Luis Montañez

Less than one percent of players hit a home run in their first major-league at-bat. Achieving the hitting Triple Crown – leading a league in batting average, homers, and RBIs – in the minors is similarly unlikely.1 Through 2023, an exclusive fraternity of just three members have achieved both of those feats: Gene Hasson, Bob Nieman, and the lone batsman to do them in the same year – Luis Montañez.2

Montañez, a right-handed-hitting outfielder, spent 15 years in professional baseball, including parts of four seasons in the majors with the Baltimore Orioles (2008-2010) and Chicago Cubs (2011).

On December 15, 1981, Luis Anibal Montañez García was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. He had an older sister. Their mother, Yolanda García Montañez, was a teacher, educating students from elementary through high-school levels. IBM employed her as a computer instructor, and she taught her own children to be bilingual from an early age. Luis’s father, also named Luis Montañez, was a computer programmer and analyst. Before his career in tech, he pitched for neighborhood and town semipro teams, but his baseball ambitions were derailed by two tours in Vietnam after he was drafted into the US Army.

In Puerto Rico, the younger Luis was introduced to baseball by playing street games with broomsticks and bottle caps, and from batting against his father in the backyard. But an early experience discouraged him. “He hit me with a baseball when I was small, in the mouth, and it kind of scared me,” he recalled. “I didn’t want to play at all.”3

Meanwhile, his dad became involved with upgrading the computer systems for one of the United States’ largest medical centers, Jackson Memorial Hospital, affiliated with the University of Miami. Consequently, the Montañez family moved back and forth between Puerto Rico and Florida several times. Luis was about 11 when his father signed him up for his first organized baseball team, in Miami, to combat summer boredom. “My first year I was horrible,” Montañez said. “I had two hits the entire season.” He avoided the sport for a year, but things changed when he tried again. “All of a sudden I was good. I don’t know how,” he said. “A miracle from God. A divine providence.”4

Despite Montañez’s late start, his evident potential convinced his father to settle the family permanently in Miami, where strong high-school baseball programs would aid his son’s development. Luis attended Coral Park High School, the same institution the Canseco twins – 1988 AL MVP José Canseco, and his brother Ozzie – graduated from in the early 1980s. “The road in front of the school was called Canseco Way,” Montañez noted.5 When the brothers appeared at an alumni game while he was a student, Montañez recalled, José arrived in a Ferrari, sporting stylish Oakley sunglasses, with a supply of brand-new baseballs.

At Coral Park, Montañez maintained an excellent 3.8 grade-point average.6 Then 6-feet tall and 170 pounds (he was listed at 6-feet-1, 195 as a professional), he attracted scouts with his shortstop play, particularly after one diving stop up the middle in a critical, sophomore-year district contest. “The ball jumped up and I kind of reacted to it, caught it, came up with the throw, got the out and saved a couple runs,” he explained. “It was like an Ozzie Smith-type play. From that day, I started to get a lot of attention.”7

Nicknamed Monty, the strong-armed Montañez honed his skills with a Police Athletic League team during summers.8 As a high-school senior, he earned All-State recognition by batting .431 with 7 homers and 14 steals in 33 games.9 With his June 2000 graduation approaching, he and his friend, Gulliver Preparatory School shortstop David Espinoza, were shaping up as Dade County’s first first-round selections in baseball’s amateur draft since Álex Rodríguez in 1994. Before 2000 was over, Rodríguez signed a record 10-year, $252 million free-agent deal negotiated by Scott Boras, the agent who also secured the first $50 million and $100 million baseball contracts for other clients. Boras wound up representing Espinoza, too, who peaked in Triple A after the Cincinnati Reds selected him 23rd overall, but Montañez, his family, and advisers declined the agent’s overtures.10

On draft day, Montañez was drafted third overall by the Chicago Cubs. Shortly thereafter, he signed through scout Mike Soper for terms including a $2.75 million bonus.11 “We thought Montañez was the best player for us in the country,” explained Cubs scouting director Jim Hendry. “He’s a lot like the Alex] Gonzalez kid who plays for Toronto. His bat at 18 is probably farther along.”12

“That week was hectic to say the least. The whole school kind of knew I was going to get drafted high because all the publications had said a lot of teams were interested in me,” Montañez reflected in 2006.13 The following year, he recalled, “There was a lot of pressure because I was 18 and coming out of high school. … My expectations were, yeah, I want to be in the major leagues in three years, and maybe that wasn’t realistic.”14

In the summer of 2000 Montañez’s professional career had an outstanding beginning: 10 hits in his first 18 at-bats for the Cubs’ rookie-level Arizona League affiliate.15 He wound up earning the circuit’s Most Valuable Player honors after producing a .344/.438/.531 slash line in 50 games. At the conclusion of the campaign, he was promoted to the Class-A Midwest League, where he appeared in eight contests for the Lansing (Michigan) Lugnuts.

Heading into 2001, Montañez was number 73 on Baseball America’s list of top 100 prospects. He was named to the Midwest League’s midseason all-star team.16 Although he batted .255 with five homers, he had 121 strikeouts in 124 games. His 33 doubles tied for seventh in the league.

In 2002 Montañez moved to the Daytona Cubs, in the advanced Class-A Florida State League. He batted .265, but with just four homers in 124 games. On defense, his error total increased from 32 to 38. He also made 22 of his appearances at second base instead of shortstop. At least partly due to Montañez’s lack of progress, the Cubs dismissed Daytona manager Dave Trembley after the season. “There are a lot of people that were held accountable for this kid [Montañez],” Trembley remarked seven years later. “He didn’t meet his obligation to the Chicago Cubs because, quite honestly, he wasn’t mature enough.”17

“I was real immature,” Montañez said in 2007. “I have a relaxed personality. Dave’s a little more tense and wanted me to get after it a little more. There was a little bit of frustration, like, ‘Why doesn’t this kid really care?’ That’s probably the perception I gave off. It’s not that I didn’t want to do well. I cared a lot.”18

When Montañez returned to Daytona in 2003, his offensive numbers regressed (.253/.305/.333). He played more second base than shortstop (82 games to 33) while a younger prospect, Ronny Cedeño, took over the latter position. In 2004 Montañez was back at Daytona for the third consecutive year – but not for long. After just 20 appearances, he agreed to learn a new position in the Low-A Northwest League. “I was having a lot of defensive problems with throwing accuracy from the infield, so I decided to go to the outfield and see if I could relieve the pressure off my defense and do a little more offensively,” he said. “It got in my head that I didn’t want to throw the ball away, and I’d throw the ball away.”19

Later, Montañez acknowledged that the demotion represented a crossroads of sorts. “Sometimes you question whether you’re good enough, but mostly I questioned whether I really wanted to do it. I was considering moving on with my life in another direction,” he said. “But I sat down, thought about it, and said: ‘Forget about that. This is a privilege. Everybody wants to do this.’”20

After joining the Boise Hawks, Montañez batted .297 with 8 homers and 48 RBIs in 72 games. He made the All-Star team and helped Boise win the Northwest League championship.21 Next, he gained more outfield experience with the Gigantes de Carolina of the Puerto Rican Winter League, where his offense continued to improve from facing pitchers who had already reached the majors or Triple A.22

Montañez was back in the Midwest League to begin 2005. He played left field and batted .305 with 28 doubles and 12 homers in 82 games with the Peoria (Illinois) Chiefs. Still just 23, he was the lone Puerto Rican player to see action in that summer’s Futures Game, the showcase of minor-league all-stars. “I am proud, it is the first time that I can represent Puerto Rico, that I have the flag on my uniform,” he said. Montañez went 1-for-3 in the contest.23 “Now that I made the change to the outfield, it’s a little different, but I’ve been adjusting and things are going well,” he said. “I have a lot of discipline, I have been maturing as a hitter.”24 That summer, Montañez ascended to the Double-A Southern League for the first time. In 45 games with the West Tenn Diamond Jaxx, he batted .268. The team finished with the circuit’s best regular-season record before falling in the best-of-five finals.

Although Montañez hit .369 in 38 games with West Tenn in 2006, he batted just .225 in his first taste of Triple A, 82 games with Iowa Cubs of the Pacific Coast League. “I knew it was a hard road. I knew there was a lot of competition,” he reflected that June. “But being young you think nothing’s against you and that you can take on the world. I quickly realized that the competition was a little bit harder than I thought coming in.”25

With outfielders Matt Murton and Ángel Pagán having cracked Chicago’s big-league outfield corps in the previous two seasons – and top prospect Félix Pie on the verge of doing the same – the Cubs released Montañez in October. In November, he signed with the Baltimore Orioles. Baltimore’s director of scouting, John Stockstill, who held the same position with the Cubs until the end of the 2005 campaign, opined, “[Montañez] might have had too high expectations on himself and the club pushed him a little too hard as well.”26

During his first spring training with the Baltimore organization, Montañez described how the pressure he used to feel as a first-round draft pick had subsided. “As the years went on and more first-rounders show up in camps, I don’t feel it anymore. I’m just one of the guys,” he said. “I’ve made a lot of All-Star teams, I went to the Futures Game two years ago. I’ve had some good years. So I’m happy with it. I’m still young. I don’t feel like I need to start rushing.”27

Yet Montañez’s initial year in the Orioles’ chain saw him moving backward, again. After hitting .259 in 69 Triple-A International League games with the Norfolk (Virginia) Tides to begin 2007, he was sent down to the Double-A Eastern League, where he batted .339 in 31 contests with the Bowie (Maryland) Baysox.

When Montañez, 26, found himself back at Bowie to begin 2008, he responded with the best season of his professional career. In 116 games, he batted .335 with 26 homers, 97 RBIs, and a .601 slugging percentage – all league-leading figures. He was named the Orioles organization’s Player of the Month for both May and July.28 He just missed winning the home-run derby at the Eastern League All-Star Game (Travis Snider prevailed, 7-6).29 Against the Altoona Curve on August 1, Montañez hit for the cycle in a 5-for-6, 8-RBI performance.30 In the Baltimore Sun two days later, Orioles manager Dave Trembley – Montañez’s former Class-A skipper – said, “He’s a guy that’s drawing some attention to himself with the type of season he’s having.”31

“I had to have a breakout year,” Montañez said. “Not necessarily what I did, but I felt I had to have a really outstanding season to make a push because there were a lot of young prospects that recently signed for a lot of money that they were going to want to give opportunities to. If someone all of a sudden puts up numbers that are over the top, then they have to give them an opportunity.”32

Montañez’s chance arrived shortly after he achieved the cycle. The following night in Seattle, Orioles center fielder Adam Jones fouled a pitch from the Mariners’ Félix Hernández off his foot. Although Jones finished that game, it soon became apparent he had broken a bone in his foot and would be sidelined for more than four weeks. Montañez was called up to the majors and debuted at Angel Stadium on August 5. He played the final inning of a Baltimore victory in left field and caught the only ball hit his way, a fly out off the bat of Mark Teixeira.

The next day, Trembley put Montañez in the starting lineup, batting eighth. Baltimore trailed 4-0 before Montañez’s first big-league at-bat, leading off the top of the third inning. Facing right-hander Ervin Santana, a 2008 All-Star who ranked third in the American League in strikeouts entering the contest, Montañez blasted the second pitch he saw, sailing the ball over the center-field wall for a home run.

Through 2023, Montañez and Buster Narum (in 1963) remained the only Orioles to go deep in their first major-league at-bat in the American League franchise’s first 70 seasons in Baltimore. (In 1887 Mike Griffin of the Baltimore Orioles in the American Association – then a major league – also earned the distinction.) Narum, a pitcher, was a career .059 hitter, though three of his seven hits were round-trippers.

In his next at-bat after the homer, Montañez pulled a line-drive single off Santana. He finished 2-for-4 with two runs scored. The Orioles lost, however, 9-4, and he was charged with an error on his only defensive chance, misplaying a Teixeira double into an extra base.

Five days after his debut, Montañez enjoyed his first three-hit game in the majors, against the Texas Rangers at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. When he had another three-hit night four days later in Cleveland, two of the knocks drove in runs during Baltimore’s eight-run eighth inning. “Everything is icing on the cake,” he said. “Whenever they want to put me in, I’m just going to try to do my best. It’s been a complete whirlwind. I’ve gone from the West Coast to the East Coast, from Double A to the big leagues. I’m trying to take it all in. It’s been absolutely outstanding. A great week.”33

One oddity concerning Montañez’s rookie campaign was that despite not being called up until August, he was credited with the game-winning hit in the Orioles’ April 28 victory over the Chicago White Sox at US Cellular Field. The game had been suspended in the top of the 12th inning, and Montañez’s decisive 14th-inning RBI single came on August 25, when the contest was completed in Baltimore. Officially, the game went down in the books as having been played on April 28.

When Double-A Bowie’s season ended in early September, Montañez learned that he had finished with the Eastern League’s batting and home-run crowns, and shared the RBI lead with Akron’s Wes Hodges, making him the circuit’s first Triple Crown winner since Danny Thomas did it in 1976.34 “It’s been the perfect season, so far,” Montañez said, confessing that he had been checking the box scores and teasing a former Baysox teammate who failed to score from first base on one of his doubles.35

Although the last-place Orioles went just 14-35 after Montañez joined the team, he appeared in 38 games – 27 starts – and batted .295 with 3 homers and 14 RBIs. Mostly, he played left field (20 starts), but Trembley also used him at designated hitter (3), right field (2), and center field (2). When asked what Montañez needed to improve to establish himself as a big-leaguer, Trembley focused on defense. “Better routes in the outfield number one. Two, better accuracy throwing the ball. Three, better positioning. I think he plays too deep,” the skipper observed. “Guys that play deep are afraid of the ball going over their head.”36

During spring training 2009, Trembley noted Montañez’s progress. “Last year, he looked very unsure in the outfield. This year, he looks much more comfortable, and his throwing has really improved.”37 Recalling their difficult 2002 season together in Class A, Trembley said, “I wish him well. I’m glad the lights have gone on. I feel good for him.”38

But during the offseason the Orioles traded for two new outfielders, Ryan Freel and ex-Cub Félix Pie, to supplement their established starters – Jones, Nick Markakis, and Luke Scott. Montañez noted that competition for big-league spots was something he expected, and said, “[Trembley’s] fair with everybody. If I don’t earn it, I’d go as happy as I can be to Triple A.”39 Despite hitting .340 in exhibition play, Montañez began the season at Norfolk.40

On April 21, 2009, Montañez returned to the majors after Freel went on the 15-day disabled list. Montañez shared left field with lefty hitters Pie and Scott, but he tore a ligament in his right thumb while attempting a diving catch in Toronto on May 2. For nearly three weeks, Montañez tried to play through the pain, but the limitations caused by the injury worsened and he underwent surgery.41 Following a brief rehabilitation assignment to the minors, he returned to the Orioles in September, but he finished the largely lost season with a .183 average in just 82 at-bats at the top level.

That winter, Montañez returned to the Puerto Rican league and produced a .324/.367/.514 slash line in 28 games for the Criollos de Caguas. The Criollos’ manager, Carmelo Martínez, had also been Montañez’s first skipper in rookie ball. In 1983, Martínez had become one of just two Puerto Ricans to homer in their first big-league at-bat before Montañez. (Benny Ayala, in 1974, was the other.) “We did talk about it once, and we thought it was unique,” Montañez said.

Montañez started in Triple A again in 2010, but for the second consecutive season, he joined the Orioles before April was over to replace an injured outfielder (Pie). Montañez did not hit well initially, however, and he wound up starting just 11 games – only three after May 12, when a superior defender, Corey Patterson, joined the club after signing a free-agent deal. Then on June 23 – three weeks after Trembley was fired – Montañez tore his oblique muscle during batting practice. At the time, he was hitting .140 in 57 at-bats. “This has been the worst year of my career. It’s like everything has gone completely backward,” he said. “The hits haven’t fallen, the at-bats haven’t been there; now I get injured. It seems like I can’t catch a break this year.”42

Later that summer, Montañez played some rehabilitation games in the minors, but he never made it back to Baltimore and the organization released him after the season. “My injuries came at the most inopportune time,” he said in 2024.

In January 2011 Montañez returned to the franchise where he started his professional career. “There were mixed emotions, but it was something I wanted to do,” he explained. “I was proactive in going to the Cubs and saying I wanted to be back in their organization, because I loved that organization. They gave me the opportunity, and I felt I had something to prove or something left to do in that organization.”43

Before spring training, he represented Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Series as a member of Caguas’ championship club. Next, he joined the Triple-A Iowa Cubs and batted .369 with 5 homers and 43 RBIs in his first 42 games. After Chicago’s Marlon Byrd suffered broken facial bones on May 21 when he was hit by a pitch and went on the disabled list, Montañez finally became a big-league Cub. “It’s been a long journey, but actually, it goes by fairly quick when you’re enjoying yourself playing ball,” he said. “I’m happy to be here. It’s one of the top achievements of my career.”44

Montañez remained in the majors through the end of June and came back again in September. Overall, he batted .222 in 36 games for Chicago, including a homer off former Cy Young Award winner Barry Zito at Wrigley Field. Although he was released that fall, Montañez characterized his time with the Cubs as “like closure for me in a sense.”45

In 2012 Montañez went to spring training with the Philadelphia Phillies, but that franchise’s Triple-A Lehigh Valley (Pennsylvania) affiliate released him in early May. He caught on with the St. Louis Cardinals’ Triple-A Memphis club and finished the year with a .241 average with just two homers in 101 games between the two teams.

When the best offers he could find for 2013 involved returning to Double A, Montañez recalled, “I said, ‘No way.’” Instead, he signed with the Somerset (New Jersey) Patriots of the independent Atlantic League, which turned out to be a fun experience and atmosphere. “I had some reservations about coming to independent ball but it was so many times better than what I thought I was getting into,” Montañez said.46 He performed so well that the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim offered him a chance with their Double-A Texas League club, the Arkansas Travelers, which he accepted hoping it would lead to better opportunities.

That did not happen as it turned out, but Montañez wound up representing Puerto Rico again that winter in the 2014 Caribbean Series, following a winter-ball trade to the champion Indios de Mayagüez. He then returned to the Somerset Patriots and batted .289 with 17 homers and 74 RBIs. That winter, Montañez, 33, finished his 15-year professional career with Mayagüez. In 129 major-league games over parts of four seasons, he hit .223 with 5 homers.

“I probably hung up my spikes too early, out of frustration,” Montañez said in 2024. “But I was always looking forward to other endeavors, so there were no regrets.”

After baseball, Montañez returned to Florida and spent four years as a full-time insurance agent. But aviation was always his passion – as a child he dreamed he would be a fighter pilot – so he hit the books, began taking classes, and became a professional pilot in 2020. He explained that the fields of aviation and baseball are not as different as they appear. “Ballplayers always say they miss the competition and camaraderie. But flying is also competitive,” he said. “Versus the elements, the plane, your brain. And the pilot community is small, with a clubhouse feel.”

As of 2024, Montañez was certified to fly multi-engine planes – “like Cessnas”– and he was getting into flight instruction. He hoped to fly bigger aircraft in the future. “Baseball happily got in the way of my dream,” he said. “I wish I had started sooner.” A divorced, single dad with two daughters and a son – ages 13, 11, and 8 – he resided in Parkland, Florida, where he also provided personal hitting instruction and appeared at baseball clinics.

After the Minnesota Twins’ Eddie Rosario in 2015 became the fourth Puerto Rican to homer in his first big-league at-bat, Montañez confessed that his feelings were bittersweet after his former winter league teammate achieved the feat: “You don’t want too many members in the exclusive club.” But as Montañez said after he, too, went deep in his first chance, “It means my name’s going to be in the record books for as long as baseball exists, so it’s real neat.”47

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Luis Montañez. Telephone interview with author on April 16, 2024.

The author would like to thank Josie Conway from Major League Baseball Players Alumni; and SABR colleagues Bob Bogart, Bob LeMoine, Wayne McElreavy, John C. Olsen, and Jacob Pomrenke for research assistance.

Photo credit: Luis Montañez, courtesy of the Baltimore Orioles.

Sources

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

Notes

1 Baseball-Reference recognized 23,114 unique major leaguers through the end of the 2023 season. While different sources differ on the exact number of players who homered in their first at-bat, the Yankees’ Jasson Domínguez became the 136th player to do it on September 1, 2023, according to MLB.com. Ed Eagle, “Players with Home Run in First At-Bat,” MLB.com, September 1, 2023, https://www.mlb.com/news/home-run-in-first-at-bat-c265623820 (accessed April 27, 2024).

2 In 1948 Hasson (Canadian-American League) and Nieman (Ohio-Indiana League) each won minor-league Triple Crowns. More than a decade earlier, Hasson homered in his first major-league at bat, for the Philadelphia Athletics, on September 9, 1937. Nieman went deep in his first two big-league at-bats, for the St. Louis Browns, on September 14, 1951. Overall, Baseball-Reference listed 27 major-league (American League, National League, nineteenth-century American Association, and major Negro Leagues) Triple Crown winners through 2023, none of them players who also homered in their first big-league at-bats. The same source recorded 146 minor-league Triple Crown winners during that same period. “Triple Crown,” https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Triple_Crown (accessed April 27, 2024). For perspective consider that, entering 2024, 321 official no-hitters had been pitched in the majors – more than the number of first-at-bat homers (136) and major- and minor-league Triple Crowns (173) combined.

3 Roch Kubatko, “Q&A/Luis Montañez,” Baltimore Sun, March 4, 2007: D5.

4 Jorge Arangure Jr., “O’s Take Flier on Two Former First-Round Picks,” Washington Post, February 26, 2007: E8.

5 Unless otherwise cited, all Luis Montañez quotes are from a telephone interview with the author on April 16, 2024. Hereafter cited as Montañez interview.

6 Luis Montañez, 2001 Bowman baseball card.

7 Arangure, “O’s Take Flier on Two Former First-Round Picks.”

8 Luis Montañez, Howe Sportsdata questionnaire, July 24, 2000.

9 Phil Rogers, “Cubs Take a Shortstop; Sox a QB,” Chicago Tribune, June 6, 2000, https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2000-06-06-0006060135-story.html (accessed January 2, 2024).

10 Montañez interview.

11 “News,” Cape Cod Times (Hyannis, Massachusetts), July 30, 2000, https://www.capecodtimes.com/story/news/2001/01/27/july-30-2000/50992244007/ (accessed March 17, 2024).

12 Rogers, “Cubs Take a Shortstop; Sox a QB.”

13 Kevin Baxter, “Top Baseball Draft Picks Hitting a Wall,” Barre-Montpelier (Vermont) Times Argus, June 11, 2006, https://www.timesargus.com/news/top-baseball-draft-picks-hitting-a-wall/article_bb87e805-8024-5e79-9626-bba75faa546c.html (accessed January 2, 2024).

14 Kubatko, “Q&A/Luis Montañez.”

15 Luis Montañez, 2001 Bowman’s Best baseball card.

16 Orioles 2009 Media Guide, 74.

17 Jeff Zrebiec, “O’s Montañez Squares Himself with Trembley,” Baltimore Sun, March 28, 2009: 1D.

18 “O’s Montañez Squares Himself with Trembley.”

19 Kubatko, “Q&A/Luis Montañez.”

20 Zrebiec, “O’s Montañez Squares Himself with Trembley.”

21 Orioles 2009 Media Guide, 74.

22 Ricardo Zúñiga, “MLB: Montañez, Único Jugador Boricua en Estrellas del Futuro,” Laredo (Texas) Morning Times, July 9, 2005, https://www.lmtonline.com/lmtenespanol/article/MLB-Monta-ez-nico-jugador-boricua-en-10355774.php (accessed March 17, 2024).

23 Orioles 2009 Media Guide, 74.

24 Zúñiga, “MLB: Montañez, Único Jugador Boricua en Estrellas del Futuro.”

25 Baxter, “Top Baseball Draft Picks Hitting a Wall.”

26 Arangure, “O’s Take Flier on Two Former First-Round Picks.”

27 Kubatko, “Q&A/Luis Montañez.”

28 Orioles 2009 Media Guide, 74.

29 Dan Hickling, “Home Run Lifts North All-Stars,” Binghamton (New York) Press & Sun Bulletin, July 17, 2008: 5C.

30 “Montañez Hits for Cycle as Bowie Pounds Curve, 19-3,” Indiana (Pennsylvania) Gazette, August 2, 2008: 17.

31 Jeff Zrebiec, “Getting Their Attention,” Baltimore Sun, August 3, 2008: 6D.

32 Mike Ashmore, “Montañez Happy to Get a Shot with Somerset Patriots,” Hunterdon County Democrat (Raritan, New Jersey), April 26, 2013, https://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/2013/04/Montañez_happy_to_get_a_shot_w.html (accessed March 26, 2024).

33 Jeff Zrebiec, “Eight Is Enough,” Baltimore Sun, August 15, 2008: 16Z.

34 Before Thomas, the other Eastern League Triple Crown winners were Joe Munson (1925), Bob Chance (1963), and George Scott (1965). Orioles 2009 Media Guide, 74.

35 Jeff Zrebiec, “Montañez Rules Minors from Majors,” Baltimore Sun, September 2, 2008: 5A.

36 Don Markus, “No Winter Vacation,” Baltimore Sun, September 11, 2008: 5A.

37 Associated Press, “O’s Promising Left Fielder Left Out,” Wilmington (Delaware) News Journal, March 22, 2009: 55.

38 Zrebiec, “O’s Montañez Squares Himself with Trembley.”

39 “O’s Montañez Squares Himself with Trembley.”

40 2010 Orioles Media Guide, 122.

41 Jeff Zrebiec, “Montañez May Be Out Awhile with Bad Thumb,” Baltimore Sun, May 24, 2009: 3F.

42 Jeff Zrebiec, “Oblique Injury to Put Montañez on DL,” Baltimore Sun, June 25, 2010.

43 Ashmore, “Montañez Happy to Get a Shot with Somerset Patriots.”

44 Paul Sullivan, “Montañez Fills Roster Spot,” Chicago Tribune, May 25, 2011: 6A.

45 Mike Ashmore, “Montañez Happy to Get a Shot with Somerset Patriots.”

46 Ryan Dunleavy, “Montañez Returns to Double-A Ball,” Home News Tribune (Somerville, New Jersey), June 21, 2013: 15.

47 Jeff Zrebiec, “Trip Ends in Fall,” Baltimore Sun, August 7, 2008: 3Z.