighth-inning double. On the eve of the game, Padres GM Randy Smith had been quoted in Baseball America as saying that Benes, the Padres ace, despite his recent successes was only the third best starting pitcher on the squad. The remark annoyed the outspoken Benes, who said that “the comment really angered me. It really took the fun out of this (one-hitter). I felt that I had something to prove.”11

Benes led the league in strikeouts with 189 in the strike-shortened 1994 season. But when he signed for the 1995 season after an angry arbitration, his days as a Padre were numbered. Matters were compounded when he started the year going 4-7 with a 4.17 ERA. 

With free agency looming at the end of the 1995 season, the Padres, at the July 31 trading deadline, traded Benes to the Seattle Mariners for Marc Newfield and Ron Villone. Greg Keagle later went from the Padres to the Mariners to complete the deal. Benes left the Padres with a 69-75 record over six years. His ERA was 3.57. On 15 occasions, he struck out 10 or more batters in a single game.

The Mariners needed additional pitching as they sought to reach the postseason for the first time. In the final two months of the season, Benes was 7-2 with Seattle, although his ERA with them was 5.86. The ERA was of little consequence as the Mariners scored 10 or more runs in three of his wins. They finished first in the AL West, and in the Division Series against the Yankees, Benes started Game Two and pitched four shutout innings before yielding a game-tying run with two out in the fifth inning when Bernie Williams doubled in Wade Boggs. After the Mariners regained the lead in the top of the sixth inning, Benes surrendered back-to-back homers to Ruben Sierra and Don Mattingly and was removed from the game. The contest ended at 1:12 A.M. when the Yankees won in the bottom of the 15th inning on a Jim Leyritz homer to take a 2-0 series lead.

The series headed back to Seattle. The Mariners evened the series at two games apiece and Benes started the decisive fifth game. Benes and David Cone of the Yankees traded zeros in the early innings until Joey Cora homered for the Mariners in the third inning, then Paul O’Neill put the Yankees ahead with a two-run homer off Benes in the top of the fourth. In the top of the sixth, Benes walked the bases full and yielded a two-run double to Mattingly. It was the last hit of Mattingly’s career. When Benes left the game with two out in the seventh inning, the Mariners trailed 4-2. Benes was a spectator when the Mariners won the game in the bottom of the 11th inning and advanced to the ALCS.

Benes made only one appearance as the Mariners lost the best-of-seven ALCS to the Indians. He started the fourth game and was knocked out in the third inning after allowing six runs. The Indians’ attack was highlight by a pair of two-run homers by future Hall of Famers. Eddie Murray’s blast in the first inning made the score 3-0 and Jim Thome’s homer in the third inning put the Mariners behind 6-0. Cleveland won, 7-0, to even up the series at two games apiece and won the next two games to eliminate the Mariners.

Benes opted for free agency after the season and joined the St. Louis Cardinals in 1996. He was with them for two years. In 1996 he finished third in the Cy Young Award balloting when he recorded 18 wins against 10 losses, after starting the season 1-7. The Cardinals finished first in the NL Central and went on to sweep the Padres in the best-of-five Division Series. Benes started the second game and pitched into the eighth inning, The Cardinals went into the inning leading 4-3, but Benes allowed a single to Scott Livingstone and a walk to Rickey Henderson. Rick Honeycutt replaced Benes and allowed one of the inherited runners to score, tying the game. The Cardinals won the game, 5-4, and advanced to the NLCS when they won Game Three, 7-5.

The NLCS between the Cardinals and Atlanta was not decided until the seventh game. Benes started Game One and left the game for a pinch-hitter with the score tied 2-2 in the top of the seventh inning. The Braves won the game 4-2 with two runs in the eighth inning. Benes next appeared in Game Four. The Cardinals trailed 1-0 going into the Braves’ sixth inning, when Mark Lemke led off with a homer and Chipper Jones doubled, knocking Benes out of the game. But the Cardinals were able to come from behind and win the game 4-3 and take a three-games-to-one series lead.

The Cardinals’ bats then went cold. In Game Five, the Braves took no prisoners in a 14-0 rout. Andy’s younger brother, Alan, started Game Six for the Cardinals and was tagged with the loss as the Braves won 3-1 to even the series. Game Seven was pretty much a repeat of Game Five. Donovan Osborne started for St. Louis and didn’t make it out of the first inning, allowing six runs, topped off by a Tom Glavine triple. After the triple, Andy Benes stopped the bleeding by getting Marquis Grissom on a comebacker. Benes pitched scoreless ball in the second and third innings but yielded a two-run single to Fred McGriff and a two-run homer to Javy Lopez in the fourth inning. By the time Benes left the game for a pinch-hitter in the top of the sixth inning, the Cardinals trailed 10-0. The rest was academic, and the Braves advanced to the World Series with a 15-0 win.  

In 1997 Benes went 10-7 for the Cardinals with a 3.10 ERA. After the  season, he was once again a free agent and signed a five-year, $32 million contract with the Cardinals. However, the contract was voided due to its being filed approximately two hours past the deadline. He wanted to stay with the Cardinals but, under the rules in place at the time, he could not re-sign with them until May 1, 1998. He would have missed spring training and the first month of the season.12 He elected to seek other offers and signed a three-year contract, valued at $18 million, with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Benes was the Opening Day pitcher for the Diamondbacks in their first-ever game, at Phoenix, on March 31, 1998. He left the game trailing 4-1 with one on and one out in the seventh inning. By the time Benes next took to the mound, the Diamondbacks were winless in five games. On April 5, against San Francisco, he pitched the first seven innings, scattering six hits. When he was removed for a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the seventh, Arizona led, 3-2. There was no further scoring and the Diamondbacks had their first franchise win. For the season, Benes was 14-13, leading the staff in wins. He also led the staff in innings pitched, equaling the 231⅓ innings he had pitched in 1992.

The highlight of Benes’ first season with the Diamondbacks came on September 13. Arizona was playing the Reds at Cincinnati. Jay Bell’s two-run homer in the fourth inning gave Benes all the support he would need. He took a no-hitter into the ninth inning. By then, the Diamondbacks had a 4-0 lead. With one out, Benes walked Reggie Sanders, and Sean Casey lined a single to right field, breaking up the no-hitter and putting runners on first and second. After Benes walked Barry Larkin to load the bases, Gregg Olson came in and induced Dmitri Young to hit a game-ending double-play groundball.

The following season, Benes was 13-12 as the Diamondbacks, in only their second season, won the NL West. He did not pitch in the postseason. He was left out of the rotation as Arizona was eliminated in four games by the Mets in the best-of-five Division Series. A provision in his contract with the Diamondbacks allowed him to leave the team after two years, and he returned to the Cardinals in 2000, signing a three-year deal worth $18 million.

In 2000 with the Cardinals, Benes was 12-9 with a 4.88 ERA for the NL Central champions and pitched in the postseason for the third time. Although he did not appear in the three-game Division Series sweep over Atlanta, he got his only career postseason win in the NLCS when he was the winning pitcher in Game Three against the Mets. He pitched eight innings and scattered six hits as the Cardinals defeated the Mets, 8-2. A career .143 hitter, who had three hits in his first nine postseason at-bats, Benes singled in the fourth inning and scored his team’s fifth run. It was the only game they won in the series as the Mets advanced to the World Series, winning the best-of-seven NLCS in five games.

“It’s become increasingly difficult for me to pitch with what I’ve had to deal with. It’s not a secret that my leg has made it pretty difficult for me the last year or so. It’s a matter of me being unable to get people out any longer.” – Andy Benes, April 17, 2002.13

After the 2000 season, Benes had surgery to address cartilage problems in his right knee and he didn’t fully recover. The knee problems seriously plagued him in 2001. His record slipped to 7-7 and his ERA was a career-worst 7.38. He pitched only 107⅓ innings and at age 33 his career seemed just about over. After a good spring, he started the 2002 season in a dismal fashion. In each of three starts through April 15, he failed to go more than four innings. He was 0-2 with a 10.80 ERA when, on April 16, he decided to accept placement on the disabled list, effectively retiring. The Cardinals essentially told Benes to go home. His arthritic knee was examined by Dr. George Paletta, and Benes’ status remained uncertain. He decided to press on and began working out in mid-May. He continued his workouts at the Cardinals’ Jupiter, Florida, spring-training facility. He took a rehab assignment at Memphis in the Triple-A Pacific Coast league, making his first appearance on June 18. He had four rehab stints at Memphis, the last, on July 4, being a matchup against his brother Alan, who was rehabbing with Des Moines in the Cubs organization. Andy’s win that night took his record with Memphis to 1-1 with an ERA of 3.12 in 17⅓ innings. He had one last rehab appearance on July 8. Since Memphis was on a break for the league’s All-Star game, Benes’ last tuneup was with Potomac in the Class-A Carolina League.

“It’s a compliment to Andy to have done well enough to get this opportunity. But the real compliment he needs is to do something with it.” – Tony La Russa, July 12, 2002.14

Benes joined the Cardinals after the All-Star break. The team was in San Diego. He was tuning up when his attention became diverted. At home plate, a presentation was going on. Shortly before the Padres traded Benes to Seattle in 1995, he had agreed to support a program, started by Padres owner John Moores, directed at at-risk middle-school youth in San Diego. It was a seven-year program and if a youth completed it, the Padres would fund his or her college education. On that July day in 2002, the first graduates of the program were announced.

When Benes took the mound on July 16 at Los Angeles, the Cardinals were a changed team very much in need of his services. With an injury to Rick Ankiel, the June 22 death of Darryl Kile, and little reliability from other starters, the Cardinals had recalled Benes, who was the best available arm in their system. In his first appearance, in Los Angeles, he went the first four innings in a game the Cardinals went on to win, 9-2. Four days later, they acquired 39-year-old Chuck Finley from the Indians for career minor leaguer Luis Garcia and a player to be named later (Coco Crisp). It was a major turning point for Benes and the Cardinals. Finley taught Benes the splitter, making him a far more effective pitcher. From his return on July 16 through September 1, Benes was 4-2 with a 1.98 ERA in 10 appearances. The Cardinals headed into September with a 76-59 record and a four-game lead in the NL Central.

On September 6, 2002, the Cardinals were matched up against the Cubs as they raced to return to postseason play. The Cubs started Alan Benes. The brothers squared off for the second time in little over two months and older brother Andy came out on top. The brothers each pitched two shutout innings at the game’s onset, but the Cardinals knocked Alan from the box in the third inning. A single by Andy scored Tino Martinez with the sixth run of the inning and knocked Alan out of the game. Andy pitched shutout ball for eight innings before Alex Gonzalez hit a two-run homer in the ninth inning. The Cardinals won the game, 11-2. It was the last of Benes’s 21 complete games in his 14-year career and his last major-league win. Although he didn’t have any other decisions in September, the Cardinals won each of Benes’ four remaining starts. He finished the season with 17 consecutive shutout innings to bring his ERA for the season down to 2.78 to go with a 5-4 record.  On September 29 he made his last appearance of the regular season. The Cardinals faced the Brewers at home. Benes came out of the game at the end of the fifth inning. The game was scoreless. On his last pitch, he had struck out Ryan Christenson for his 2,000th career strikeout.

On September 20 the Cardinals had clinched the NL Central with nine games remaining to be played and won the division by 13 games. Benes had the opportunity to pitch in the postseason again. He started Game Three in the Division Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks and pitched into the fifth inning. Experiencing control problems, he left the game with the Cardinals leading 4-3. The Cardinals won the game, 6-3, to sweep the Diamondbacks in three games and advance to the NLCS.

Benes started Game Four of the NLCS against the Giants. Through five innings, he kept the Giants off the board and allowed only two hits. The Cardinals led 2-0. In the bottom of the sixth inning, after striking out Rich Aurilia, he walked Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds, prompting manager Tony La Russa to bring in reliever Rick White. The Giants tied the game on a J.T. Snow double and went on to win the game, 4-3. One day later, the Giants eliminated the Cardinals four games to one. Benes elected to walk away from the game at the end of the season. He had no regrets.

For his career, he went 155-139, winning 10 or more games in 10 of his 14 seasons. His ERA was 3.97, and he had nine shutouts in his 387 starts.

His family stayed in the St. Louis area and he became a familiar face on television starting in 2003 when he began hosting a program geared at young fans. Cardinals Crew featured Benes and Cardinals mascot Fred Bird the Red Bird. He stayed with the program for 14 years before leaving the show to spend more time coaching youth baseball in the St. Louis area.

In 2009 he was inducted into the Indiana High School Baseball Coaches’ Hall of Fame.

Benes, who had been outspoken during his early years in the big leagues, had matured over the years, especially after he threw his last competitive pitch in 2002. It was a much more mature Andy Benes who spoke on the occasion of this number being retired by the University of Evansville in 2010. (He had been inducted into the university Hall of Fame in 1994.) Speaking with the Evansville Courier and Press, he said, “You get pulled in a lot of different directions all because I was able to throw a baseball for a while, but now I try to make sure I don’t go and do things if it’s going to take away from what (my kids) have going on.”15

In 2016 Benes received the Southern Indiana Athletic Conference Lifetime Achievement Award.

On March 31, 2018, as the Diamondbacks commemorated their 20th anniversary, Benes threw out the ceremonial first pitch. The reenactment of the first Opening Day also included Diamondbacks catcher Jorge Fabregas and the first leadoff batter, Mike Lansing of the Colorado Rockies.

Perhaps the essence of Andy Benes, as he continued to help children through his baseball camps and clinics, is in a comment he made in April 2017. “We (can) forget about the stats. We (should) think about the journey (through life) and the people we met along the way. That’s truly what’s important.”16  

Last revised: May 1, 2019

Sources

In addition to the sources shown in the Notes, the author used Baseball-Reference.com, the Andy Benes file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and the following:

Porter, David L. The Padres Encyclopedia (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing, 2002), 221-223.

Author interview with Andy Benes, September 6, 2018.

Notes

1 Lee Jenkins, “What It Means to Be the 1,” Sports Illustrated, June 15, 2009: 56-61.

2 Gordon Engelhardt, “Benes Humbled by SIAC Award – Former Card Pitcher Recalls Evansville Days,” Evansville Courier and Press, July 31, 2016: 1C.

3 “Rural Freshman West Team Captures Tournament Title,” Evansville Courier and Press, August 10, 1980: 4C.

4 Tom Collins, “Central’s Benes to Sign with UE,” Evansville Courier, April 25, 1985: 20.

5 Engelhardt, “Benes Walking into Hall Tonight,” Evansville Courier and Press,” January 23, 2009: 1C.

6 Bill Plaschke, “First Choice Benes a Real Fireball,” The Sporting News, June 13, 1988: 28.

7 Plaschke, “Padres Sign Benes for Record Bonus,” The Sporting News, July 4, 1988: 17.

8 Dave Johnson, “Benes Keeps Helping Out Aces,” Evansville Courier and Press, March 2, 2004: 1C.

9 Associated Press, “Benes Hurls United States Past Cuba, 5-2,” Baton Rouge Advocate, August 15, 1988: 3C.

10 “Around the Minors: Padres,” The Sporting News, May 15, 1989: 40.

11 Jennifer Frey, “Benes Pitches a 1-Hitter as He Proves His Point,” New York Times, July 4, 1994: 33.

12 Cole Claybourn, “Benes’ Heart Still Beats for Cardinals,” Evansville Courier and Press, August 24, 2014: 1C.

13 Joe Strauss, “Benes Elects to Retire, Citing Knee,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 18, 2002: D1.

14 Associated Press, “Cardinals Poised to Activate Benes,” Daily Journal (Flat River, Missouri), July 13, 2002: 5.

15 Drew Bruno, “UE Retires Benes’ Jersey Number,” Evansville Courier and Press, April 18, 2010: 1C.

16 Chag Lindskog, “High School Baseball: Ball Field Dedicated to Longtime Coach Gries,” Evansville Courier and Press, April 20, 2017: 1C.

Bud Black spent 15 years as a major-league pitcher and followed that up with a long career as a manager. In 2018 he was in his 11th year as a big-league skipper.

Harry “Bud” Ralston Black was born on June 30, 1957, in San Mateo, California. He graduated from Mark Morris High School in Longview, Washington. His father, Harry Sr., was a center for the Los Angeles Monarchs of the Pacific Coast Hockey League (1945-48) and led the team in scoring in 1946.

Black pitched for Lower Columbia College (Washington) in 1976 and 1977. He was drafted twice in 1977, when the major leagues conducted two drafts a year. First, he was drafted in January by the San Francisco Giants in the third round. Then, in the June draft, the New York Mets selected him in the second round. Black declined to sign each time, deciding instead to attend San Diego State University from 1978-1979, majoring in finance. Black led the Aztecs in innings pitched and strikeouts in 1978 and 1979. Seattle drafted the left-hander in the 17th round in 1979 and Black signed with the Mariners.

Black spent the rest of 1979 in Class A, making 19 appearances with San Jose (California League) and Bellingham (Northwest League). He returned to San Jose in 1980, appearing mostly out of the bullpen. His 5-3 record and 3.45 ERA earned him a promotion to Double A to start 1981. His 2-6 record with Lynn (Eastern League) did not tell the entire story. Black led the team with a 3.74 strikeout-to-walk ratio and was third on the team in strikeouts despite making only 11 starts. He made four appearances for Triple-A Spokane before getting a September call-up with the Mariners for two games. He made his major-league debut on September 5, 1981, coming out of the bullpen against the Boston Red Sox. In the bottom of the fifth, in the midst of a six-run Red Sox rally, manager Rene Lachemann used him as a situational lefty to face one batter, Rick Miller. Black threw a wild pitch, then surrendered a single, and was replaced. He appeared in just one other game, the next day. He came on with two outs in the bottom of the sixth, and walked the batter he faced, but then picked him off first. He worked the seventh, giving up a leadoff double and walking two while getting two outs and then handing the ball over to Shane Rawley, who closed out the inning.

Seattle traded the young left-hander to Kansas City in March 1982 to complete an October 1981 deal that sent infielder Manny Castillo to the Mariners.

Black made the Royals to start 1982. Over the first month and a half, he pitched in six games, going 0-1 with a 7.98 ERA. Opponents batted .339 against him. He was sent down to Omaha, where he excelled, going 3-1 with a 2.48 ERA in four starts. Black was recalled in June 12 when David Frost was placed on the disabled list.1 He pitched in 16 games, making 13 starts, for the rest of the season. Black finished the season 4-6 with a 4.58 ERA.

Black started 1983 with Triple-A Omaha but was recalled in May to assume a spot in the starting rotation, taking over for Vida Blue, who was sent to the pen.2 He pitched his first career complete game as a Royal after 27 starts. The game was a 6-2 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on August 4, 1983. Black posted a solid 10-7 season for the second-place Royals. Perhaps the most memorable game of the season for Black was the “pine tar” game on July 24. George Brett hit a two-run home run in the top of the ninth to give the Royals a one-run lead. Yankees manager Billy Martin claimed that the pine tar on Brett’s bat was more than the league-allowed 18 inches. The umpires agreed, calling Brett out and giving the Yankees the victory. The Royals protested the call. American League President Lee MacPhail reversed the decision of the umpires, and the game was resumed on August 18. Both the Royals and Black benefited from this reversal. Had the called stood, Black would have been the losing pitcher. Instead, Black had a no-decision.3

The 1984 season was Black’s best as a major leaguer. He led the Royals in wins (17), starts (35), complete games (8), strikeouts (140), and ERA as a starter (3.12). He also had the distinction of giving up Reggie Jackson’s 500th career home run on September 17. Black and the Royals won that game 10-1 over the California Angels.

Black made his postseason debut on October 2 in the American League Championship Series against the favored Detroit Tigers. Black had made three starts against the Tigers during the regular season, suffering one loss and two no-decisions. His ERA approached 6.00 and the Tigers hit .319 against him. This scene repeated in Game One of the ALCS. Black lasted only five innings, giving up four earned runs, as the Tigers beat the Royals 8-1.

The 1985 season was a different story. Black had a season almost statistically opposite from 1984. He led the team in losses (15), starter ERA (4.33), runs allowed (111), and earned runs (99). The Royals made the ALCS again, this time against the Toronto Blue Jays. Black started Game Two and pitched seven strong innings. Usually reliable closer Dan Quisenberry could not hold onto the lead, and the Royals fell behind in the series two games to none. Black made two more appearances in the ALCS, both relief appearances. His 3⅓-inning relief appearance in Game Six helped the Royals force a Game Seven, and they won the American League pennant. Black made two appearances in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, including a five-inning loss in Game Four. The Royals won the Series in seven games, giving Black his only World Series ring. Black did not make the postseason again in his career.

The 1986 season marked a transition to the bullpen for Black. He made four starts at the beginning of the season but was moved to the bullpen in early May. Black seemed to thrive in his role. Opponents hit .198, while he carried a 2.34 ERA. The Royals finished second though, preventing a potential repeat in the postseason.

The 1987 season was the opposite of 1986; Black started in the bullpen but returned to the starting rotation in early May. His stats as a reliever again were solid (1.90 ERA, .198 batting average against) His stats as a starter were good for a back-of-the-rotation pitcher (4.01 ERA, .279 batting average against).

Black bounced back to the bullpen to start 1988 but was traded to Cleveland in early June for infielder Pat Tabler. He pitched mainly out of the bullpen for the Indians to start, but did transition back into the starting rotation late in the season.

Black was solid in the 1989 and 1990 seasons with a bottom-dwelling Indians team. He was 23-21 over that time with a 3.44 ERA. The Toronto Blue Jays needed some pitching to help them get into the playoffs, and made a mid-September trade for Black. He appeared in three games, including two starts. His last outing was one of his best for the season, eight innings of three-hit ball against Baltimore. Ultimately, though, the Blue Jays finished in second behind the Boston Red Sox.

After the 1990 season, Black signed a four-year, $10 million contract with the San Francisco Giants. Up to that point, Black was 85-83 over nine seasons, and had won only 42 games the previous five seasons combined. An anonymous National League general manager panned the signing, saying, “Maybe Bud Black will win some games for the Giants, but it looks like one of the worst signings ever.”4

Black’s first two seasons with San Francisco were mediocre. He went 22-28 but pitched almost 400 innings. The 1993 season started well, but he could not shake the injury bug. Black went on the disabled list three times during the season for elbow trouble and he did not pitch after August 3. In late September he underwent surgery to repair a tendon in his left elbow.5 Then before the 1994 season, he had arthroscopic knee surgery.6

Black did not pitch until June 1994 and made 10 appearances before the season was cut short by the players strike. During the offseason, he signed a minor-league contract to go back to the Indians in 1995 but made only 11 appearances with the Indians before being released on July 14.

The Indians named Black a special assistant for baseball operations to general manager John Hart for the 1996 and 1997 seasons, before naming him the pitching coach at Tripler-A Buffalo for the 1998 season. Black returned to his special assistant role for the 1999 season.

The Los Angeles Angels named Black their pitching coach in 2000, and he helmed the mound staff that helped lead the Angels to the 2002 World Series championship. His teams finished in the top five in ERA five of his seasons. He coached Bartolo Colon during Colon’s 2005 Cy Young season. This success led to Black’s being considered for many managerial openings. In 2002 he was a candidate for the Cleveland Indians managerial position, but later declined to continue further with the process.7 In 2005 he declined to be interviewed for the Los Angeles Dodgers’ managerial position, citing family reasons.8 In 2006 Black was a candidate for the San Francisco Giants opening, as was then-Padres manager Bruce Bochy.9 When the Giants signed Bochy, the Padres turned to Black. Black was named manager of the Padres on November 6, 2006.

The 2007 season was an odd one for the rookie manager. On September 23 he had a role in one of the stranger incidents in baseball. Outfielder Milton Bradley was involved in an altercation with first-base umpire Mike Winters, accusing Winters of saying that Bradley threw his bat at an umpire.10 In an attempt to subdue Bradley, Black pulled him away. Bradley’s knee buckled. That knee ultimately cost Bradley the rest of the 2007 season and may have cost the Padres a shot at the playoffs. They were 2½ games behind the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks, and had a half-game lead over the Philadelphia Phillies. The Padres and Rockies played in game 163 to decide which would be the wild-card team. The Rockies came into the game having gone 13-1 in their last 14 games. The Padres took the lead in the top of the 13th on a two-run home run by Scott Hairston, but usually steady closer Trevor Hoffman gave up three runs in the bottom half of the inning, sending the Rockies into the playoffs (and eventually the World Series). Matt Holliday scored the winning run on a sacrifice fly by Jamey Carroll, sliding head-first into home. Replays were inconclusive as to whether Holliday had actually touched home or not.

Black narrowly missed taking the Padres to the playoffs in 2010. Going into the final weekend, the Padres were three games behind the Giants for the NL West title. The Padres won the first two, but dropped the last game, giving the Giants the division. Despite not making the playoffs, Black was named 2010 National League Manager of the Year, going 90-72. This was Black’s last winning season as a manager. His 2011 Padres team went 71-91, while his 2012 and 2013 teams went 76-86, and the 2014 team was 77-85. During the offseason before the 2015 season, the Padres made bold moves, including acquiring closer Craig Kimbrel, outfielders Matt Kemp and Wil Myers, and catcher Derek Norris. The Padres were 32-33 to start the season before Black was fired.

Black was not out of work for long. He was a candidate for the Washington Nationals’ open managerial position and was the leading choice by all accounts.11 Black had accepted the position, but contract negotiations broke down.12 The Nationals eventually hired Dusty Baker, while Black returned to the Angels as a special assistant to the general manager.

Black became a leading candidate for the Colorado Rockies managerial job when Walt Weiss stepped away after the 2016 season. On November 7, 2016, the Rockies made the hiring of Black official.13

The Rockies got off to a hot start and were leading the West at the end of April. The Rockies, Diamondbacks, and Dodgers fought for first throughout the first half of the season, until the Dodgers pulled away from the rest of the division en route to an eventual National League pennant. Black did lead the team to an 87-75 record, and a berth in the wild-card round against the Diamondbacks. The Rockies fell behind 6-0 in that game but fought back. “Right away, all hell broke loose and from there on it was a heavyweight fight,” Black said after the game. “We got close a couple times, they stretched the lead, we came back. It was a crazy game.”14 Their efforts fell short, as they lost 11-8.

In 1992, Black was inducted into San Diego State Athletics Hall of Fame.15 He and his wife, Nanette, donated money to fund an alumni room at San Diego State’s Tony Gwynn Stadium.16

This biography was published in “1995 Cleveland Indians: The Sleeping Giant Awakes” (SABR, 2019), edited by Joseph Wancho.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also used the following:

Baseball Reference (baseball-reference.com),

2016 Los Angeles Angels Media Guide.

2015 San Diego Padres Media Guide.

Notes

1 “Royals’ Frost on Disabled List,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 1982: 3-5

2 “Royals’ Blue Sent to Bullpen,” Atlanta Constitution, May 24, 1983: 5-D

3 “Brett Not Only One Affected,” Los Angeles Times, July 30, 1983: 3-2

4 Jerome Holtzman, “Black Deal Throws Free-Agent Curve,” Chicago Tribune, November 15, 1990: 4-13

5 “Around the Majors,” New York Times, September 26, 1993: 56

6 “Spring Training,” Washington Post, February 20, 1994.

7 “Plus: Baseball,” New York Times, October 17, 2002: D7

8 “Roundup,” New York Times, November 24, 2005: D2

9 “Baseball,” New York Times, October 24, 2006: D6

10 Michael S. Schmidt, “Baseball Suspends Umpire in Dispute,” New York Times, September 27, 2007: D2

11 Chelsea Janes, “Bud Black, Washington Nationals’ Choice to Be Manager, Known for his Communication,” Washington Post, October 29, 2015.

12 James Wagner, “In End, Washington Nationals’ Bet on Bud Black Goes Bust and They Land Instead on Dusty Baker,” Washington Post, November 3, 2015.

13 Nick Kosmider, “Bud Black Reaches Agreement With Colorado Rockies to Become New Manager,” Denver Post, November 7, 2016

14 Associated Press, “Rockies Fall Short in Wild-Card Loss to Diamondbacks,” October 5, 2017.

15 Scott Miller, “Bud Black Among Inductees Into Athletics Hall of Fame,” Los Angeles Times, November 12, 1992: C7

16 San Diego State University Baseball Media Guide, 2016.

Bruce Bochy’s baseball career is filled with notable achievements. From being the first European-born manager to reach the World Series when he was with the San Diego Padres to becoming the first manager to call on his son to pitch in a game when he was with the San Francisco Giants, Bochy’s long career has been remarkable and very successful.

Bochy was born on April 16, 1955, in Landes de Bussac, France, where there was a US airbase. His father, Sergeant Major Gus Bochy, was stationed there at the time. Gus Bochy’s father was a West Virginian who worked in the coal mines and died in one. Gus realized that his best opportunity to avoid that fate was to join the military. Bochy’s mother, Melrose, grew up on a North Carolina tobacco farm. She met Bochy’s father when he was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Bruce was the third of Gus and Melrose’s four children. Joe, the oldest son, spent several years as a catcher and later a pitcher in the Twins organization. As of 2018 he was a scout for the Padres. Bochy’s sister, Terry, is retired from the US Customs Service, and was caring for their mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease. Bochy’s youngest brother, Mark, was a chemical engineer living in Mobile, Alabama, in 2018.

Young Bruce “was not one to sit idle at home,” Terry said. “He was always out organizing games, whether it was kickball, dodgeball, football, baseball, basketball, horseshoes, [or] darts. He could make a game out of anything, and he would lose track of time.”1

Bochy developed a love of baseball early. His father was a rabid Cincinnati Reds fan. Bochy remembered that his father always tuned in the games no matter where they lived. When the family was stationed in Panama, Gus Bochy coached the base’s baseball team. Those games “were a big deal,” Bochy recalled.2

Bochy lived in numerous places as he grew up. Besides France, his family spent time living in the Panama Canal Zone, South Carolina, and Northern Virginia. When his father retired, the family moved to Melbourne, Florida. Bochy attended Melbourne High School.

Although Bochy played in high school, he did not begin to excel in baseball until he reached Brevard Community College in Cocoa Beach, Florida. He led the school to a state championship. Jack Kenworthy, his coach, said Bochy was a leader on that team. “I [remember] that players on my team, before they would do anything, would look and see what Boch was doing,” Kenworthy said. “It was nothing he did outwardly. It was just the presence of leadership.”3 By the end of his sophomore year, Bochy had begun dating his future wife, Kim Seib.

Bochy was drafted by the Chicago White Sox in the eighth round of the January 1975 draft. He turned down the opportunity to go professional and instead signed a letter of intent to play for Eddie Stanky, the former major-league infielder and manager, who was coaching at South Alabama at the time. But when the Houston Astros drafted him in the first round of the June 1975 draft, he decided to turn professional.

The Astros sent Bochy to the Covington Astros (Appalachian League). He played 37 games during their short season. He had 34 RBIs and a .338 batting average.

In 1976 Bochy split his time between the Class-A Dubuque, Iowa, Packers (Midwest League) and the Double-A Columbus, Georgia, Astros (Southern League). He saw his offensive statistics drop against the higher level of competition. Bochy finished the season with a .234 batting average and 24 RBIs in 99 games. He played the entire 1977 season with the Class-A Cocoa Astros (Florida State League). He had 109 hits in 128 games that year as he played just up the road from his hometown.

Bochy returned to Columbus in 1978 and played in 79 games. Late in the season, the Astros called him up as a backup for Alan Ashby. Bochy made his major-league debut on July 19, 1978, against the New York Mets. He was the starting catcher and collected his first major-league hit in his first at-bat, a single to right field off the Mets’ Craig Swan in the third inning. He hit another single in the Astros 2-1 loss to the Mets. Bochy and Kim Seib were married in 1978.

Bochy remained the Astros backup catcher in 1979 and 1980. He played in 78 games over those two seasons, batting .212.

The Astros made the playoffs in 1980 and Bochy played in the fourth game of the National League Championship Series, replacing Luis Pujols in the eighth inning. The game, against the Philadelphia Phillies, was tied in the 10th. Pete Rose headed for home on Greg Luzinski’s double and Bochy was waiting there for the throw to tag him out. Rose crashed into Bochy and knocked the ball out of his glove. Bochy fell to the ground and was dazed with the “baseball he’d dropped resting alongside him like a period on 97 years of Phillies frustration.”4

The Astros traded Bochy to the Mets on February 11, 1981 for minor leaguers Stan Hough and Randy Rogers.

When Bochy first made it to the majors, he had earned a reputation for having a large head. After he was called up to the Mets, he arrived but his batting helmets did not. At the time, he had custom helmets because his extra-large head size, 8, was so unusual. “When I got called up, the first question wasn’t, ‘How are you?’ but, ‘Did you bring your helmets?’”5

Bochy spent the 1981 season with the Triple-A Tidewater Tides (International League). He also started the 1982 season with the Tides and was called up in August. Bochy played in 17 games in the final two months of the season and batted .306.

The Mets released Bochy in January 1983. A month later he signed with the Padres. Bochy started the 1983 season with the Triple-A Las Vegas Stars (Pacific Coast League). He was batting .303 with 11 home runs and 33 RBIs when the Padres called him up to back up Terry Kennedy.

Bochy started 56 games from 1983 to 1985. He accepted his role as reserve, saying, “It might have been harder if I was just getting started but now I know my role and I can handle it. It takes a certain type of ballplayer to be able to come off the bench and do a job.”6 He made his second postseason appearance when he pinch-hit in the final game of the 1984 World Series and had a single in the Padres’ losing effort against the Detroit Tigers.

The Padres traded Kennedy to the Baltimore Orioles at the end of the 1986 season since they were planning to use rookie Benito Santiago as their catcher in 1987. Bochy remained with the Padres, serving as Santiago’s backup. He accepted his role, noting that “[s]ometimes I think you’ve got to work harder than the regulars as a backup. You never know when you’re going to be called on. And you can’t afford to have a bad game because you don’t want to hurt the club when you’re out there.”7

Bochy started 18 games in 1987 and made it into another 20 games but was hitting just .160 when the season ended. He made his last major-league appearance as a player on October 4, 1987, when he grounded out in a 5-3 Padres loss to the Dodgers.

The Padres dropped Bochy from their roster on November 9, 1987. He signed a minor-league contract with the team and was sent to Las Vegas for the 1988 season as a player and coach. He played in 53 games while mentoring Sandy Alomar Jr.

Jack McKeon, the Padres general manager, gave Bochy his first managerial job when he hired him to run the Spokane, Washington, Indians (Low-A Northwest League) in 1989. Bochy started the season as a coach with the Riverside, California, Red Wave (Class-A California League) before getting the call to manage his own team. “He was the perfect guy to have on your ballclub. Great personality, a clubhouse leader even though he wasn’t playing,” said McKeon when asked why he hired Bochy.8 Spokane finished the season with a 41-34 record.

Bochy became Riverside’s manager in 1990. The team struggled to a 64-78 record. It was one of his most challenging seasons as a manager. “The year I managed there, we weren’t very good,” he recalled. “Of all my years, that was probably one of the toughest. We didn’t play very well.”9

But Bochy’s struggles with Riverside helped him to become a better manager. “I think it helped me develop more patience. I realized, ‘Hey, these guys are trying,’” he said. “It doesn’t mean that you ever stop trying to win and trying to hit the right buttons, but you’ve got to understand that you’re going to go through some (tough) times. For me to spend a whole season dealing with that, that helped make me a better manager.”10

When the Riverside club moved to Adelanto, California, in 1991 and became known as the High Desert Mavericks, Bochy remained as their manager. The team improved to 73-63 and won the California League title.

Bochy moved up to the Double-A Wichita, Kansas, Wranglers (Texas League) in 1992. The team finished with a 70-66 record and had the second-highest batting average in the league. The Wranglers were five games out of first place with 14 games left but won 11 straight to clinch the division and went on to win the Texas League championship. Yet Bochy recognized that his role as a minor-league manager was not about winning games, saying: “It’s all about development. Winning’s not my job.”11

The Padres made Bochy their third-base coach in 1993. Jim Riggleman was the manager. When Riggleman became the Cubs manager after the 1994 season, Bochy replaced him. General manager Randy Smith, explaining why he chose Bochy, said: “To me, the two most important factors were continuity, stability, and with the strength of this organization being pitching, someone who can handle a pitching staff. In my mind he’s the best managerial prospect in the game.”12

Bochy became the youngest manager in baseball and the first former Padres player to manage the team. The Padres gave him a one-year contract but Bochy was satisfied since he was finally getting the opportunity to use what he had learned in the Padres organization. “I have confidence in my ability, and Randy and I and the coaching staff, we’re going to … turn this thing around,” he said.13

The Padres went 70-74 in Bochy’s first year at the helm, winning 23 more games than they had in 1994. They improved to 91-71 in 1996 and made the playoffs for the second time in their history. Although the Padres were swept by the St. Louis Cardinals in the Division Series, Bochy was chosen as the National League manager of the year.

The Padres fell to 76-86 in 1997 but the organization maintained confidence in Bochy. Their confidence was vindicated when he led the team to a 98-64 record, the best in Padres history. San Diego returned to the World Series for the second time in their 30-year history. The Sporting News named him the Manager of the Year for the second time in three years.

While Bochy was getting more and more recognition for his work, his brother Joe noted that Bochy was always focused on his team and players rather than himself, saying “[My brother will] never be comfortable going on the Leno show. His ego doesn’t require notoriety. His confidence and fortitude are such that he doesn’t need the spotlight.”14

Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn described Bochy’s influence that season: “He’s not the type to rant and rave or kick over a [food] spread after a game, but the fire comes out. This is a veteran team that generally doesn’t have to be reminded about what’s at stake or what we should be thinking about, but Boch has a very good sense of timing as to when to call a meeting and when not, when to snap and when not.”15

The Padres were swept by the Yankees in the World Series. During the offseason, they cut their payroll and the team had five losing seasons. Bochy managed the team through those difficulties and eventually the Padres returned to their winning ways of the 1990s.

In 2004 Bochy led the Padres to an 87-75 record. The team did not make the playoffs that year but they did in 2005. The team had an 82-80 record, winning the NL West. Once again, they were swept by the Cardinals in the Division Series.

Bochy led the Padres to the division crown for a second time in 2006. It was the first time San Diego played in the postseason in consecutive seasons. Once again the Padres lost to the Cardinals, three games to one.

At the time Bochy was under contract through the 2007 season. When he asked for a contract extension, San Diego CEO Sandy Alderson refused. Alderson believed that Bochy was too loyal to veteran players and wasn’t willing to listen to management. He also felt that Bochy had been outmanaged by the Cardinals’ Tony La Russa in the playoffs. Alderson told him he was free to look for other managing positions.16

The San Francisco Giants interviewed Bochy within days of his release from the Padres and hired him a few days later. They gave him a three-year contract. The Giants were hoping to rebuild from several lackluster seasons and wanted Bochy to help them do it. “I look forward to this challenge,” Bochy said. He said he agreed to sign with the Giants because he wanted to “be with an organization that would be a cultural fit for me, where I would be comfortable and where there was potential to build real chemistry between myself and the front office. It would be a place where I would have a chance to make an impact and a contribution.” 17

The Giants lost at least 90 games during Bochy’s first two seasons as manager. But the team turned things around in 2009. They finished with an 88-74 record. Bochy was in the final year of his contract and knew that he needed to win in order to stay on. The Giants did not make the playoffs that season but definitely seem poised for better days ahead.

The Giants rewarded Bochy with a two-year contract extension shortly after the season, their first winning season in four years. Bochy said later that 2009 was important because the time had come for the Giants to “win games. [I]f you’re making a transformation (to youth), that’s a little bit different. But we’re trying to raise the bar and win games.”18 The team won and the Giants decided that Bochy would stay as manager.

Bochy’s Giants won 92 games in 2010. They clinched the NL Western Division crown on the final day of the season, beating the Padres. After winning the game, 3-0, Bochy said of his team: “It’s a group that coalesced into a team that wants to get there.”19

The Giants marched through the postseason. First they beat the Atlanta Braves in the Division Series, three games to one. Then they beat the Phillies, four games to two, for the NL pennant. Bochy described his triumphant team as a “bunch of misfits.”20 The Giants reached the pinnacle when they beat the Texas Rangers in five games in the World Series. It was the franchise’s first Series championship since 1954, when the team was still in New York.

After the World Series, Bochy deflected questions about his genius as a manager, saying: “It’s not me, believe me. It’s these guys. I can’t say enough about how they accepted some roles. I’m not sure they were happy with me. But they stayed ready and they had one thing on their mind and that was to do this.”21

The Giants continued to win under Bochy’s leadership in 2011. They finished 86-76 but lost momentum when Buster Posey, the 2010 NL Rookie of the Year, was injured. Bochy described the loss as like “taking Johnny Bench out of the Big Red Machine.”22 The club was confident enough in Bochy’s leadership that they extended his contract at the end of the season.

Bochy showed why they should maintain confidence in him when the Giants won the NL Western Division in 2012, for the second time in three years. After losing the first two games of the Division Series to the Cincinnati Reds, they won three straight games to move to the NLCS. The St. Louis Cardinals took a three-games-to-one lead in the NLCS but the Giants won the final three games to return to the World Series for the second time in three years.

The 2012 World Series was not much of a contest. The Giants swept the Tigers. As Bochy held the championship trophy over his head, he said: “It’s unbelievable what happened here the last two to three weeks. I’m amazed. I couldn’t be prouder of these guys.”23

When the Giants held a victory rally several days later, Bochy told the cheering crowd, “In 2010, we characterized the club as misfits that came together and got it done. [T]he tagline of the 2012 Giants was, ‘Never say die.’”24 He wanted the crowd to remember that the Giants came back twice in the postseason to bring the trophy back to San Francisco.

Bochy’s success brought him another contract extension. This time the Giants extended his contract through the 2016 season. General manager Brian Sabean, who was also rewarded with a new contract said of Bochy: “Bruce is a tough SOB, even if he doesn’t come off that way. If you work with him every day, you see how he empowers the players.”25 For his part, Bochy said, “I’m very happy to continue this journey. It’s been an amazing ride these past few years.”

Bochy reached a managing milestone when he got his 1,500th win on July 23, 2013. The Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds 5-3 in front of a home crowd. Bochy became the 21st manager to win that many games. After the game, Bochy was modest about his accomplishment: “I’ll be honest. I don’t know what that number means except the fact I’m fortunate I’ve been doing this as long as I have. I’m very, very thankful to reach this number. To be mentioned with some of these managers is humbling.”26 Although Bochy reached a personal milestone in 2013, it was a disappointing year for the Giants. They finished the year with a 76-94 record, falling into a third-place tie with the Padres.

The Giants rebounded in 2014 to finish the season with an 88-74 record. They entered the postseason as the second wild-card team. After beating the Pittsburgh Pirates 8-0 in the one-game play-in, the Giants swept the Washington Nationals in the Division Series and beat the Cardinals in five games in the NLCS. It was their third trip to the World Series in five years. Bochy once again remained modest as he credited the Giants organization for the team’s success. “We’ve kept our core players. The thing I love about what’s happening in San Francisco is the continuity that we have, so that allows you to hopefully compete and contend every year.”27

Bochy’s Giants faced the Kansas City Royals. The Royals were hoping to win their first World Series since 1985. Although the Series went to seven games, Bochy’s Giants prevailed and won their third World Series title in five years. He became the 10th manager to win three World Series.

As in past years, Bochy deflected praise from himself and gave it to his players. During the celebration in the Giants locker room, Bochy told reporters: “This group of warriors, they continue to amaze me. To see guys getting their first taste of this, that makes it even more special. I tell ya, these guys were relentless. You’re so blessed to get one title, and now to have three. I’m just amazed at what they did.”28

The Giants rewarded Bochy again by extending his contract through the 2019 season. When Chris Heston threw a no-hitter against the Mets on June 9, 2015, he became the first Giants rookie to accomplish that feat in more than 100 years. The win was Bochy’s 700th as Giants manager. With the 951 games he won in San Diego, he joined an elite group of managers who won more 700 or more games with two different teams. The others were Sparky Anderson, Tony La Russa, and Jim Leyland.29

The Giants finished 84-78 in 2015 and did not make the playoffs but they returned to the postseason in 2016 when they finished with an 87-75 record. After beating the Mets in the wild-card play-in, they fell to the eventual World Series-winning Chicago Cubs in the Division Series.

Bochy achieved another milestone that season when he won his 800th game for the Giants. The win came on June 26, 2016, when the Giants beat the Phillies, 8-7. Bochy noted his achievement in his usual unassertive manner: “As far as the number, I know how lucky I am. I don’t think John McGraw has anything to worry about.”30 He was referring to McGraw’s 2,583 wins, the record for Giants managers.

Bochy also made news that season when he became the first manager since 1976 to deliberately choose to forfeit the designated hitter. The last time that his happened was when pitcher Ken Brett of the White Sox, a good hitter, batted twice in 1976, on May 27 and September 23. Bochy’s star pitcher Madison Bumgarner batted against the Oakland A’s at a game in Oakland on June 30, 2016. He hit a double in the third to spark the 12-6 Giants win. Bochy expressed satisfaction with his decision when he told reporters, “He smoked that ball, and he did it when he got that double. He gives you good at-bats, which he did there.”31

The Giants struggled in 2017, winning just 64 games and finishing with the worst record in the National League. It was just the fourth losing season since Bochy took the helm of the team in 2007. Even as the Giants were struggling, Bochy continued to reach more milestones. On April 10 he won his 841st game as Giants manager, surpassing Dusty Baker to become the team’s second-winningest manager.

Bochy also won his 900th game for the Giants that season when they beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 9-2, on September 25, 2017. The win was bittersweet for him since it came at the end of a difficult season. Half in jest, he said, “There’s the old joke they may retire me for health reasons — because they’re sick and tired of me, which I get.32

As of 2018 Bochy and his wife, Kim, lived in Poway, California, near San Diego. They have two sons, Greg and Brett. Greg spent four years playing in the Padres’ minor-league system. Brett was drafted by the Giants in 2010. He was called up to the Giants in 2014. On September 13, 2014, Bochy made the call to the bullpen and handed the ball to Brett with instructions to get the last out of the inning. At the time the Dodgers had the bases loaded. Bochy was the first father to hand the ball to his son in a major-league game.33 (Brett walked the first batter he faced, forcing in a run; the run gave the Dodgers a 15-0 lead in a game they won, 17-0.)

When Brett was asked about his father’s decision, he said: “He has a habit of doing that to me. It was awesome getting out there and it was special that he was there for it.” Bochy saluted his son later, saying, “Here’s your son, and you’re bringing him into the big leagues. It’s a moment that [makes you] nervous, but at the same time, you’re very proud. I was real glad to see him out there.”34

Bochy has experienced several health issues since 2015. He underwent an angioplasty before spring training and was ready for the season. He missed part of the 2017 season when he had a minor heart ablation on April 18, and had another ablation surgery after the season. Afterward he said “I don’t want anyone to think this has an effect on my work, or ability to work.”35

Through the 2017 season, Bochy had 1,853 regular-season wins and 42 playoff victories. Only four other managers have more playoff wins. Three of them (Joe Torre, Bobby Cox, and Tony La Russa) are in the Hall of Fame.

When Bochy was asked about his Hall of Fame chances, he said, “I don’t ever think about it. It’s too humbling to think about. When you think of the Hall of Fame, you think of Willie Mays and great players like that. You don’t look at yourself like that. I feel fortunate that I’ve been doing what I love for as long as I’ve been doing it.”36 With at least two more years on his present contract, Bochy should continue to reach more milestones in his unassuming manner before he considers walking away from the game he loves.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also used the Baseball-Reference.com, Baseball-Almanac.com, and Retrosheet.org websites for box-score, player, team, and season pages, pitching and batting game logs, and other pertinent material.

Notes

1 Henry Schulman, “Meet Bruce Bochy — New Head Man,” SFGate.com, March 11, 2007.

2 Ibid.

3 Demian Bulwa, “S.F. Giants’ Bruce Bochy Has Humble Approach,” SFGate.com, October 15, 2010.

4 Frank Fitzpatrick, “Giants’ Manager Part of Phillies Lore,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 14, 2010.

5 Lawrie Mifflin, “Bruce Bochy’s Big Problem,” New York Times, September 2, 1982.

6 Dave Distel, “Backing Up Kennedy Is a Role Bochy Accepts,” Los Angeles Times, March 21, 1985.

7 Ibid.

8 John Shea, “Bochy Carving Out Quite a Career,” SF Gate.com, September 29, 2014.

9 “Managing Red Wave Was a Challenge, Learning Experience,” Riverside Press-Enterprise, April 13, 2013.

10 Ibid.

11 Kirk Seminoff, “Once, Twice, Three Times a Champion,” Wichita Eagle, November 7, 2010.

12 “Bochy Named Padre Manager After Riggleman Jumps to Cubs,” Seattle Times, October 22, 1994.

13 Ibid.

14 Ross Newhan, “Still Waters,” Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1998.

15 Ibid.

16 Tom Krasovic, “Bochy an NL West Title Mainstay for Padres,” San Diego Union-Tribune, May 30, 2014.

17 “Bochy Looks Forward to Challenge of Managing Giants,” ESPN.com, October 26, 2006.

18 John Shea, “Bochy Has a Sense of Security in 2010,” SF Gate.com, March 5, 2010.

19 “Jonathan Sanchez Eliminates Padres to Give Giants NL West Title,” ESPN.com, October 4, 2010.

20 Jayson Stark, “Giant Cast of ‘Misfits’ Marches On,” ESPN.com, October 24, 2010.

21 Susan Slusser, “SF Giants Are Champs, Dashing Bochy’s Butterflies,” SF Gate.com, November 2, 2010.

22 Henry Schulman, “Giants’ Chances Ended with Buster Posey’s Injury,” SF Gate.com, September 29, 2011.

23 Henry Schulman, “SF Giants Win World Series,” SF Gate.com, December 27, 2010.

24 “Giants Celebrate with Victory Parade,” ESPN.com, October 31, 2012.

25 Ron Kroichick, “Giants Reward Sabean and Bochy with Contract Extensions.” SF Gate.com, March 28, 2013.

26 Alex Pavlovic, “Bochy Reaches Next Level as Giants Get Unique Win,” San Jose Mercury News, July 24, 2013.

27 Anne Killion, “With 3 Titles, Close Enough to a Dynasty,” SF Gate.com, November 1, 2014.

28 Bruce Jenkins, “Savor It, The Giants Are World Champions Again,” SF Gate.com, October 30, 2014.

29 Andrew Baggarly, “Chris Heston on His No-Hitter: ‘I Still Can’t Believe It Happened,’” San Jose Mercury-News, June 10, 2015.

30 Chris Haft, “Giants Walk Off for NL-Best 49th Victory,” MLB.com, June 26, 2016.

31 Susan Slusser, “Madison Bumgarner Is a Hit in All Ways in Giants’ Win Over A’s,” SF Gate.com, June 30, 2016.

32 Alex Pavlovic, “Bochy on Future: This Is ‘Certainly Not the Way I Want to Go Out,’” NBC Sports.com, September 28, 2017.

33 Ryan Hood, “Bochy Gives Son MLB Debut in Tough Spot,” MLB.com, September 13, 2014.

34 Ibid.

35 Andrew Baggarly, “Giants Manager Bruce Bochy Resting After Heart Procedure,” San Jose Mercury-News, October 13, 2017.

36 John Shea, “Bochy Carving Out Quite a Career,” SF Gate.com, September 29, 2014.

The life of Ken Caminiti parallels the path of a classic Greek tragedy. He was an athlete blessed with extraordinary physical abilities who diligently worked to develop those gifts and dedicated himself to achieving excellence. A tough, tireless leader on the field, he climbed to the highest levels of the baseball world. Then, at the brink of greatness, he was seized by internal demons that drained his talent and forever scarred his success. In the end, rather than being considered one of the best of his era, he is most often remembered as a sad victim of baseball’s steroid subculture.

Kenneth Gene Caminiti was born on April 21, 1963, in Hanford, California, a bustling community in Central California’s San Joaquin Valley. He was the youngest of three children. From the time he could hold a ball, Kenny played whatever sport was in season. Through those early years his biggest fan and regular chauffeur was his mother, Yvonne. In high school he excelled at baseball and football, playing in California’s prep all-star football game as a senior. Though he loved football, his future was in baseball. Kenny shined as a high-school shortstop. His father, Lee, was an engineer who worked on defense projects at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, California. Yvonne was a homemaker taking care of three children — Glenn, Ken, and Carrie. She later worked at Lockheed Martin herself as the administrative assistant to the head of one of the programs at Lockheed.1

Lee Caminiti, who had played semipro baseball, taught his son about the game, including how to switch-hit. The lessons led to a scholarship at nearby San Jose State University following a freshman year at San Jose City College. At San Jose State he earned Sporting News All-American status and a spot on the 25-man US Olympic squad, but was among the final four players cut from the 21-man squad that went to the Olympics.2 Impressed by his achievements and talent, the Houston Astros selected him in the third round of the June 1984 amateur draft. 

Caminiti’s professional baseball career began in 1985 with the Osceola Astros in the Class-A Florida State League. A 6-foot switch-hitter with a powerful physique, above-average speed, and a cannon arm, he was an acquisition whom the Astros organization immediately worked to develop. In 1985, Kissimmee, Florida, in Osceola County, was a good place to become a professional ballplayer. Like Caminiti, the area was new to professional baseball. During the previous winter the Class-A Astros relocated from Daytona Beach to Kissimmee. With the move came a new ballpark that would serve as the Astros’ spring-training facility and, from April until early September, the home of the Osceola Astros. Only a handful of Caminiti’s new teammates had played for Daytona Beach the season before but most had played somewhere in the minor leagues. Caminiti, or “Cami” as his teammates soon called him, was one of only two on the roster with no previous professional experience.

The season opened on a rainy mid-April night against the new Daytona Beach Admirals. Batting seventh, Caminiti started at third base, contributed one hit and an RBI, scored two runs and made a key play in the 9-8 win. By the end of the week, he had been moved up to third in the batting order. He stayed at the heart of the lineup throughout the rest of the season.

The next couple of weeks went well for the Astros and their rookie third baseman. By early May, the team was in first place in the league’s Central Division. Caminiti was a key part of that success. He was leading the team in RBIs and runs scored. He had also begun to establish a reputation as a clutch player. In a game against the Tampa Tarpons, he knocked in the winning run on a ninth-inning single.3 Over the next few months he repeated the achievement nine more times, more than anyone else in the Florida State League. When asked about his transition to professional baseball, Caminiti reported: “I feel very little pressure. … I think my biggest challenge is learning how to hit with a wooden bat again.”4

Through the summer Caminiti established himself as one of the better players in the league. In July he was one of seven Astros selected for the league all-star game. At the time he led the league in RBIs and was third in runs scored.5 His defensive skills had also begun to earn some accolades. He ended the season with the highest batting average, .284; most RBIs, 73; and most hits of any Osceola player who had spent at least half of the season in Kissimmee. He also banged out a team-record 26 doubles.6 It was clear that the young third baseman had adjusted well to wooden bats and Class-A pitching.

Along with a dozen Osceola teammates, Caminiti began the 1986 season on the Double-A Columbus (Georgia) Astros in the Southern League. It was the next step up the Houston minor-league ladder. The team started slowly, finishing the first half in last place. Caminiti, on the other hand, picked up where he had left off the previous season. Batting in the middle of the Columbus order, he continued to be among his team’s leading RBI producers. During the second half, the team reversed its fortunes. Climbing into first place, the Astros defeated the first-half champion Jacksonville Expos in a playoff. They then beat the Huntsville Stars to claim the league championship.7 Ending the season with a .300 batting average, Caminiti was again among his team’s leaders in several hitting categories.

The 1987 season began with Caminiti back in Columbus. While his team struggled a bit early, Cami did not. His batting average remained above .300 through the first three months of the season and he was among the league leaders in both RBIs and home runs. In July, along with Astros pitcher Rob Mallicoat, Cami was selected to the league’s all-star team. The all-star game turned out to be the last time that Caminiti wore a Columbus uniform. On July 16 he was called up to Houston.

Caminiti’s major-league debut was spectacular. On the first play of a game against the Phillies, he made a diving catch and bullet throw to get speedy Juan Samuel. Over the next couple of innings, he made several more outstanding plays in the field. After the game Philadelphia manager Lee Elia lamented, “(Caminiti) just defensed the heck out of us.”8 As notable as his play in the field had been, it was his times at the plate that really impressed. Leading off the fifth, his second plate appearance, he drilled a triple off the right-center-field wall. Two innings later he crushed his first major-league home run. In the ninth, with the score tied, 1-1, he worked a one-out walk. Two hitters later center fielder Gerald Young banged out a single that brought Cami home with the winning run. After the game Caminiti, who two days earlier thought he was being called up to the Triple-A Tucson Toros, commented, “This might be the highest high I’ve had. I knew it could happen. I just didn’t know it would be this fast.”9 Manager Elia put it more succinctly: “That is a heck of a way to break into the majors.”10

The week that followed was almost as good. The day after his debut, Caminiti added two singles to his hit collection. He got his first double, another single, a run scored, and an RBI a day later. Throughout his first week, the hits and runs kept coming. He ended his first week as a major leaguer with a .500 batting average and two home runs, and was named the National League’s Player of the Week. It was an auspicious start.

Through much of the rest of the season, Caminiti remained the Astros’ starting third baseman. At the plate his average slid to .246 but in the field he continued to impress. Meanwhile, Houston remained in the National League West pennant race before slumping badly in September. Reflecting the disappointment that others in the organization felt, manager Hal Lanier commented, “Nobody’s happy with the way we played last year, especially in the latter stages of the season.”11 At the same time, he acknowledged that “The acquisition of Caminiti and Young did good things for our ballclub.”12

Caminiti came to spring training in 1988 with a new wife (he married his high-school sweetheart, Nancy Smith, during the offseason), a new contract, and great hopes of becoming the Astros’ starting third baseman. “Lots of people I’ve talked to seem to think I have the job wrapped up. That’s just not true I am going to go into spring training with the attitude I had when I got here,” he said.13 One of those who did not think Caminiti had the job wrapped up was Hal Lanier. The Astros manager considered the position open, saying, “It’s not going to be given to Ken just because he ended up the year there.”14 Lanier had no concerns about Caminiti in the field but was not as confident about him at the plate, especially from the right side.

Spring training did not go as Caminiti had expected. Early on it became clear that Lanier had already penciled in veteran Denny Walling as the team’s starting third baseman. Consequently, Caminiti was competing with Chuck Jackson, the player he had replaced the previous July, for the backup role. Jackson got off to a quick start. Caminiti did not. His ability to hit from the right side became a particular concern. Midway through camp, a $500 fine for being late to two practices further stymied the young third baseman’s chances. By the last week of spring training, Caminiti’s playing time had dwindled significantly. His spring play ended well, a home run from both sides of the plate in a game against the Phillies, but a day later, as the team prepared to head home to Houston, Caminiti was sent to Tucson.

The reassignment rankled Caminiti. He complained, “I think if they wanted me to play there (third base) they would have let me have more at-bats and worked with me more. … This is probably my biggest downer. It hurts.”15 A week later he was at third base in the Toros’ Opening Day lineup. Batting in the middle of the Tucson order, Caminiti was expected to add some power.16 He did not disappoint. Through the first month of the season he drove in runs on an almost daily basis. He also began to re-establish a reputation as a clutch player. It was a role he enjoyed: “I live for the tough ones.”17 Then, in early May, trying to protect a teammate in an on-the-field fracas, he tore a ligament in his right thumb. The injury kept him on the bench for a week and when he returned he struggled a bit. During the next month his batting average dropped almost 30 points and his run production slowed. Emerging from the slump in mid-June, Caminiti started pounding the ball again, renewing speculation that he was soon destined for another call-up to the Astros.

Meanwhile in Houston, the Astros were again having problems at third base. Suffering from chronic back spasms, Denny Walling, the regular third baseman, was not hitting as the team had hoped. On June 20 he went on the disabled list, where he remained until early August. His backup, Chuck Jackson, was also having problems at the plate. The day before Walling went on the disabled list, Jackson was shipped back to Tucson. To plug the hole, the Astros traded with Cincinnati for veteran Buddy Bell. A month later, first baseman Glenn Davis pulled a hamstring and was expected to be out of action for a month. With Davis unavailable, Bell was moved to first and Caminiti was recalled.

Caminiti’s second trip to Houston lasted only three weeks. By the time Walling was ready to return, Caminiti was hitting an anemic .176 and had driven in only three runs. On August 18 he was sent back to Tucson, where he stayed until the September call-ups. He ended the season with the Astros batting just .181 with one home run and only seven RBIs. The end of Caminiti’s season reflected the fate of the Astros. Another dismal September dropped them out of the pennant race and into fifth place in the National League West.

The day after the 1988 regular season ended the Astros fired manager Lanier. A month later they hired Art Howe. It was a change that suited Caminiti well. The new manager soon announced that “Ken Caminiti is my third baseman.”18 Throughout the spring, trade rumors swirled around Caminiti, but he made it clear that “the bottom line is I don’t want to be traded. That’s all there is to it. I want to play in Houston.”19 He also made it clear that he liked playing for Howe: “It’s great playing for Art. He’s fun, he’s stern, and he definitely knows the game. The atmosphere has really changed.”20 

Howe’s confidence in Caminiti paid quick dividends. Beginning in an Opening Day win over Atlanta, the Astros third baseman established himself as an integral part of his team, contributing with both his bat and his glove. In an early April game against Cincinnati, he drove in the run that gave the Astros the winning margin and killed a threat with a sparkling play at third. Two days later he scored the winning run in a 15-inning victory over the Dodgers. The next day he hit his first home run of the season to beat the Dodgers again. Another home run in late May beat the Cardinals. Through the first two months of the season, Caminiti continued to contribute clutch hits and was part of numerous rallies that helped keep the Astros near the top of the National League West. By June, few still questioned Caminiti’s place on the team. When asked what he attributed his success to, he responded, “The difference this year is I’m more relaxed. Before, I was tense, wondering if I’d be in the lineup or not. If I got in, I knew I had to produce.”21The season ended badly for the Astros. After battling the Giants through mid-August, the team, for the third year in a row, foundered in September, finishing third, six games behind the division-winning Giants. Though he was disappointed, Caminiti was satisfied with his play. Throughout the season he had been a solid part of the Astros lineup. Playing for the second worst hitting team in the National League, he finished with a respectable .255 batting average, comfortably above the .239 team average. He led the team in doubles, was third with 10 home runs and second with 72 RBIs. In the field he established himself as one of the outstanding third basemen in the league. By the end of season, he looked forward to being the Astros’ third baseman for years to come.

For the next five seasons Caminiti remained a Houston fixture at third base, where his acrobatic stops and rifle arm regularly dazzled patrons. He also became part a young team core. Craig Biggio was another of those central players between 1990 and 1994. Caminiti and Biggio had come up from Tucson together and shared similar struggles during their initial season. The two became lifelong friends. In 1991outfielder Steve Finley was acquired by the Astros as part of a trade with Baltimore. The same year Jeff Bagwell was brought up from the Eastern League. These four — Caminiti, Biggio, Finley, and Bagwell — became the nucleus of the team through the 1994 season. During the four seasons from 1991 through 1994 Caminiti hit between .253 (in 1991) and .294 (in 1992) while averaging 14 home runs and 73 RBIs. In 1994 he was selected to his first All-Star team. But only in the strike-shortened 1994 season was Houston a legitimate pennant contender.

Off the field Caminiti’s gregarious personality and Hollywood-handsome good looks made him a fan favorite. He was a regular at celebrity golf tournaments and offseason banquets.22 He was also a favorite among his teammates. He trained hard to develop his playing abilities, and frequently played through pain for his team. An unobtrusive enforcer, he was always ready, when appropriate, to defend teammates as well as quietly, but forcefully, rebuke players who were shirking their team responsibilities. His teammates thought enough of him that they elected him to be their representative during 1994 players union confrontation with ownership. His growing salary, steadily rising from $129,000 in 1989 to $4.6 million in 1995, further reflected his value to the team.23

The tensions between the players union and the owners continued throughout the winter of 1994-1995. Among the chief issues of debate was a salary cap. Anticipating the cap, Houston prepared to reduce its total salary costs by trading away several of its high-priced players. Caminiti was at the top of that list. On December 28, 1994, along with five of his teammates, he was traded to San Diego for six Padres players. The 12-player exchange was the fourth largest in the modern era. Caminiti was not happy about the deal. In addition to leaving his home, his teammates and friends, as well as the city he had come to love, he was going to a team with the worst record in the major leagues in 1994.

In most ways, San Diego turned out to be much better than Caminiti had anticipated. While with the Padres he won three consecutive Gold Glove Awards and a Silver Slugger Award, was unanimously voted the National League’s 1996 Most Valuable Player, and helped transform his new team into the 1998 National League pennant winner. But it was also in San Diego that Caminiti set the stage for his own demise.

At the time San Diego acquired Caminiti, the team’s new ownership had just embarked on a rebuilding process. Their new third baseman figured prominently in those efforts. The owners were gambling that Caminiti was on the verge of stardom, and, as an eight-year veteran, could provide leadership. Their gamble paid off. In his first year in San Diego, he produced career highs in batting average, home runs, RBIs, and doubles, and helped the Padres climb out of the National League West cellar. His new manager, Bruce Bochy, later described him as “the guts of the team. … He played with maniacal zeal that left those in his wake astounded.”24 He brought a new level of toughness, intensity, and commitment to the team. Along with Tony Gwynn and Steve Finley, Caminiti and the Padres began a journey that carried them to the World Series three years later.

As well as he played in 1995, Caminiti did even better the following year. Again he produced career highs in every significant offensive category. That year also saw Caminiti’s “tough guy” image grow to near-legendary proportions. Early in the season in a game against the Astros, Caminiti dived for a short flare into left field. Landing hard on his left elbow and shoulder, he tore his rotator cuff. “For the next six or seven days I couldn’t lift my arm,” he said. “I played for a month and a half in pure pain.”25 Through it all, his batting average remained comfortably above .300. Refusing to have season-ending surgery, Caminiti played almost the entire schedule with a severely torn rotator cuff.

Another chapter was added to the Caminiti legend in August. The Padres played a three-game series with the Mets in Monterey, Mexico. Midway through the series, Caminiti and several other players were stricken with food poisoning. Dehydrated, unable to retain food or liquids, and obviously weakened, Caminiti spent the morning of the final game on the clubhouse floor being treated intravenously. However, just minutes before game time, when he saw that he was not in the starting lineup, he confronted his manager and pleaded to start. Reluctantly manager Bochy penciled him in at third base. In his first trip to the plate Caminiti smashed a home run over the right-center-field fence. The next time up he duplicated the feat. After hobbling around the bases for a second time, he was given the rest of the day off. He spent the following two hours getting more IV treatments. In describing the sequence of events, a usually subdued Tony Gwynn marveled, “You had to see it to believe it. What we saw was not normal. It was a superhuman effort.”26 Other teammates confirmed Gwynn’s assessment.

What Gwynn and most others did not know was that Caminiti’s success that day and throughout much of 1996 had been significantly aided by steroids. Aware that other players had gotten through injuries using steroids and that steroids could be bought over the counter just a short drive south of San Diego in Tijuana, Mexico, Caminiti began experimenting. The immediate results were stunning. During the second half of the 1996 season he hit more home runs than he had previously hit in any full season. He finished with a batting average 24 points higher than ever before and drove in 36 more runs than ever before. His success immediately thrust him into the upper echelon of the baseball world, but it also began a tragic journey for Caminiti.

The 1997 season started slowly for the Padres’ new star. Still recuperating from shoulder surgery, in typical Caminiti fashion he was in the Opening Day lineup three months earlier than his doctor had advised. To compensate for the physical limitations and pain, he again resorted to steroids. “The thing is,” he said, “I didn’t do it to make me a better player. I did it because my body broke down.”27 This time he was more methodical about his usage. He found a physician who prescribed a “cycle” of injections. Though not producing as he had during his MVP season, Caminiti remained one of the league’s premier players, elected by the fans as the National League’s All-Star starting third baseman.

The following season, 1998, Caminiti’s production fell again as did his playing time. Over the winter, with the help of steroids, he had built himself up as never before. “I showed up at spring training as big as an ox.”28 Along the way, some of the hazards of steroid use began to plague Caminiti. Frequent hamstring and quadriceps strains, various ruptured tendons and ligaments, and torn muscles limited his time on the field for the rest of his baseball career. He was still an asset to the team, and helped the Padres make it to the 1998 World Series, but he was no longer the reliable force he had been since arriving in San Diego.

Caminiti became a free agent after the 1998 season. In what was described as a cost-cutting effort, the Padres chose not to negotiate a new contract with him. Instead, when the Astros offered him a two-year contract for $9.5 million, he agreed to return to Houston. He had reportedly been offered significantly more money by Detroit but instead, professing, “I think happiness is being with my family, my kids and my wife,” who had remained in Texas while he was playing for San Diego, he chose to return to the Astros.29

Back in Houston Caminiti, despite being surrounded by family, fell into old habits and fed new addictions. He had gone through alcohol rehabilitation during the 1994-95 offseason but had resumed his drinking habits long before returning to the Astros. Beginning in 1997 he also began carrying a “goody bag” packed with assorted pain-relief medications. In the Astros dugout their new third baseman’s pregame “meal” included a mixture of pills and powders that became known as a “Caminiti Cocktail.”30 More dangerously, he expanded his use of steroids. No longer relying on a physician for treatments, he developed his own steroid cycles. At some point he also began using cocaine after games to ease the depression and tensions associated with extensive use of steroids. Disregarding the apprehensions of his coaches and teammates, most notably his friend Craig Biggio, he became less concerned about concealing his medication routine. Despite it all, he performed well during his first season back in Houston. Playing fewer than half the games due to injuries, he pushed his batting average back up to .286 and drove in 56 runs.   

Caminiti struggled through two more seasons. The first 10 weeks of 2000 went well. He kept his batting average near .300 and by mid-June had hit 15 home runs. Then on June 16 he went on the disabled list with tendon damage in his right wrist. He finished the season still on the disabled list. After the second and final year of his Astros contract, he again became a free agent. In December 2000, the Texas Rangers signed him with hopes that he would provide veteran leadership and help the team escape the American League West cellar. Caminiti hoped that a fresh start in the American League would revive his career. Neither prospect was realized. Batting only .232, he went on the disabled list with a pulled hamstring in mid-June. On July 2, at his request, he was released. Three days later he was signed by Atlanta. His time with the Braves was no better than his time with the Rangers. In November he again became a free agent but this time there were no takers.

As difficult as his life in baseball had become, his life away from baseball was even more problematic. A Sports Illustrated interview in June 2002 added to Caminiti’s grief.  Speaking to writer Tom Verducci for what became a pivotal investigative report, Caminiti admitted that he had begun using steroids during his MVP year in 1996. He further estimated that approximately 50 percent of major leaguers were taking steroids. Coupled with earlier statements by Jose Canseco, the report, “Thoroughly Juiced: Confessions of a Former MVP,” elicited reactions from every corner of the baseball world. Eventually the responses included a congressional investigation that opened a new era of drug testing in professional baseball. For Caminiti the report, while applauded by some, brought scorn from many others. Mets sluggers Mike Piazza and Mo Vaughn, among numerous other players, questioned Caminiti’s motives.31 Phillies catcher Mike Lieberthal questioned his intelligence.32 Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Rosenbloom mockingly proposed, “Guess we have proof that ’roids help your muscles, not your neurotransmitters.”33 To an ESPN radio audience just a few days after the article’s release, Caminiti retracted parts of what he had said: “I never knew the interview was going to go like that. It just got real ugly.”34 However, Verducci’s reporting was too convincing and the effect of the article was too powerful for retractions.

Caminiti’s life continued to unravel after the Sports Illustrated article. To many in baseball he became a pariah. In December he and Nancy divorced. Efforts by family and friends to help had temporary success at best as he continued to swirl down ever more deeply into his addictions. Arrested in March 2001 for drug possession, he was sentenced to three years’ probation which included regular drug tests. Two years later, while still on probation, he tested positive for cocaine and was ordered into a Texas criminal drug-treatment program. In September 2004, after yet again violating probation, he was sentenced to 180 days in jail. Given credit for time already served, he was released from jail on October 5.

Ken Caminiti died five days later. After being released from jail in Houston, he traveled to New York City. On October 10, at a friend’s seedy Bronx apartment, he took one last hit, a speed ball of cocaine and heroin. He immediately suffered cardiac arrest, fell to the floor and died before medical attention could reach him. And so ended the spectacular but tragic life of Ken Caminiti.

In San Diego Caminiti is remembered as the greatest third baseman in Padres history. His friends and family remember him for his generosity, loyalty and dedication; but many others remember him for the role he played in exposing the insidious steroid subculture that had infiltrated professional baseball.

Sources

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

Notes

1 Email from Ken’s sister Carrie Van Solinge on January 17, 2019.

2 San Jose Sports Authority, at SJSA.org/2017-inductees.

3 “Caminiti Sparks Osceola to 8-4 Victory,” Orlando Sentinel, May 4, 1985: 24.

4 Frank Carroll, “Ken Caminiti’s Bat Propels Astros,” Orlando Sentinel April 28, 1985: 268.

5 Tim Hipps, “7 Astros Dot FLS East Roster,” Orlando Sentinel, July 7, 1985: 358.

6 Frank Carroll, “Astros Return to Play 3 Games with Islanders,” Orlando Sentinel, June 15, 1986: 257.

7 “Columbus Astros Fly to League Title,” Orlando Sentinel, September 14, 1986: 279.

8 Sam Carchidi, “Phils fall to Astros in Ninth, 2-1,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 17: 1987, 30.

9 “Young, Caminiti Lead Houston Past Phillies,” Arizona Daily Star (Tucson), July 17, 1987: 31.

10 Sam Carchidi.

11 “Intending to Contend,” Del Rio (Texas) News Herald, February 21, 1988: 39.

12 Reggie Roberts “Astros Have High Hopes for Andujar,” Austin American-Statesman, January 20, 1988: 39.

13 Ibid.

14 Michael A. Lutz, “Astros Looking to Regain Magic, Consistency of ’86,” Del Rio News Herald, February 21, 1988: 11.

15 “Sambito Cut, Caminiti Sent Down,” Galveston Daily News, April 1, 1988: 17.

16 Ron Somers, “Toros Begin Their Season Tomorrow Against Calgary,” Arizona Daily Star, April 7, 1988: 41.

17 Ron Somers, “Toros’ Sambito earns 1st win,” Arizona Daily Star, June 1, 1988: 47.

18 Larry McCarthy, “Howe’s Pitching Pains Likely to Go Away Soon,” Orlando Sentinel, February 26, 1989: C-10.

19 Bill Haisten, “It’s Final: Caminiti’s a Lock at 3rd; Boggs Trade ‘Dead,’ Galveston Daily News, March 24, 1989: 15.

20 Mike Forman, “Astros Banking on Caminiti,” Victoria (Texas) Advocate, March 25, 1989: 11.

21 “Caminiti Lifts Astros Over Reds,” Austin-American Statesman, April 12, 1989: 53.

22 In 1994 Caminiti did have a brief disagreement with Astros fans. He criticized them because they “come to see a Houston game but cheer for Atlanta.” The hard feelings were quickly rectified. “Home-team Blues,” Victoria Advocate, June 12, 1994: 21.

23 baseball-reference.com/players/c/caminke01.shtml.

24 Scott Miller, The Cautionary Tale of Ken Caminiti: The Steroid Era’s First Truth-Teller,” bleacherreport.com/articles/2224511-the-cautionary-tale-of-ken-caminiti-the-steroid-eras-first-truth-teller.

25 Tom Verducci, “Totally Juiced: Confessions of a Former MVP,” Sports Illustrated, June 2, 2002: 39.

26 Murray Chass, “Caminiti Becomes a Legend in His Time,” New York Times, March 9, 1997: S2.

27 Verducci: 39.

28 Verducci: 40.

29 “Caminiti Rejoins Astros,” Galveston Daily News, November 16, 1998: 15.

30 Scott Miller.

31 Jim Salisbury, “Steroid Use Exaggerated, Big Leaguers Say,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 30, 2002: E1, E4.

32 Salisbury: E-4.

33 Steve Rosenbloom, “Baseball’s Power Aid,” Chicago Tribune, June 2, 2002: Section 3, 10.

34 “Caminiti Tempers Steroid-Use Claims,” Chicago Tribune, May 31, 2002: 45.

While Chandler has reported on more Padres losses than wins, he was in the broadcasting booth for the team’s two World Series’ appearances, in 1984 and 1998. Plus, he was fortunate to have seen every one of Tony Gwynn’s major-league regular season and playoff games. Those games alone total 2,467.

His long-time broadcast partner and baseball Hall of Famer, Jerry Coleman, had this to say about Chandler: “The story of the San Diego Padres started in 1969, and Bob Chandler was there. In fact, he is the one person in San Diego most qualified to bring the entire Padres story to the surface.”1

Perhaps not too well known outside of San Diego, Chandler’s name, face, and soothing voice, are well-recognized around San Diego.

He is a 1961 graduate of San Diego State College (now called San Diego State University, SDSU) and began working in the San Diego television-radio market immediately. Chandler was first hired by San Diego’s Channel 8 (KFMB) as a newsreel cameraman/writer. It was his first real paying job at $105 a week. For a time he also served as the weekend sportscaster and for that he received another $10-$15 per show. The gig, though, was relatively short-lived as the station found it cheaper to have the weatherman also do the sports.

Also in 1961, broadcaster Al Couppee was hired by Channel 10 (KOGO) to be the first announcer for the San Diego Chargers football team. Two years later Chandler was hired to be Couppee’s assistant. He got into filming an outdoor sportsman show, writing scripts for Couppee and handling the weekend sports’ updates.

In 1968 another opportunity developed and Chandler was hired as Sports Director for Channel 39 (KCST), a new UHF (ultra-high frequency) television station. The station was able to obtain the contract to televise Chargers football preseason games and a few regular season games. Also, the station picked up SDSU’s intercollegiate athletic program which included football, basketball, baseball, rugby, and track and field. While the SDSU program presented a varied load, Chandler also covered professional golf tournaments, in addition to games of the San Diego Rockets (National Basketball Association), San Diego Gulls (Western Hockey League), and San Diego Padres (Pacific Coast League, PCL).2 As a young sportscaster Chandler had all he could handle doing the play-by-play for these various sports in the continually expanding San Diego market.

By virtue of his work covering the PCL Padres in the 1960s Chandler had developed an association with Eddie Leishman, the PCL Padres’ general manager.3 So Chandler spent a lot of time with Leishman in the spring of 1968 and they were paying close attention to National League deliberations regarding the expansion of major-league baseball. Both had expected news soon but neither were sure that San Diego would be one of the teams selected.

As told by Chandler, the “big day” was May 27, 1968. He was preparing his evening sportscast when he heard bells go off, literally. Channel 39’s offices had two wire machines, one for United Press International (UPI) and one for the Associated Press (AP). When a bulletin would come over the wire bells would go off. He recalls hearing the bells, “I remember it well. I ran over to the machines to see what was coming in, and there it was. ‘The National League had voted to expand to the cities of Montreal and San Diego.’”

During the team’s first three years, 1969-1971, Chandler was not part of the regular broadcasting team. However, in 1970 Channel 39 made a two-year deal to televise 18 games a year, nine games from Los Angeles, and nine from San Francisco. The limited number was a result of economics since in those days it was very expensive to rent the telephone company’s long lines to televise the games. On the radio side for those three years, the first announcing team for the Padres was comprised of Jerry Gross, Frank Sims, and baseball Hall of Famer Duke Snider.

In the fall of 1971 the Padres contacted Chandler and was told that Padres President Buzzie Bavasi wanted to interview him. Chandler had first met Bavasi in 1968 as the new National League San Diego Padres organization was beginning to take shape. Bavasi got to know Chandler better, as well, via the televised game broadcasts handled by Chandler.

At this same time, former New York Yankee player Jerry Coleman was being courted by the Padres for play-by-play duties. After his playing career ended Coleman handled play-by-play announcing for the Yankees, and later covered sports for the three major television networks.

It was on November 8, 1971, when the Padres announced in a joint press release the hiring of Chandler and Coleman.4 In the release Bavasi noted “that the new Padre announcers bring both experience and skill to their assignment.” He also said that “I believe they will compliment [sic] each other nicely. Jerry has both a sports and technical background, having played major league baseball and having served as a major league announcer. And Bob, who has lived and worked in the San Diego area for many years, fully appreciates the need for us to develop greater interest in the Padres through our radio and television broadcasts.”

Looking back years later, Chandler mused about the hiring process orchestrated by Bavasi: “I got to know Buzzie Bavasi very well. He was a legendary general manager in baseball, and he loved to tell stories. So he hires me to join Jerry Coleman as the broadcast team and I remember going to meet him and we talked for about 40 minutes and he finally says, ‘…okay, Bob, you’re hired. We’re going to hire you as one of the announcers. Come back next Wednesday and we’ll work out the deal.’”

Chandler remembered going into that meeting the next Wednesday with a bunch of things nervously going around in his mind. He characterized the meeting with Bavasi as rather typical and informal, talking about baseball. Then, all of a sudden, Bavasi stood up and said, “Great. We have a deal.” And Chandler recalled his surprise: “I said ‘Buzzie…’ I went, ‘what did I agree to?’ And Bavasi, the major deal-maker, listed all these things—the salary and all that stuff—I mean, I was so over-matched! Buzzie and I had a great relationship for a long time…I used to accuse him of being the reason players got agents!”

So, Chandler and Coleman partnered as a broadcasting team for that 1972 season and it initiated a partnership that would continue together through the following 31 years. Chandler recalled that “One of the first things Jerry told me when we started together was, ‘Bob, it’s a long season and a small booth. We really need to get along.’ And, we did!”

Most of the time Coleman would handle the play-by-play, typically doing seven innings while Chandler would do two. Chandler provided the “color” with statistics, anecdotes, and historical commentary. Chandler would also conduct the pre-game and a post-game interviews.

A number of announcers, other than Jerry Coleman, also partnered with Chandler over the years. Notable ones included: Dave Campbell, Mark Grant, Rick Monday, Rick Sutcliffe and, of course, Ted Leitner. Leitner, who joined the broadcast team in 1980 and continues into 2019, used to refer to Bob as the “B-C-P-C-“ (Bob Chandler, Personal Computer) because of his ability to remember facts, figures, and stories and tell them on the air.” 5

Beset by a Padres team that achieved a record of .500 or better 16 times in 50 years Chandler agreed that it is easier to announce for a winning team. However, he also said that he was always excited to be a major league baseball announcer and truly enjoyed the gig. He noted that many of the players and coaches became friends of his off-the-field. To this day, regular golfing buddies include: Roger Craig, Bobby Klaus, Bob Skinner, and Alan Trammell.

Still, Chandler admitted “It’s much harder to do broadcasts when the team is not winning. You know that your listeners aren’t hanging on every pitch and so you have to try to make it entertaining, telling stories and so forth. In the beginning I didn’t have a lot of stories.” He made up for any lack of stories with a stupendous memory and soothing voice tone that made for interesting commentary and relatable stories during the game. Many of these stories can be read in the 2006 book Chandler authored with local baseball historian Bill Swank titled Bob Chandler’s Tales from the San Diego Padres.

Chandler retired from the booth and full-time announcing after the 2003 season. By that time he worked for five different San Diego television stations, delivering regular evening sportscasts, interviews, and play-by-play broadcasts. On the radio-side he was a regular voice for the Padres for nearly two-thirds of the Padres’ first 50 years.

While no longer actively involved in broadcasting Chandler is routinely invited to offer commentary on Padres baseball, past as well as present. Ask him a question about the Padres, for instance, about a former player? Or, about a particular game? Or, about McNamara’s Band? Or, about Tony Gwynn’s batting average with Alan Wiggins on first base during the 1984 season? Or, about Ray Kroc’s rants at the home opener in April 1974? Or, about the number of pitches from one of Randy Jones’ quickest games pitched in 1976?

Or…well, you get the idea!

Notes

1 Bob Chandler with Bill Swank, Bob Chandler’s Tales from the San Diego Padres (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing L.L.C., 2006), “Foreword.”

2 The PCL Padres played in San Diego from 1936 through 1968 and were the predecessor to the major-league Padres.

3 Leishman was with the PCL Padres from 1960 through 1968, and then served as Vice President-General Manager with the major-league Padres until his passing in 1972.

4 Press Release, San Diego Padres, November 8, 1971.

5 Chandler, “Foreword.”

Born on April 9, 1946, in St. Louis, Nathan Colbert Jr. grew up in a predominantly African-American community on the city’s north side. His father, Nate Sr., was a former semipro Negro League catcher and occasional pitcher who instilled in Junior, his two brothers, and his three sisters an uncompromising work ethic and passion for sports. “I just loved baseball,” said Nate, whose fondest childhood memories included playing ball with his father and regularly seeing the Cardinals play.1 Young Nate enjoyed going to Sportsman’s Park, just about 10 minutes from his home, and marveled at his favorite players, among them Jackie Robinson, who once signed his glove, and Stan Musial. Nate was in the stands when Stan the Man belted five home runs in a doubleheader on May 2, 1954, a feat the youngster would duplicate some 18 years later.

Nate played baseball whenever he could, on nearby sandlots, and in the afternoons after attending Cole School. Nate Sr., who worked in a local mill, also coached baseball in a boys’ club and taught his son the fundamentals. “I was a little bigger than a lot of the kids,” Colbert told Wayne McBrayer of Padres360, “so baseball, it became easy to me.”2 At Charles H. Sumner High School, Nate dabbled in some football, but a knee injury convinced him to stay on the diamond. Tall and lithe, Nate seemingly glided in the outfield and on the basepaths and attracted major-league scouts who followed his progress in prep, summer, and local semipro leagues. According to Bruce Markusen, the New York Yankees were in hot pursuit and promised to double offers from any team;3 however, Colbert could only think of Cardinal red. Tracked by George Hasser, an area bird-dog scout for the Cardinals, Colbert was invited by Redbirds scouting director George Silvey to Busch Stadium (the official name of Sportsman’s Park since 1953) to hit a few balls for skipper Johnny Keane, who was impressed with the skinny kid’s power.4 Upon graduation in 1964, one year before the inauguration of the amateur draft, Colbert signed with the hometown team on scout Joe Monahan’s recommendation for a reported $20,000 bonus.

Colbert’s professional baseball career commenced just months later. The Cardinals assigned him to the Sarasota Rookie League, where the right-handed hitter split his time at first and in the outfield. His stint in the Redbirds organization was short. A fractured left hand in July ended his 1965 season with Cedar Rapids in the Class-A Midwest League.5 Colbert got some additional experience in the Florida Instructional League, but just weeks after that season concluded, he was selected by the Houston Astros in the Rule 5 Draft on November 29.

To call Colbert’s tenure with the Astros a disappointment is an understatement. Under Rule 5 stipulations, the Astros were required to keep him on their roster the entire season or risk losing him if they optioned him to the minors. The 20-year-old Colbert had just 504 minor-league at-bats and was completely unprepared to hit major-league pitching. After participating in the Astros spring training at Cocoa Beach, Florida, Colbert bided his time on skipper Grady Hatton’s bench. He made just 19 appearances (12 as a pinch-runner and 7 as a pinch-hitter) and did not play in the field, not even an inning. He went hitless, though he scored three times. “It was just a year lost as far as playing is concerned,” said Colbert bluntly.6 The highlight of Colbert’s season took place on July 27 when he married Carol Ann Allensworth, whom he had met while completing three weeks’ training in the Army National Guard in Oklahoma City.

Colbert worked the rust off his atrophied skills in another stint in the Florida Instructional League, then faced major leaguers in the Venezuelan League with Caracas. More than anything, the 6-foot-2, 200-pound Colbert needed at-bats, and was consequently assigned following another spring training with the Astros to the Amarillo Sonics in the Double-A Texas League. Colbert showcased his power and speed, pacing the circuit in home runs (28) and stolen bases (26). He was the league’s MVP, a unanimous All-Star, and was named to the Double-A Topps-National Association All-Star team. The young slugger was fully aware that he was still learning how to hit. “When I started, I didn’t know much, and swung hard. Now I don’t swing as hard, but hit the ball just as far,” he said in 1967. “I use my wrists and reflexes more now to give me power.”7

Assigned to the Triple-A Oklahoma City 89ers to start the 1968 season, Colbert was moved to center field to take advantage of his speed. A two-week call-up in July to the Astros proved disastrous (3-for-22). His first major-league hit was a single off fireballer Jim Maloney of the Cincinnati Reds. He was returned to the PCL, but broke his hand and played in just 92 games. He was healed enough for another two-week look-see with the Astros in September. The results weren’t much better than his first stint (5-for-31) and he was still homerless in the majors.

“You can destroy a man’s confidence,” said Colbert, recalling his struggles with the Astros. “[Manager] Harry Walker almost destroyed mine.”8 Walker was determined to mold Colbert into his own image, a spray hitter to all fields, and constantly tinkered with his swing. A natural pull hitter, Colbert was told to wait longer for the ball, and his timing suffered, as did his power. “I got so confused, I began to doubt myself. I thought I’d never find myself again. I was terrified. Here I was 22 years old and I was being told I couldn’t hit big-league ball.”9

Colbert’s stock had dropped so dramatically that the Astros made him available in the expansion draft. The San Diego Padres selected him with their 18th pick on October 14, 1968. “I had no way of checking to see if I had been drafted,” explained Colbert about the days before access to around-the-clock sports news via Internet and social media. “So, I stayed up and I kept calling the newspaper. I was in Oklahoma City. And they said, ‘Well, we’ve got nothing yet.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, come on.’ So, the next morning, [GM] Eddie Leishman from the Padres called me to welcome me. … And I just let out a yell because I wanted to go to the San Diego Padres.”10 Leishman, who had been GM of the PCL San Diego Padres in 1968, was well acquainted with Colbert (“Nate used to hurt us.”) and was convinced that he would blossom into a star if he had a chance to play.11

After playing with Estrellas in the Dominican Winter League, Colbert reported to the Padres camp in Yuma, Arizona, relishing the opportunity to reset his career. “[T]he first spring training was really a unique experience, because I was with 30 or more players, most of whom I did not know,” recalled Colbert.12 The spring facilities at Keegan Field on 24th Street in Yuma were primitive. A former youth baseball field in shabby condition, the entire infield and outfield needed to be leveled and the mound elevated to major-league standards. It also lacked basic amenities, such as bleachers, dugouts, showers, locker rooms, a press box, a PA system, and concession stands.13 “We showered in a city gym, in a recreation center,” recalled Colbert.14 The 23-year-old slugger probably wondered what he had gotten himself into, but noted that “we survived.” Padres players dressed and showered at the Kennedy Swimming Pool, while visiting players traveled across town to do the same in Municipal Stadium, the former spring home of the Baltimore Orioles, which was in even worse shape than Keegan.

Skipper Preston Gomez took a decidedly hands-off approach to Colbert’s swing and gave the youngster the freedom to rediscover his stroke. “Colbert has a quick bat,” said Gomez, “probably the quickest on the club.”15 Nonetheless, Colbert began the season as the backup first baseman to the Jolly Green Giant, 6-foot-7 Bill Davis. About two weeks into the season, Colbert took over for the slumping Davis and held down the first-base bag for the next five seasons. His breakout game had an air of revenge. On April 24 in the Astrodome, Colbert blasted his first career home run, a game-winning three-run shot in the eighth off Jack Billingham. The next day he whacked his first home run in San Diego Stadium, a solo shot off Reds fireballer Jim Maloney, and he clouted his third home run in as many days when he connected off the Reds’ Jim Merritt for a three-run dinger which also proved to be the game winner, in the eighth. Those contests inaugurated an eight-game stretch in which Colbert went 11-for-30, hit five home runs, and drove in 12 runs, becoming the Padres’ first star and fan favorite. Colbert was having the time of his life playing for the Padres in what he called “big, but beautiful” San Diego Stadium. “I kept saying, ‘It’s the big leagues. It’s the big leagues.’ You know, I know we don’t have a lot fans or a lot of money, but this is major league baseball. This is my goal.”16

He was also reaching some home-run milestones. In the first game of a twin bill on May 25, in front of 13,115 hometown fans, almost twice the Padres’ major-league-low 6,333 average, Colbert took the Chicago Cubs Don Nottebart deep for his first of six career grand slams. Six days later, against the Expos in Montreal, he belted two home runs in a game for the first of 14 times in his career and seemed destined for a berth on the All-Star squad. On June 11 he was batting .299 with 12 home runs and slugging .588 (fourth best in the NL), then reported to Oklahoma City for three weeks of service in the National Guard. A weekend pass enabled to him join the Padres for a four-game series in Houston, but Colbert didn’t rejoin the team permanently until June 30 and subsequently struggled mightily. In his next 25 games he batted just .180 with a sole home run in 100 at-bats. “My timing was off and I started to pull everything,” said Colbert.17 He rediscovered his stroke, slugging .516 from August 1 through the rest of the season to lead the offensively challenged team with 24 home runs, 9 triples, and 66 RBIs. The Padres finished with the worst record in baseball (52-110) and ranked last in majors in runs scored (averaging just 2.89 per game), batting average (.225), and on-base percentage (.285).

After another year of winter ball, earning all-league honors with Caguas in Puerto Rico, Colbert arrived at the Padres’ brand-new training facility in Yuma with heightened expectations. His spring-training performance foreshadowed his season: He knocked in 21 runs in 60 at-bats and hit a 500-foot home run that Oakland A’s coach Bobby Hofman called the longest he had ever seen.18 On Opening Day, the 24-year-old walloped a monstrous three-run blast off Phil Niekro in the Padres’ 8-3 victory against the Atlanta Braves. “If I stay healthy, I have a chance to hit 30,” said Colbert, who doubted he could reach the 35 mark his skipper Gomez predicted.19 The round-trippers kept coming. He whacked four in 17 at-bats in a three-day, four-game stretch on the road on May 6-8, including two in one game against the Phillies in the City of Brotherly Love. “[Colbert can] hit a ball as far as anyone,” gushed Gomez, who compared his slugger to the hardest hitters in the game, such as Willie McCovey and Willie Stargell. “The ball just jumps off his bat.”20 Colbert blasted his former team on May 15, reaching two more milestones, by cranking his first extra-inning and first-walk-off home run, a two-run blast in the 10th to give the Padres a 10-8 victory.

Despite Colbert’s success (he was tied with Hank Aaron, Dick Allen, and Tony Perez for the major-league lead with 16 home runs after hitting two against the San Francisco Giants in the first game of a twin bill on May 26), Colbert’s name barely registered on the national radar. He was even left off the All-Star ballot (fans were given the right to vote in 1970 for the first time since the Cincinnati Reds ballot-box-stuffing scandal in 1957). “I could be leading the league in home runs and runs batted in and hitting .300 and people wouldn’t know who I am,” Colbert complained.21 A 21-game homerless streak to begin June dropped him well off the NL lead, and his name further receded from national attention. After spending the All-Star break at home in San Diego, Colbert equaled his home-run output from the first half by belting 19 as the Padres kept losing, finishing with the league’s worst record (63-99). In a strange statistical anomaly, the Padres ranked third in the league in home runs (172), easily led the majors with 104 on the road, yet ranked 11th of 12 NL teams in scoring. Colbert (38-86-.259 and .509 slugging) formed with his roommate Cito Gaston (29-93-.318, .543) and Ollie Brown (23-89-.292 .489) one of the most potent trios in baseball. A free swinger, Colbert finished in the NL’s top nine in strikeouts in all six of his full seasons in the majors, including third in 1970 with 150 punchouts. On August 12, he became part of strikeout history when the St. Louis Cardinals Bob Gibson fanned him for the hurler’s 200th K of the season to become the first major-league pitcher to reach the 200-strikeout mark in eight seasons.

Considered among the toughest parks for home-run hitters, San Diego Stadium had a deep 420-foot center field, with 375-foot power alleys, all of which were made even more imposing by a 17-foot outfield wall. “Whitey Wietelmann, one of our coaches, drew an imaginary line on his scorebook on what the dimensions were in most of the other ballparks,” recalled Colbert. “And then he took where I hit every ball and he said every year routinely, I would hit 15 to 20 balls that would be off the walls, on the warning track in deep center, that would have been home runs in another ballpark.”22

Colbert achieved success despite cognitive degeneration of his vertebrae which caused chronic lower back pain throughout his baseball career. “I have trouble getting loose,” he explained, adding that he acclimated himself to the discomfort. “I feel tight a lot at the start of games and I try to compensate and wind up swinging at bad pitches. I’ll have this problem all my life.”23

Colbert’s ailing back limited his participation in spring training in 1971 and raised concerns about the long-term effectiveness of the 25-year-old. Nonetheless big Nate was ready when the season commenced and he slammed two home runs against the San Francisco Giants in his second game of the season. Four days later he victimized Don Sutton of the Los Angeles Dodgers for two home runs in his first two at-bats en route to six RBIs in the Padres’ 9-7 victory on April 11, leading sportswriter Ross Newhan of the Los Angeles Times to declare him “baseball’s best young slugger.”24 Shrugging off those lofty pronouncements, Colbert developed a reputation as an emotionally charged team player who vented his frustrations after his strikeouts, but also at Padres fans, whom he once described as “impatient” and chided them for the “empty seats” in San Diego Stadium.25 The club finished last in the majors in attendance in 1971 for the second time in three years, averaging 6,883 per game. “I just want the team to be recognized,” Colbert said. “If the team gets recognition, I will, too. Recognition is tough when you play for a last-place team.”26 The club extended its cellar-dwelling streak in the NL West to three years; however, Colbert earned a berth on the All-Star team (selected by skipper Sparky Anderson of the Reds) and struck out against the Baltimore Orioles’ Mike Cuellar in his only plate appearance. Suffering through severe bouts of back pain, Colbert saw his power numbers drop, though he still led the team in home runs (27), RBIs (84), and slugging (.462), while batting .264 for the lowest-scoring team in baseball (3.02 runs per game).

Colbert enjoyed a magical 1972 season even while the Padres finished in the NL West cellar yet again with the league’s lowest-scoring offense (3.19 runs per game). He arrived at spring training at a chiseled 215 pounds, having dropped about 25 pounds by “taking shots,” reported sportswriter Phil Collier.27 Eleven games into the season, delayed by 13 days because of the first players strike in major-league history, Don Zimmer replaced Gomez as skipper. Soon thereafter Colbert commenced one of his patented tears by hitting a home run and driving in a pair of runs on May 5 against the Mets, who had tried to pry the slugger away from the lowly Padres in the offseason. Eight days later, Colbert concluded a seven-game stretch on the road with five home runs and 12 RBIs and was leading the majors with nine round-trippers. He began one of the worst slumps of his career the next day, managing just 14 hits in his next 107 at-bats as his averaged plummeted to .194. A surge in July (8 home runs and 19 RBIs in 20 games) catapulted Colbert back among the league leaders in those categories and garnered him another berth on the NL All-Star squad. In the bottom of the 10th, Colbert, pinch-hitting for pitcher Tug McGraw, drew a walk off Dave McNally. Two batters later he scored the dramatic winning run in his home-away-from home, Atlanta Stadium, on Joe Morgan’s single. After gaining some national recognition with that game-deciding tally, Colbert continued his July hot streak by homering in his first game after the All-Star Game, and then adding two more and knocking in all three Padres runs in a loss to the Astros at the Astrodome, setting up his fateful afternoon against the Braves in Atlanta on August 1.

Ever since Colbert was a minor leaguer with Amarillo, in 1967, he had a routine when he stepped into the batter’s box. “As I walk up to the plate,” he said, “I automatically touch my helmet. It gets me thinking about what I want to hit. Then I draw a Roman numeral seven in the dirt, backwards, with the end of the bat. I don’t know why I do it. It just do it. It clears my mind.”28 Leading the majors with 25 round-trippers, Colbert wielded his 35-inch, 36-ounce bat to go 4-for-5, belting two homers and driving in five runs in the Padres’ 9-0 laugher in the first game. Colbert recalled that he had felt exceptionally tired when the club arrived in Atlanta from Houston late the night before. “I didn’t sleep well,” he said. “I knew there was no way I could play both games. My back hurt, I felt down.”29 After his performance in the first game, there was no question he’d back in the field in the nightcap. He torched three different Braves hurlers to cap the best game of his life, clubbing three home runs for the first and only time and knocking in a career-high eight runs in the Padres’ 11-7 victory for the twin-bill sweep. Colbert’s five home runs tied Musial’s record for the most in a doubleheader and his 13 RBIs set a new record, breaking the mark of 11, held jointly by Earl Averill (1930), Jim Tabor (1939), and Boog Powell (1966). Colbert’s 22 total bases broke Musial’s record of 21. Given the Padres’ lack of home-run threats (Leron Lee was the only other player to have double-digit round-trippers that season with 12), it’s a wonder that opposing pitchers even threw to Colbert. He finished the season by tying his own club record with 38 home runs (finishing in second place in the majors, two behind Johnny Bench). Colbert’s 111 runs batted in set an intriguing major-league record, which still stood as of 2018, and might be among the baseball records least likely to be broken. His RBI total accounted for 22.75 percent of all the Padres’ runs, breaking the mark set by the Boston Braves’ Wally Berger (130 RBIs, 22.61 percent) in 1930.30

No one could have imagined that Colbert would go from one of the game’s most feared sluggers in 1972 to out of baseball four years later at the age of 30. The initial signs of Colbert’s alarming decline came in the first three months of the 1973 season, when he managed just seven home runs through June. A hot streak to start July (18 hits in 36 at-bats in nine games) helped salvage his season and earned him another berth on the All-Star squad. (He fouled out in his only appearance.) Once again the biggest offensive threat on the NL’s worst team and the lowest-scoring (3.38 runs per game) club in the majors, Colbert posted career bests in batting average (.270) and on-base-percentage (.343), though he slipped to 22 home runs and 80 runs batted in.

In his final three campaigns (1974-1976), Colbert batted an anemic .186 with a .346 slugging percentage and hit only 24 home runs. After three consecutive All-Star Game appearances at first base, Colbert was moved by the Padres to left field in 1974 to accommodate the acquisition of Willie McCovey. Colbert never acclimated himself to the new position, struggled at the plate, drew the ire of the fans, and was ultimately benched by skipper John McNamara. In the offseason he was traded to the Detroit Tigers. A short, disastrous stint in the Motor City was followed by a similar one with the Montreal Expos, who released him on June 2, 1976. Signed by the Oakland A’s, Colbert attempted to revive his career in the minors with the Tucson Toros of the Pacific Coast League. He was called up by the A’s in September and went hitless in two games. Granted free agency on November 1, 1976, Colbert was not selected in the inaugural free-agent re-entry draft, effectively ending his career. He participated in the Toronto Blue Jays spring training in 1977, but was jettisoned well before camp ended.

The Padres’ first star and multiple All-Star, Colbert finished his career with 173 home runs, 520 RBIs, and a .243 batting average. As of 2018, he still held the Padres’ career record for home runs (163) and ranked among the club’s top 10 in numerous offensive categories.

Like many ballplayers, Colbert’s transition into life after baseball was initially rocky. After holding down a few odd jobs and divorcing in 1979, Colbert married Kathrien (Kasey) Louis Barlow and became an ordained minister. He also gradually found his way back to the Padres, serving as an instructor during spring training and later as hitting coach for several seasons with the Riverside Red Wave in the Class-A California League. In October 1990, the day Colbert lost his job with the Padres, he was also indicted on 12 felony counts of fraudulent loan applications.31 He eventually pleaded guilty to one count and served a six-month sentence in Lompoc, a medium-security penitentiary in California.32 After his incarceration, Nate rededicated his life to his ministry and operated various baseball schools and camps in which youngsters learned about the sports and Christian values. He managed in two short-season independent leagues (Western Baseball League and Big South League) in 1995 and 1996, though he preferred to spend his time working with disadvantaged youths and combining his two passions, baseball and ministry. In 1999 Colbert, 1976 Cy Young Award winner Randy Jones, and former Padres owner Ray Kroc were the inaugural inductees into the Padres Hall of Fame, founded in 1999 on the team’s 30th anniversary. Colbert continued his ministry work into the new millennium. As of 2018, he lived in the San Diego area and occasionally made appearances with the Padres.

“I never had a bad day in baseball,” said the soft-spoken Colbert decades after retiring. “It was, I woke up, I wanted to go to the ballpark. I liked playing every day. I didn’t need an offday. I played with a bad back, broken toe, fractured wrist, and concussion. I played. I just played, because I figured I’m going to hurt anyway, so I might as well play.”33

Colbert died on January 5, 2023 at the age of 76.

Last revised: Januar6, 2023 (ghw)

This biography appeared in “Time for Expansion Baseball” (SABR, 2018), edited by Maxwell Kates and Bill Nowlin.

Sources

In addition to the sources noted in this biography, the author also accessed Colbert’s player file and player questionnaire from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, the SABR Minor Leagues Database, accessed online at Baseball-Reference.com, and The Sporting News archive via Paper of Record.

Notes

1 “The Padres First Star — #17 –Nate Colbert,” Padres360, August 21, 2014. https://padres360.com/2014/08/21/the-padres-first-star-17-nate-colbert/.

2 Ibid.

3 Bruce Markusen, “#Card Corner: 1969 Topps Nate Colbert,” baseballhall.org. https://baseballhall.org/discover-more/stories/card-corner/nate-colbert.

4 Arnold Hano, “Nate Colbert Is Definitely Accident Prone,” Sport Magazine, May 1973: 50. Neal Russo, “Colbert’s Brother Says Father Inspired Nate,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 8, 1971: 29.

5 Jim Sims, “Shaking Foes Hear the High Sonic Boom — It’s in Colbert’s Bat,” The Sporting News, June 3, 1967: 39.

6 John Wilson, “Astros See Bright Future for Bench Kid, Colbert,” The Sporting News, November 26, 1966: 37.

7 Sims.

8 Hano.

9 Hano.

10 Padres360.

11 Paul Cour, ‘Big Colbert Booster: G.M. Leishman,” The Sporting News, June 27, 1970: 11.

12 Padres360.

13 Sarah Wisdom, “San Diego Padres in Yuma — Spring Training 1969,” Yuma County District Library, February 8, 2016. https://yumalibrary.org/san-diego-padres-in-yuma-spring-training-1969/.

14 Padres360.

15 Paul Cour, “Colbert New Power Man for Padres,” The Sporting News, May 17, 1969: 18.

16 Padres360.

17 Paul Cour, “Army Chilled Nate’s Bat,” The Sporting News, October 18, 1969: 35.

18 Paul Cour, “Corkins Winning Battle With Batters and Ulcers,” The Sporting News, April 18, 1970: 28.

19 Paul Cour, “New Padres ‘Snake’ Brings Foes to Knees,” The Sporting News, April 25, 1970: 20.

20 Paul Cour, “Colbert’s Cannon Shots Jolt Padre Foes,” The Sporting News, May 9, 1970: 10.

21 Paul Cour, “Herby Proves Answer to Padre Prayers,” The Sporting News, June 20, 1970: 21.

22 Padres360.

23 Allen Lewis, “Colbert Slams 2 Homers as Padres Best Phils, 8-2,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 8, 1970: 25.

24 Ross Newhan, “Nate Colbert: Name to Remember,” Los Angeles Times, April 12, 1971: 1.

25 Paul Cour, “Barton Relaxes, Starts Belting the Ball,” The Sporting News, May 22, 1971: 16.

26 Newhan.

27 Phil Collier, “Fewer Pounds Lift Colbert’s Stock as Pounder,” The Sporting News, May 27, 1972: 23.

28 Hano.

29 Ibid.

30 Bob Carroll, “Nate Colbert’s Unknown RBI Record,” The National Pastime (2014 reissue), 1982. SABR.

31 Michael Granberry, “Ex-Padre Slugger Nate Colbert Indicted,” Los Angeles Times, October 24, 1990: B2.

32 Alan Abrahamson, “Colbert Pleads Guilty,” Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1991: C9.

33 Padres360.

Altogether Coleman spent nearly five years in the Marines and sandwiched in a nine-year big-league career with the Yankees that was plagued by injuries around his service in Korea. When healthy he was a fine ballplayer, graceful and acrobatic at second base and a dangerous slash hitter.3 He was the Associated Press American League Rookie of the Year in 1949 but his best year was 1950, when he hit .287 and was named the MVP of the World Series.4 After retiring from his playing career at the age of 33, Coleman went on to become a Hall of Fame broadcaster, first for the Yankees and then for more than 40 years for the San Diego Padres.

Gerald Francis Coleman was born on September 14, 1924, in San Jose, California, the second of two children of the former Pearl Beaudoin and Gerald Griffin Coleman. His sister, Rosemarie, was born two years earlier. Although the children were born in San Jose, the family lived in San Francisco. Their father was a backup catcher in the Pacific Coast League for a couple of years and continued to play semipro baseball while working as a bank teller.5

But as Coleman related in his memoirs, his and his sister’s childhoods were anything but idyllic. Their father had a drinking problem and was verbally and physically abusive. Their mother left him when Jerry was about 8 years old, taking the children with her. Shortly thereafter, Jerry’s father shot his estranged wife three or four times as she came out of a dance. Pearl was seriously injured and was in the hospital for about nine months as her children went to live with relatives and her husband left town. Her husband was apparently never prosecuted, although the shooting made front-page news.6

Jerry and his sister were reunited with their mother when she finally got out of the hospital. Pearl had permanent injuries; her left elbow would not bend and for the rest of her life she had to wear a brace on her left leg to be able to walk. She was unable to work and with two children was forced to go on welfare. Meanwhile, Jerry’s father moved back to San Francisco after a couple of years. Pearl had divorced him in the interval, but he had gotten a steady job with the post office and so she actually remarried him so that he would provide for the family. Fortunately for Jerry and his sister, their father worked the 4 P.M.-to-midnight shift so they seldom saw him.7

As Jerry grew up he began to play a lot of sandlot baseball in Golden Gate Park. He was also a good basketball player and his athletic prowess got him admitted to the prestigious Lowell High School in San Francisco.8 There he played basketball and baseball and as a senior made All-City in the former sport, setting a city single-game scoring record with 23 points against Commerce High on March 8, 1942.9 While in high school he began to play for the Keneally Yankees, the premier semipro baseball team in the Bay Area.10 There his teammates included future New York Yankees teammates Bobby Brown and Charlie Silvera as well as future major leaguers Bill Wight and Dino Restelli.11

During Coleman’s senior year in high school, the Brooklyn Dodgers offered him a $2,500 bonus to sign after a tryout camp, but Jerry’s mother wanted him to go to college, so he accepted a combined basketball/baseball scholarship to USC.12

December 7, 1941, right in the middle of Coleman’s senior year, changed all that. In March he heard a presentation at his high school about the Navy’s V-5 flight-training program from two naval aviators and immediately decided that he wanted to become a Navy fighter pilot. Although he graduated from high school in June 1942, he would not turn 18 until that September. Joe Devine, a Yankees scout who had followed him during his high-school years and who had recruited him to play for the Keneally Yankees, offered him $2,800 to sign with the Yankees organization and Coleman accepted since he was not yet old enough to enlist.

The Yankees assigned him to Wellsville, New York, of the Class D PONY (Pennsylvania, Ontario, New York) League, where two of his teammates were CharlieSilvera and Bob Cherry, both of whom had also been teammates in the San Francisco sandlots. Hampered initially by a cut finger from an uncovered fan, Coleman struck out his first six times at bat. Eventually he found his swing and batted .304 for the season in 83 games and 289 at-bats while shifting between shortstop and third base. A Wellsville groundskeeper worked with him before games to develop a hit-and-run stroke that he used his entire career. Although Coleman didn’t know who he was, he turned out to be Chief Bender, one of the greatest pitchers of the early twentieth century.13 

When the season ended Coleman returned to San Francisco and was accepted into the Navy’s V-5 flight training program. He was first assigned to train at Adams State College in Alamosa, Colorado, where he first soloed. He subsequently trained at St. Mary’s University in California; Olathe, Kansas; and Corpus Christi, Texas, where he decided to become a Marine pilot. Coleman was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps on April 1, 1944.14 From there he was assigned to Jacksonville, Florida, where he learned to fly the SBD, also known as the Dauntless dive bomber. He wanted to fly dive bombers because they had the potential to sink aircraft carriers.15

After short stints in Cherry Point, North Carolina, and the Miramar Naval Air Station in California, Coleman was sent to Guadalcanal in a troopship on which he joined a squadron known as the Torrid Turtles.16 Guadalcanal was by then a staging area and Coleman flew raids from Green Island to the Solomon Islands. Later he transferred to the Philippines, where he flew raids to Luzon and other Japanese-held strongholds. While there he was able to play a little baseball and basketball during down times.

Coleman was sent back to San Francisco in July 1945 after flying 57 combat missions, because he was qualified to fly off aircraft carriers. After a leave, he was to be assigned to an aircraft carrier to prepare for the invasion of the Japanese mainland. But the Japanese surrendered in August, so Coleman was reassigned to Cherry Point, North Carolina, before his discharge in January 1946.17

After missing three seasons because of his war duty, Coleman, still only 21 years old, returned to professional baseball for the 1946 season. The Yankees promoted him to the Binghamton Triplets in the Eastern League where he played under the legendary Lefty Gomez. There he batted a solid .275 in 134 games and 487 at-bats, earning a brief late-season call-up to the Kansas City Blues in the American Association. Shortly after the season, Coleman married Louise Leighton, who had also graduated from Lowell High in San Francisco. The couple had two children, Diane and Jerry Jr., before divorcing in 1980.18

Coleman stuck with Kansas City in 1947 and batted .278 in over 500 plate appearances while playing shortstop and third base under manager Billy Meyer.19 That performance earned him an invitation to the Yankees’ 1948 spring training, where he was the last man cut by New York manager Bucky Harris.20 The Yankees sent him to the Newark Bears of the International League to learn how to play second base as a potential replacement for George “Snuffy” Stirnweiss on the parent club.21 He ended up playing a lot of shortstop and third base as well and saw his average slip to .251 in 562 plate appearances.

Even so, the Yankees called Coleman up for the last couple of weeks of the season, although he did not appear in a game. The time he spent on the bench proved beneficial, however, because he quickly figured out that as a 160-pound right-handed hitter, he was not going to be able to hit home runs in Yankee Stadium. Bill Skiff, his manager with Newark, had urged him to learn to bunt and to exercise better bat control. And with the Yankees Coleman noticed that his old semipro teammate Bobby Brown choked up on the bat and had much better bat control than he did, so he decided to follow suit.22

Coleman had forced himself to learn to smoke when he was overseas but Skiff told him that with his slight build, smoking was sapping his strength. Coleman related in his memoir that he quit immediately and never smoked another cigarette.23

He made the Yankees out of spring training in 1949 as a 24-year-old rookie, set to back up Stirnweiss at second base. When Stirnweiss got spiked on Opening Day, Coleman found himself starting at second and leading off the second day of the season in Yankee Stadium against the Washington Senators. The first ball hit to him went right between his legs for an error, but, after a popup, he started a double play when Buddy Lewis  hit a one-hopper to him. 24 Coleman grounded out to shortstop Sam Dente to first baseman Eddie Robinson in his first at-bat, leading off the bottom of the first against Paul Calvert, and went 0-for-4 on the day on four groundouts as the Yankees won 3-0. He got his first big-league hit leading off the next day, singling to left field off Forrest Thompson in another Yankees win.

With his first hit out of the way, Coleman went off on a hot streak and on April 26, his seventh game, had a 4-for-4 day against the Philadelphia Athletics, including his first major-league home run, off Alex Kellner, a two-run shot to left in the eighth inning that won the game for the Yankees, 5-4.25 That game increased his batting average to .417. Yankees coach Frankie Crosetti worked with Coleman on the hit-and-run, bunting, and bat control and he hovered around .300 for much of the season, although he was out at one stretch because of a sinus condition.26 Coleman finished his rookie season with a .275 batting average in 128 games and 523 plate appearances. He led American League second basemen in fielding percentage and teamed with shortstop Phil Rizzuto to quickly become the top keystone combo in the league.

The 1949 pennant race went down to the final game of the season with the Yankees and Red Sox tied for the league lead and playing at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees led 1-0 heading into the bottom of the eighth when Tommy Henrich’s leadoff home run off Mel Parnell made it 2-0. The Yankees then loaded the bases against Tex Hughson with two out, which brought Coleman to the plate. He fought off a high inside fastball and hit it on the trademark just beyond the reach of second baseman Bobby Doerr and hard-charging right fielder Al Zarilla inside the line for a bases-clearing double to make the score 5-0. The drama wasn’t over, however, as the Red Sox rallied for three runs before Vic Raschi was able to retire the side and secure the pennant.27

The Yankees went on to defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series in five games, with Coleman playing all five and batting .250 with three doubles and four runs batted in. After the season he was named the American League Rookie of the Year by the Associated Press.

For many years Coleman was apologetic about his dying swan double28 against the Red Sox until he ran into former Yankees manager Joe McCarthy at a banquet. “You swung at it, didn’t you?” McCarthy said, meaning that he put the ball in play and didn’t strike out.29 Many years later, Coleman visited Ted Williams in the hospital in San Diego. Williams was recovering from a serious stroke and had trouble speaking. But the first thing he said when he saw Coleman enter his hospital room was, “That f—–g hit you got,” a very clear reference to Coleman’s bloop double some 40 years before.30

Coleman had his career year in the 1950 season that followed. He got off to another blazing start and was still batting above .290 when he was named to the American League All-Star team for the midsummer classic. For the season he played in all but one game and batted .287 with a career-high 69 RBIs. The Yankees won their second straight pennant and then swept the Philadelphia Phillies, known as the Whiz Kids because of their youth, in four straight low-scoring games in the World Series. Coleman continued his timely postseason hitting, driving in Bobby Brown with a fourth-inning fly ball for the only run of a Game One 1-0 Yankees victory. Coleman had three hits in Game Three, including a walk-off single to left-center off Russ Meyer that fell between Richie Ashburn and Jack Mayo and scored Gene Woodling with the winning run in a 3-2 win. For his efforts, Coleman was named  the MVP of the Series. The Yankees scored only 11 runs in the Series, but Coleman knocked in three of them, including two game-winners.

With the Korean Conflict going full tilt, Coleman knew that he was subject to recall by the Marines. After World War II, officers were not discharged but simply put on reserve or inactive status, meaning that they could be recalled to active duty. And Coleman realized that it was much more efficient for the military to recall trained fighter pilots than to train new ones.31

Uncle Sam did not call Coleman that winter and he was able to play the entire 1951 season, batting .249 in 121 games, as rookies Gil McDougald and Billy Martin pushed for playing time on the infield. The Yankees won their third consecutive pennant, by five games over the Cleveland Indians. During the World Series, won by the Yankees over the New York Giants in six games, Coleman shared second base with McDougald and went 2-for-8.

After the season, Coleman embarked on a two-month tour of US military bases in Europe that was organized by the commissioner’s office. He was joined by Stan Musial, Jim Konstanty, Frankie Frisch, Charlie Grimm, Elmer Valo, Steve O’Neill, Dizzy Trout, and two umpires. He knew his recall by the Marines was imminent, but he did manage to play the first two weeks of the 1952 season and appear on the Ed Sullivan Show before reporting for duty at the Los Alamitos Naval Air Station in early May. In 11 games before his recall, he batted .405 in 47 plate appearances.32

Once he regained his flying skills at Los Alamitos, Coleman was transferred to the El Toro Marine Station, also in California, to learn to fly Corsair attack planes.33 He went into action in Korea in late January 1953. Over the next four months Coleman flew 63 combat missions, had two near-death experiences, and saw Max Harper, his tentmate and close friend, shot down and killed by antiaircraft fire right in front of him.34 The physical and emotional toll of those experiences was enough to get Coleman grounded and he finished his tour of duty performing intelligence work from the front of the DMZ.35 

Coleman was discharged in time to return to the Yankees by mid-September of 1953 as his team was on its way to its fifth consecutive pennant and world championship.36 Coleman made eight mostly token appearances and was not on the World Series roster.37 He was ready for spring training in 1954 but found that the pressure and fatigue he had experienced in Korea had affected his depth perception and thus his batting eye.38 Although still only 29 years old, Coleman struggled the entire season and batted only .217 in 107 games.

The 1955 season was even worse for Coleman, although he became the player representative for the Yankees in spring training. In the first week of the season, he was caught in a rundown between third base and home and tried to plow over Red Sox shortstop Owen Friend in front of the plate. Friend dodged and Coleman landed on his left shoulder instead, shattering it. Surgery would have meant missing the rest of the year, so Dr. Sidney Gaynor, the Yankees’ orthopedist, manipulated the bones back in place and put a large plaster cast over his left shoulder and arm to immobilize it.39

Coleman returned to action on July 19, but in his first game back was beaned in Comiskey Park by Harry Byrd, a White Sox reliever. Fortunately, Coleman was wearing a batting helmet, still not mandatory in 1955, but he still suffered a serious concussion that landed him in the hospital for two days and kept him out of the lineup for over a week.40 For the season, he appeared in only 43 games, mostly at shortstop and third base, and hit .229 in 112 plate appearances. The Yankees won the AL pennant and then lost the World Series in seven games to the Brooklyn Dodgers, their longtime rival. Coleman got into three games as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement, going 0-for-3 at the plate.

Almost immediately after the season, the Yankees embarked on a six-week tour of Hawaii, Japan, and the Philippines, playing exhibition games against local competition. When they played a game in Hiroshima, they were among the first group of Americans to visit there since World War II.

Although Coleman had the reputation of being a very smart, heady ballplayer, he occasionally supplied some comic relief. His Yankees teammate Eddie Robinson remembered the first time southpaw pitcher Bill Wight started a game for the Baltimore Orioles against the Yankees in Yankee Stadium after being out of the American League for a while. Coleman had played with Wight in the sandlots in San Francisco and before the game went around telling his teammates that Wight had a great pickoff move. He said, “You’ve got to be very careful. If you just take your foot off the base, he’ll pick you off.” Coleman then got on first base in his first at-bat and Wight promptly picked him off.41

Coleman was among several interchangeable infielders in 1956 for manager Casey Stengel and shared time at second base, third base, and shortstop with Billy Martin, Gil McDougald, and Andy Carey after Phil Rizzuto was released. He batted .257 in 80 games and 203 plate appearances as the Yankees won their seventh American League pennant in eight years. They went on to reclaim the world championship in seven games against the Dodgers but Coleman played in only two of those.

The following year, 1957, would be Coleman’s last as a player. He appeared in 72 games, mostly in a utility role, and batted a solid .268 in 180 plate appearances. The Yankees comfortably won their eighth pennant in nine years by eight games over the Chicago White Sox. This time they faced the Milwaukee Braves in the World Series and lost in seven games as former Yankees farmhand Lew Burdette won three games and pitched two shutouts against his former organization. Coleman started all seven games at second base and batted .364 for the Series, the highest on the team. He singled against Burdette in the ninth inning of Game Seven, in what was the last at-bat of his career.

Coleman’s lifetime batting average for nine big-league seasons is .263 with a .340 on-base percentage. Although he hit only 16 home runs in his career, he struck out only 218 times in 2,415 plate appearances. Casey Stengel, never one to lavish praise, said of Coleman, “Best man I ever saw on a double play. Once I seen him make a throw while standing on his head. He just goes ‘Whish!’ and he’s got the feller at first.”42 He became so proficient at the double play that “it almost seemed the ball would ricochet in and out of his glove without actually touching it.” Overall, he played second base “with grace and style.”43

Although Coleman’s playing career was over at the age of 33, his baseball journey was just beginning. Even with his great World Series in 1957, Coleman understood that he was headed for a backup role to incoming second baseman Bobby Richardson and was afraid of being traded and having to uproot his family.44 Thus, when Yankees General Manager George Weiss offered him a job as director of player personnel, Coleman jumped at it. His responsibility was to work with the Yankees’ scouts and provide players for all the Yankees farm teams except their top team in Richmond, Virginia.45

Coleman aspired to eventually become the general manager of a big-league team, but his travel as personnel director had him away from home the majority of the time and was difficult because of his young family.46 In 1960 he left to go to work in promotions and marketing for the Van Heusen Shirt Company, a position he obtained at the behest of his friend Howard Cosell.47 He had been offered a broadcasting job with CBS Television by Bill MacPhail right after he retired as a player, but he turned it down because he had just taken the front-office job with the Yankees.48

But in 1960 MacPhail again offered Coleman the opportunity to get into broadcasting by conducting pregame interviews on CBS’s Game of the Week and doing occasional game broadcasts when Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese, the regular broadcasters, were not available. Since the CBS games were only on the weekends, he was able to keep his position with Van Heusen. He was completely ill-prepared for the job49 and recalled that his first pregame interview was with future Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst who saved him from disaster by talking nonstop for five minutes or so after Coleman asked, “How’s it going, Red?”50

Coleman’s inexperience also showed early on when he was interviewing Washington Senators manager Cookie Lavagetto during a pregame show. The National Anthem began and Coleman, unaided by his director, continued with the interview, thinking that perhaps the audience could not hear the anthem. Although CBS received a number of letters in protest, as Coleman recalled, “My military background saved me.”51

He must have improved rapidly because in 1963, after his third year with CBS, Ballantine Beer, which sponsored the Yankees telecasts, invited Coleman to join the Yankees broadcast team. He accepted, resigned from Van Heusen and CBS, and joined the Yankees for spring training in March. He was the newest member of the Yankees legendary broadcast team of Red Barber, Mel Allen, and Phil Rizzuto, his old keystone partner.52 The first season he broadcast only road games because Barber was not traveling and typically would broadcast half the home games on radio and half on television.53 Barber took Coleman under his wing and became a mentor, for example telling him not to guess on the air but to make sure what he said was “right.”54

Coleman broadcast the Yankees games for seven years and worked with Joe Garagiola after the team fired  Barber. During that period, in 1967 he traveled to Vietnam to visit troops with Joe DiMaggio, Pete Rose, and Tony Conigliaro.55 By 1970 his wife very much wanted to move back to the West Coast and Coleman hoped to get a job broadcasting for the expansion San Diego Padres. The team did not have an opening and so Coleman took a sports broadcasting job with KTLA-TV in Los Angeles.56 There he alternated doing the nightly sports news with Tom Harmon, the former Heisman Trophy winner at Michigan, who was also a decorated World War II pilot.

Howard Cosell helped Coleman also get a job doing weekend sports shorts for the ABC radio network. Then, in 1972, Buzzie Bavasi, the Padres’ president, offered Coleman a broadcasting job and he snapped it up.57 It was a job he held, with the exception of one year, until he died 42 years later. In the mid-1970s he also began broadcasting CBS Radio’s Game of the Week and did so for 22 years.

That exception was 1980, the year Coleman served as manager of the Padres. He and Bob Fontaine, the Padres general manager, had grown up together. After the Padres finished 68-93 in 1979, Fontaine persuaded Coleman to succeed Roger Craig as manager. Coleman received a three-year contract for a total of $200,000 with the understanding that he could return to the broadcast booth if the managing stint did not work out.58 Unhappily for all concerned, it did not. The club started the season with a promising 22-19 record but then went into a nosedive. The club owner fired Bob Fontaine shortly before the All-Star break and replaced him with Jack McKeon, who had been the assistant general manager. Although the everyday lineup featured Dave Winfield and Ozzie Smith and had great team speed with three players stealing 50 or more bases, the club struggled getting on base. The Padres also had Rollie Fingers in the bullpen, but the staff was overall mediocre. The team finished last in its division with a 73-89 record, 2½ games behind the fifth-place Giants, and, during the final week of the season, Coleman was told that he would not be coming back as manager.59

After his season as manager, Coleman did return to the broadcast booth with the Padres. He also remarried in October 1981, marrying the former Maggie Hay. He was 57 and she was 31 and the couple had a daughter named Chelsea in 1985.60 Coleman gravitated to broadcasting mostly on radio because he enjoyed describing the action for the fans. He juggled broadcasting the Saturday Game of the Week on CBS radio with Padres games until 1997, taking red-eyes and early-morning flights to get back for Sunday Padres games.61

Over the years Coleman became so popular that he was almost an iconic figure in San Diego. He became known as “The Colonel” on radio broadcasts and around Petco Park since he had retired from the Marines as a lieutenant colonel. Broadcasting highlights were when the Padres went to the World Series in 1984 and 1998.62 He sometimes remarked, however, that he, because of the Padres habitually weak teams, had broadcast more losing games than anyone in history.63

Coleman became known for his “rich and intimate” but concise delivery64 and developed two trademark calls with the Padres. When a Padres player made a great defensive play, Coleman would say, “Hang a star on that one, baby!” During home games, Coleman would then hang a two-foot-wide gold star out the broadcast booth on a broomstick. Radio station KFMB broadcast the Padres games and at one point gave out “Hang a star on that one” membership cards to fans. His other call “Oh, doctor!” was first used by Red Barber. Coleman related that it just came out of his mouth once early during his time with the Padres and he continued to use it when something extraordinary occurred on the field.65

Coleman was also known for his malapropisms on the air, which came to be called “Colemanisms.” Perhaps the best known is when he described Dave Winfield going back for a long fly ball. Coleman allegedly said, “Winfield goes back. He hit his head against the wall. It’s rolling back toward the infield.”

On another occasion, he reputedly described a double by saying, “He slid into second with a stand-up double.”

Then there was the time that he noted that “Gaylord Perry and Willie McCovey should know each other like a book. They’ve been ex-teammates for years.”

He reportedly said, “George Hendrick simply lost that sun-blown popup.”

He once introduced the starting pitcher by saying “On the mound is Randy Jones, the left-hander with the Karl Marx hairdo.”66

Padres President Buzzie Bavasi once said, “I made some good acquisitions here … Nate Colbert, Cito Gaston, Dave Winfield, Randy Jones, Rollie Fingers, Ozzie Smith. But the best acquisition I made for this town was Jerry Coleman.”67

Coleman was universally respected and admired within baseball. Jeff Torborg, who worked with him for several years on CBS Radio, said, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say anything negative about Jerry.” He was also unfailingly humble and self-deprecating. Joe Garagiola remembered an occasion when Coleman was conducting a pregame interview with an infielder and asked the player how he made the double play. Afterward Garagiola told Coleman, “You asking him how to do a double play is like the pope asking somebody how to say Mass. You did it better than anybody.”68

In 2005 Coleman was honored by the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, receiving the Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in baseball broadcasting. That same year he was inducted into the Marine Sports Hall of Fame; along the way he was also inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame, the San Diego Padres Hall of Fame, and the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame. In 2012 the Padres honored Coleman by unveiling a statue outside Petco Park of him in his Marine aviator uniform.

Jerry Coleman died on January 5, 2014, from complications after a fall.69 He was laid to rest with full military honors including a 21-gun salute and an F-18 flyover in the missing-man formation. At his death, Coleman was 89 years old and had led a remarkable life, starting with a very difficult childhood. He became a bona-fide war hero in two wars, had a baseball playing career that earned him Rookie of the Year and World Series MVP honors, and then transitioned into a Hall of Fame broadcasting career. Through it all, he remained a very humble man with a great sense of humor and an appreciation for his good fortune in surviving two wars and for his ability to play major-league baseball. Jerry Coleman was not only a San Diego treasure, but an American treasure.

Notes

1  Ted Williams was also a fighter pilot who famously served in both World War II and Korea but Williams saw combat only in Korea.  

2 Dan Daniel, “Quiet Coleman Speaks Out With His Bat,” The Sporting News, October 18, 1950: 3.

3 Peter Golenbock, Dynasty — the New York Yankees 1949-1964 (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1975), 53.

4 “Gerry, Don — Top Rookies,” New York World-Telegram, November 4, 1949.  Roy Sievers of the St. Louis Browns was voted Rookie of the Year by Baseball Writers Association of America, with Coleman finishing third in that vote. The official designation of the World Series MVP was not instituted by the major leagues until 1955, but the BBWAA voted Coleman the Babe Ruth Award as its Most Valuable Player in the 1950 World Series. As a result, most authorities have recognized Coleman as the MVP of that Series.  See, e.g., George Vecsey, “Jerry Coleman, 89, Yankee Infielder, Fighter Pilot and Voice of the Padres,” New York Times, January 6, 2014: A15. 

5 Jerry Coleman with Richard Goldstein, An American Journey — My Life On the Field, In the Air, and On the Air (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2008), 14-15.

6 Coleman, 15-16.

7 Coleman, 17-18.

8 Graduates of Lowell include Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, California Governor Pat Brown, actress Carol Channing, author J.D. Salinger, and sculptor Alexander Calder. Coleman, 20.

9 Coleman, 27.

10 According to Coleman, the team was sponsored by the Keneally Bar in San Francisco which was owned by a guy who never drank. Josh Board and Joe Hight, “The Man Who Hung the Stars,” San Diego Reader, April 7, 2005: 30. The bar owner was Neil Keneally. The team had been called the Keneally Seals but Keneally renamed the team the Keneally Yankees in honor of New York Yankees scout Joe Devine, who later signed Coleman. Bob Stevens, “This Is Jerry Coleman,” Baseball Digest, January 1950: 4.  

11 Coleman, 27-28; Stevens: 4.

12 Coleman, 29.

13 Bender had apparently been given a job by George Weiss, general manager of the Yankees.  Although Coleman was a willing student, Bender shortly disappeared, and Coleman never saw him again. Coleman, 31-33.

14 Coleman, 37-38.

15 Todd Anton, No Greater Love — Life Stories from the Men Who Saved Baseball (Burlington, Massachusetts: Rounder Books, 2007), 93-94; Todd Anton and Bill Nowlin, eds., When Baseball Went to War (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2008), 80.  Bob Cherry, who had played with Coleman in San Francisco and in Wellsville, went through pilot training with him and also chose the Marines. Coleman, 39.

16 Board and Hight: 30.

17 Coleman, 41-49; Anton, 94-96.

18 Sadly, Louise battled alcoholism much of her life and committed suicide with a drug overdose in 1982. Coleman, 149-150.

19 After the season, Coleman went to see a doctor to see what he could do about his weight loss and thus strength loss during the long season. He was a teetotaler until the doctor told him to drink two beers a day to help him maintain body fluids. Coleman, 57. Coleman later related that he hated beer and that the last one he ever drank was after his last game in 1957. Anton, 97-98.

20 According to Coleman, it seemed as if he was always the last man cut. Board and Hight: 31.

21 Coleman, 56-57.

22 Coleman, 57-59; Stevens, 5.

23 Coleman gave Skiff a lot of credit for getting him to the big leagues and possibly saving his life by telling him to stop smoking. Coleman, 61. David Halberstam, Summer of ’49 (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1989), 39-40.

24 Coleman, 65-66. About the error, Coleman was quoted as saying, “My first big league play and I booted it like the rankest busher. I could hear the train whistle back to Newark right then.” Stevens, 6. See also “Keystone Kid of the Champs — Jerry Coleman,” Sport Life, August 1949: 53.

25 “I was walking on clouds that night.” Stevens, 7.

26 Coleman, 68-71; “Keystone Kid of the Champs,” 90.

27 Coleman, 87-88.

28  In 1950 Coleman was quoted as saying, “It was embarrassing to hit a ball like that. I just hit it off my hands. Disgusting little blooper. … It was a shamefully weak hit.” Stevens, 8.

29 Coleman, 92; Halberstam, 249; Dom Forker, The Men of Autumn: An Oral History of the 1949-53 World Champion New York Yankees (Dallas: Taylor Publishing Co., 1989), 202.  

30 Interview with Bobby Brown, June 25, 2018.

31 Coleman, 98.

32 Coleman often joked that he was the first .400 hitter since Ted Williams in 1941. Coleman, 105.

33 Fellow major leaguers Ted Williams and Lloyd Merriman were also recalled to Korea to fly fighter planes and teammate Bobby Brown, by now a medical doctor, was recalled, serving in a MASH Unit and later in a military hospital in Japan.

34 On one occasion Coleman’s was the last plane coming in for a landing after a successful raid. The control tower became confused, however, and gave clearance for a wounded Sabrejet from another airfield to land at the same time. The two pilots saw each other at the tip of the runway and the Sabrejet pilot gunned his engine, missing Coleman’s plane by inches. The Sabrejet pilot crashed and was killed. Just two weeks later Coleman’s engine conked out during takeoff when his Corsair was loaded with 3,000 pounds of bombs. As he tried to brake, he released the bombs which fortunately did not detonate. However, one of the bombs caught his tail wheel and flipped the plane upside down. Coleman ended up upside down inside the cockpit with his arms pinned to his side and his safety harness choking him. By the time the emergency crew reached him, he had passed out and was blue in the face. Coleman, 113-114. Coleman remembered thinking, “What a way to die, at least I could be right side up.” Phil Rizzuto with Tom Horton, The October 12 — Five Years of New York Yankee Glory, 1949-1953 (New York: Forge, 1994), 111.

35 Coleman, 109-117.

36 George Weiss of the Yankees knew that Coleman was near the end of his tour and tried to hasten Coleman’s return from Korea so that he could join the Yankees late in the season. Coleman, 117-118; Anton, 105, 106; Nowlin & Anton, 85-86.

37 Because he appeared in a few games in both 1952 and 1953, Coleman was one of 12 players to play in the Yankees’ run of five straight world championships. In the mid-’50s the Yankees had a commemorative plaque made of those five straight world championships and gave one to each of the 12 players. When interviewed in the early ’90s Coleman was told that he was the only one of the 12 not to have the plaque on display. Coleman, who lived in LaJolla, California, and had a great view of the Pacific Ocean from his house, responded, “If you can’t feel good when you pick up the paper and look out over the Pacific Ocean, coming back into the house and seeing pictures of yourself in baggy pinstripes is not going to help you feel any better.” Rizzuto with Horton, 111.

38 Coleman, 122-123; Jim G. Lucas, “Coleman: A Real Bomber,” New York World Telegram Saturday Magazine, July 11, 1953; Forker, The Men of Autumn, 204.

39 Coleman, 123; Dan Daniel, “Coleman Injury Hits Yanks Hopes to Trade for Top-Flight Hurler,” New York World Telegram and Sun, April 23, 1955.

40 Coleman had been hit behind the left ear in 1947 without a helmet while playing for the Kansas City Blues and reported that it affected his equilibrium for weeks, so he always wore a helmet when they became available. Coleman, 123-124. 

41 Eddie Robinson and C. Paul Rogers III, Lucky Me: My Sixty-Five Years in Baseball (Dallas: SMU Press, 2011), 110.

42 Arthur Daley, “Sports of The Times/Return of a Hero,” New York Times, August 24, 1953; Carlos DeVito, Scooter: The Biography of Phil Rizzuto (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2010), 176.

43 Coleman was also a fastidious dresser, including the way in which he wore his uniform, and that coupled with his smooth and acrobatic play at second base earned him the nickname “Fancy Dan.” Golenbock, 53. 

44 Several teams including the Boston Red Sox were reportedly interested in acquiring Coleman when he retired. Dan Daniel, “Class Always His Top Trait,” New York World Telegram, January 11, 1958. Bobby Richardson later recalled that during his rookie year Coleman would show up early and work with him at second base, even though Richardson was trying to take his job. He said, “I owe a lot to Jerry Coleman.” Dom Forker, Sweet Seasons: Recollections of the 1955-1964 New York Yankees (Dallas: Taylor Publishing Co., 1990), 3.

45 Coleman, 147.

46 Golenbock, 272-273 (describing long hours working for George Weiss).

47 Brian Jensen, Where Have All Our Yankees Gone? (Lanham, Maryland: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2004), 63-64. 

48 Coleman had gotten to know MacPhail when he played for the Kansas City Blues and MacPhail was the traveling secretary for the team. He subsequently went into the broadcasting business. Coleman, 153.

49 Curt Smith, The Storytellers (New York: Macmillan, 1995), 45-47. (Coleman describing his first broadcasting experience).

50 Coleman, 153-154; Joe Vella, “Coleman Recounts Fun of Games,” Oneonta Star, August 11, 2005.

51 Coleman, 154; Curt Smith, Voices of Summer (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005); Smith, The Storytellers, 119.

52 According to Coleman, initially “Scooter [Rizzuto] and I were kids who had a wonderful time but [were] maybe not as professional as you’d like.” Smith, The Storytellers, 47. See also DeVito, 225,226.

53 Coleman, 161-163.

54 Coleman, 165-166.

55 Coleman, 170-171. 

56 He, through Pat Summerall, apparently turned down a job to become President of the Oakland Seals hockey team.  Jensen, 65.

57 Coleman, 175.

58 Coleman, 191-192.

59 Coleman, 197-199.

60 Coleman, 203-205.

61 Coleman, 156.

62 According to Coleman, his most memorable game as a broadcaster was Game Four of the NLDS when the Padres had to defeat the Cubs to force a fifth game and Steve Garvey hit a ninth-inning two-run home run to win for the Padres 7-5.  See Smith, The Storytellers, 171, for Coleman’s call of Garvey’s home run. 

63 Jensen, 67.

64 Baseball broadcast historian Curt Smith described Coleman’s play-by-play as “rich and intimate; he was the bearer of a clean meticulous story line.” Curt Smith, Voices of the Game (South Bend: Diamond Communications, 1987), 370.

65 Coleman, 176.

66 A more complete list of “Colemanisms” is at funny2.com/coleman.htm. and Smith, Voices of the Game, 370-371.  See also Smith, The Storytellers, 73, 101, 109, 117-118.

67 Board and Hight: 42. 

68 Jay Posner, “Hang a Star on Mr. C,” San Diego Union-Tribune, July 31, 2005. 

69 Vecsey: A15.

David Francis Dravecky was born in Youngstown, Ohio, on February 14, 1956, the oldest of five boys born to Frank and Donna Dravecky. Frank was a machinist and Donna was a homemaker. Dave and his brothers played sports growing up and at Boardman High School, but they didn’t play a lot of baseball because of the cold weather. As a teenager, Dave spent his summers across the state line in Pennsylvania playing with a Babe Ruth or Class-B team. He played outfield and first base before starting to pitch on his high-school team. As a left-handed starter, he finished his senior year with a 3-2 record.

Out of high school, Dravecky was passed up in the major-league draft and didn’t receive any scholarships, so he enrolled locally at Youngstown State College. As a junior he helped lead the baseball team to its first NCAA Division II tournament appearance, with a record of 7-1 and an 0.88 ERA. In the tournament, Youngstown lost to Wright State, 26-1. Dravecky started the game and pitched 2⅓ innings. He recalled, “As each run passed home plate, Wright State players calculated my ERA and yelled it at me.”1 Up to that game, the lefty was receiving attention as the ace of the Youngstown pitching staff and a possible first- through 10th-round selection in the coming draft. In his four collegiate seasons, he struck out 252 hitters and was later elected to the Youngstown State Hall of Fame. However, the Wright State game brought a humility that would stay with him throughout his career. He realized that he was putting too much pressure on himself to be drafted and decided to just have fun his senior year.

Dravecky happened to pitch a game during his senior year in front of scouts from the Los Angeles Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates — it was a two-hitter with 14 strikeouts. He had a good predraft tryout with the Pirates and was told by farm director Murray Cook to “go home and sit by the phone (on draft day) and see if it rings. If it’s somebody from the major leagues, congratulations; if not, go get a real job.” Dravecky was in fact drafted by the Pirates in the 21st round.

A few days later, Dravecky drove to Pittsburgh office and signed a contract to play for $500 a month. Not knowing he could ask for a bonus or additional money, he thought $500 to play baseball was a dream come true. At the Pirates’ request, he picked up another newly drafted player, John Stuper, on his way to Charleston, South Carolina, the Pirates’ rookie-league team. (Stuper went on to play four seasons with the Cardinals and Reds and later became the baseball coach at Yale University.)

After the season, on October 7, Dravecky married his high-school sweetheart, Jan Roh. An accountant, she was the family’s breadwinner while Dave played minor-league baseball. They had two children, Tiffany and Jonathon.

Dravecky played several years in the Pirates’ farm system. He grew up a Pirates fan and was thrilled to play for the organization. He played two years in Double-A in Buffalo (Eastern League). In March 1981, he worked out with the Pirates in spring training and pitched some batting practice. Pirates manager Chuck Tanner told Dravecky he liked what he saw in his bullpen sessions. But one day, Murray Cook came into the clubhouse and told Dravecky he had been traded to the San Diego Padres. Later in his big-league career, when the Padres played the Pirates, Tanner told Dravecky that he had been very upset about the deal. Dravecky was traded for infielder Bobby Mitchell, who never played in the majors.

The Padres assigned Dravecky to their Double-A team in Amarillo. He described the 1981 season as his “sweetest year in baseball.” He and his wife embraced the Christian faith that year and Dave learned the art of pitching and how to throw the cutter (taught by manager Eddie Watt). Watt and his wife would have potluck dinners and invite the team, which included Mark Thurmond, Andy Hawkins, and future Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. Dravecky was the Padres’ Minor League Pitcher of the Year in 1981, going 15-5 with a 2.67 ERA. He said his best memories of baseball were from that summer in Amarillo.

Dravecky was invited to the Padres’ spring training in 1982 but was sent back to the minor leagues quickly and started the season with Triple-A Hawaii. In June he and Jan had their first baby and four days later, Dravecky was called up to the major leagues, replacing Danny Boone, who had been traded. He made his major-league debut on June 15 against the Los Angeles Dodgers, pitching one inning and allowing two hits but no runs.

Dravecky struggled early in the majors, but bullpen coach Clyde McCullough worked with him for several weeks. One day, McCullough taught him to just simply “feel it” and repeat the feeling.2 The key for Dravecky was to slow down and keep his hand on top of the baseball so he threw the ball and did not push it. After that, pitching became enjoyable. Catcher Terry Kennedy came up to the lefty a few weeks later and told him he had become a different pitcher since spring training. Dravecky learned how to throw four different types of the fastball effectively. He later developed a “slurve” by just taking a little bit off his cutter. He said, “Moving the ball around and throwing strikes is what kept me in the majors.”

In his first major-league start, against the Cincinnati Reds on August 8, Dravecky pitched six innings, giving up four hits and no earned runs as the Padres won, 3-1. He won three games in a row as a starter. The Padres manager was Dick Williams, someone Dravecky says he had tremendous respect for even though Williams could be very intimidating. According to Dravecky, off the field Williams and his wife were wonderful to spend time with.

In 1983 Dravecky was the National League’s first six-game winner and first 10-game winner. He was a quick worker on the mound — his nine complete games in 1983 had an average length of 2 hours and 20 minutes. He said he didn’t need time, “pitching was all instinct and feel” for him. That season, he made manager Williams, well known for hating bases on balls, happy by throwing 31⅓ consecutive innings without issuing a walk. He was selected for the All-Star Game at Comiskey Park in Chicago. When he walked into the clubhouse, he felt he didn’t belong, but showed that he did by pitching two shutout innings. Jim Rice had the only hit off him — the only time Dravecky ever threw a changeup and only because the catcher called for one not knowing that Dravecky didn’t have a changeup.

Later in the season Dravecky suffered from soreness in his left shoulder — the first time he struggled with pain — and sat out the rest of the season after late August. In the offseason, he worked out with Padres trainer Dick Dent along with major leaguers Alan Trammell, Paul Molitor, Terry Kennedy, Tim Lollar, and Rich “Goose” Gossage. “Sergeant Dent” met the players three days a week for a hard workout and lifting weights. This helped Dravecky develop strength in his shoulder.

Dravecky started 1984 in the bullpen and was successful with a 4-3 record, 8 saves, and a 2.80 ERA. When Andy Hawkins struggled, Dravecky returned to the starting rotation. The rest of the season, Dick Williams used him as a swingman, starting 11 games and relieving in 39. By the end of the season, Dravecky felt his arm was “a noodle” after throwing 156⅔ innings in 50 games. The 1984 Padres were a great team and a great mix of players, according to Dravecky. “We had so many characters on that team including Eric Show who was a professional guitarist.” The team didn’t really need a leader with so many veterans like Gossage, Steve Garvey, and Graig Nettles. Gossage told the team, “I don’t want to hear any ‘I or me’ when you’re talking to the press. This is about us as a team.”3 The strategy paid off as the Padres won the National League West. In the playoffs, the Padres dropped the first two games of the best-of-five series to the Chicago Cubs (including a 13-0 drubbing in Game One). Coming home to play the final three games, the Padres just started winning. Near the end of Game Five, when the Padres were beating Cubs ace Rick Sutcliffe, trainer Dick Dent was running up and down the dugout with smelling salts because everyone was hyperventilating about going to the World Series.

In the World Series, the Detroit Tigers, who had dominated the American League all season, beat the Padres in five games. That was when his impressive success in the postseason began. He pitched a total of 10⅔ innings, allowing only five hits and no runs and striking out 10. After Game Five and the Tigers’ Series win, Dravecky had his scariest experience in baseball. Once the Padres boarded the team bus, ramped-up Tigers fans surrounded it and tried to tip the bus over. Twenty mounted police officers had to escort the bus from the ballpark to the freeway on the way to the airport.

In 1985 and 1986, Dravecky became a regular starter for the Padres, winning 13 games with a 2.93 ERA in 31 starts in 1985 and winning nine games with a 3.07 ERA in 26 starts in ’86. Dick Williams left the club after 1985 and the Padres won only 74 games in 1986, finishing fourth in the National League Western Division.

In 1987 Larry Bowa became the manager and the season did not start well. The team played poorly and Dravecky did not pitch well. By early July he was 3-7 in 30 games as a spot starter with a 3.76 ERA. On July 5 Dravecky was traded along with Craig Lefferts and Kevin Mitchell to the San Francisco Giants for Chris Brown, Mark Davis, Mark Grant, and Keith Comstock. He remembered being shocked about the trade. Mitchell didn’t want to get into the cab to go the airport. Dravecky told his teammate, “Buddy, we’ve got to go, you don’t have a choice here. We have to give it a shot.” They all felt their team didn’t want them anymore and were worried about what kind of reception they would receive with the new team. Once they arrived at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, where the Giants were playing, manager Roger Craig set the three men down and told them, “You guys are the final pieces, we are taking this to the promised land.”4 The whole team shook the new players’ hands and made them feel welcome.

Dravecky enjoyed pitching for Craig and being reunited with pitching coach Norm Sherry, and his season completely turned around. He was named the Giants’ Pitcher of the Month in August and the National League Player of the Week in early September. Dravecky loved pitching at windy Candlestick Park and he started 18 games for his new team, going 7-5 with a 3.20 ERA. “Every hitter hated the ‘Stick,’” Dravecky said. “Even Tony Gwynn, who never complained, hated to hit there.” Roger Craig told the pitchers to use the elements to their advantage and Dravecky did, often pounding the inside of the plate. That Giants team, with the addition of the three Padres and later Rick Reuschel and Don Robinson, won the National League West.

In the postseason, the Giants faced the St. Louis Cardinals. After the Giants dropped Game One, Dravecky faced John Tudor (who was 10-2 in 16 starts that year) in Game Two in St. Louis. Dravecky pitched a two-hit shutout as San Francisco won, 5-0. Four games later, with the Giants up three games to two, Dravecky again went against Tudor in Game Six. In a classic pitchers’ duel, Dravecky struck out eight and gave up one run in six innings only to lose to the Cardinals, 1-0. The next day St. Louis won again to go to the World Series.

In 1988 Dravecky started on Opening Day and the Giants beat the Dodgers and Fernando Valenzuela, 5-1, at Dodger Stadium. Steve Sax hit a leadoff home run against Dravecky but the left-hander shut Los Angeles down after that, giving up only two more hits. But 1988 turned out to be a lost season for Dravecky; he described it as, “really, really hard” — he pitched in only seven games and struggled with injuries throughout. In September he received a shocking diagnosis of cancer. He had a lump on his arm that he thought was scar tissue from throwing so much that had calcified. Dave and his wife waited in the doctor’s office with the door slightly opened and they saw the doctors take the MRI film and place it under lights. That was when they heard the word “cancer” uttered. Dave and Jan just stared at each other in disbelief and then prayed quickly. The doctor told Dravecky that “outside of a miracle, you’ll never pitch again.” Dave called that day a “huge wake-up call” about life.

Dravecky knew the odds of a comeback were slim to none, but he was not ready to retire from baseball, so he was going to try. The cancer was treated by freezing part of the arm bone and taking out half of Dravecky’s deltoid muscle — losing 95 percent of the use of it. Dr. Gordon Campbell, a doctor at the Palo Alto Clinic, where Dravecky completed his recovery program, said, “I thought Dave would be lucky just to throw a ball to his kids, I certainly didn’t think he’d ever have the ability to pitch again.”5 Yet, during the 1989 season, Dravecky worked on strengthening his arm after the surgery and eventually was able to pitch in the minor leagues, making rehab starts in San Jose (Class A) and Phoenix (Triple A) for the Giants. In three starts in the minors, he posted a 3-0 record with a 1.80 ERA in 25 innings. By August 10 he was ready to start his first major-league game in over a year and since his cancer diagnosis.

It was a sunny, breezy afternoon game at Candlestick Park against the Cincinnati Reds. When Dravecky came out to warm up in the bullpen with catcher Terry Kennedy, they met up with a large crowd of media reporters and cameramen. Dave couldn’t figure out what was going on; he was just warming up. Then he noticed that the fans by the bullpen began to clap and within seconds the whole stadium — the 34,810 fans attending the game — began giving him a standing ovation. Dravecky was so moved he pulled at his jersey near his heart and started pounding it quickly. Kennedy looked at him and did the same.

For Dravecky, once he was on the bullpen mound, “it was unbelievable and overwhelming.” He started warming up and felt great so he threw only about 15 pitches and was ready to go. He wanted to keep things normal in the dugout before the game until it was time to walk out on the field. As he neared the pitching mound, he heard the fans again give him another standing ovation. He stood on the mound before the first pitch and remembered the words of his doctor from less than a year earlier: “Outside of a miracle, you will never pitch again.” Dave thanked God for another opportunity with the game he loved so much, wound up, and threw the first pitch.

Dravecky felt it was “like a movie” as he pitched so well that day, throwing a shutout over the first seven innings — retiring 21 of the first 23 batters he faced. He had given up only a double and a walk as he headed to the eighth inning with a 4-0 lead. Manager Roger Craig later said, “I didn’t really manage that game, I just sat there in awe.”6 But in the eighth inning, the fairy tale almost came to a crashing end as light-hitting infielder Luis Quinones belted a three-run homer. According to Dravecky, Terry Kennedy told him later, “Quinones was not in the script.” Dravecky was able to get the third out in the eighth inning without any further damage and Steve Bedrosian pitched a one-two-three ninth for the save as the crowd stood and cheered after every out.

Five days later, in a start in Montreal, facing Tim Raines in the sixth inning, Dravecky broke his arm while pitching. The bone that had been frozen during the cancer treatment was just too weak. The snap of the break in the domed stadium sounded like a firecracker and Dravecky fell to the ground writhing in pain. Yet even after the break, he did not give up on pitching again. However, the end did come soon after during an on-field celebration after the Giants beat the Cubs in the NLCS. While Dravecky was celebrating with his teammates, he was accidentally pushed from behind and broke his arm again. Shortly after the new break, his cancer returned. On November 13, 1989, Dravecky retired from baseball.

In late 1990, Dravecky had a staph infection in his arm for 10 months. The recommendation at first was to amputate his left arm. However, nearing the time of surgery, doctors were willing to try to save the arm if the biopsy came back negative for cancer. In June 1991 Dave made the decision, telling the doctors he “didn’t want the arm anymore” even though the biopsy came back negative for cancer. After the amputation, the doctors found cancer wrapped around the arm’s ulna nerve.7

Twenty-seven years later, Dravecky said he felt the amputation saved his life. He said he calls himself the “One-armed Bandit” and travels the country as a motivational and inspirational speaker. He and his wife live in a small town in Central California. They have four grandchildren. Despite or maybe because of his cancer and amputation, Dave said, he enjoys life each day. Along with the speaking engagements, he worked part-time with the Giants as a community ambassador. Dave and Jan set up Endurance, a ministry that helps cancer patients deal with physical inflictions and depression.

Sources

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

Two autobiographies by Dave Dravecky were useful:

Dravecky, Dave, with Tim Stafford. Comeback (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan 1992).

Dravecky, Dave, with Mike Yorkey. Called Up: Stories of Life and Faith from the Great Game of Baseball (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan 2004).

These articles were particularly helpful:

Curiel, Jonathan. “Ex-Giants Pitcher to Have Arm Amputated,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 13, 1991.

Collier, Phil. “’82 Padres Capable of .500 Season,” The Sporting News, April 10, 1982.

“Padres Making Pluses Pay Off,” The Sporting News, June 21, 1982

 “Dravecky Thrives on Inside Pitches,” The Sporting News, May 30, 1983.

“Dravecky Shoulders His Share of the Load,” The Sporting News, July 16, 1984,

Notes

1 All quotations from Dave Dravecky and all specific facts regarding his childhood, college, and minor-league experiences are from an interview conducted by the author on July 16, 2018.

2 Dravecky interview.

3 Dravecky interview.

4 Dravecky interview.

5 “Dravecky to Make Big-League Return,” SF Gate, August 9, 1989. sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Dravecky-to-make-big-league-return-Aug-9-1989-5660588.php.

6 Joe Lemire, “Dave Dravecky,” Sports Illustrated, July 13, 2009.

7 Dravecky interview.