Mike Maksudian

In nine years of professional baseball, Michael Bryant Maksudian played only parts of three seasons in the majors, but he managed to leave an impression with his teammates thanks to his offbeat personality – and a penchant for eating bugs that had an impact on the Toronto Blue Jays World Series campaign of 1992.

Maksudian was born on May 28, 1966, in Belleville, Illinois. His great-grandfather Gamsar was an Armenian from Van, Turkey, who emigrated to the United States before 1918.1 His father, Gregory, a steel buyer, was transferred to Randolph, New Jersey, in 1979. Mike played his freshman year of high-school ball in Randolph, and when the family moved to Parsippany, New Jersey, in 1981, he attended Parsippany High School, where he became the team’s star player as a power-hitting outfielder and helped the team win its first county tournament championship.

At 5-feet-11 and 200 pounds, he went undrafted after high school and continued his playing career at New Jersey’s County College of Morris. Once again, he became a team leader and helped his team to within one game of winning the Junior College World Series. While at County College of Morris, Maksudian was selected twice in the amateur draft; in 1985 by the Detroit Tigers and in the 1986 June Draft – Secondary Phase by the Houston Astros. He signed neither time; in the winter of 1986 Maksudian accepted a baseball scholarship to the University of South Alabama, where he met his future wife, Betty Hancock.

Maksudian broke his left foot in a game against South Florida in the 1987 season, a year when he hit .407 with 14 home runs and 63 RBIs and was named Sunbelt Conference All-Tournament Team MVP. His team went to the NCAA Regional finals, and he homered in four consecutive games. “It was in late April and things were going really well,” Maksudian said. “There was a ball hit deep to left field and I tried to jump as high as I could to get it. The ball went off the wall and I just came down on the foot wrong.” The injury kept Maksudian out of the lineup for six weeks and a total of 25 games. “When I got back, I got right in the groove again,” he said, “but the time out cost me. I lost about 100 to 125 at-bats. I think I could have been an All-American and I figured I would be drafted, but because of the injury, I wasn’t.”2 He also played with the Falmouth Commodores of the summer Cape Cod League that year.3

Maksudian signed as a free agent with the Chicago White Sox on July 13, 1987, starting in rookie ball with the White Sox of the Gulf Coast League. In 1988 he was moved up to the White Sox’ Class-A Midwest League affiliate in South Bend. By this time, he was playing first base and catcher – and had married Betty. Although he hit .303 in South Bend, he and Vince Harris4 were traded to the New York Mets for pitcher Tom McCarthy and infielder Steve Springer on August 4. After struggling with the Mets’ team in St. Lucie of the high Class-A Florida State League (he batted just .214), the club tried to send Maksudian to low-A ball. He refused and was released on March 30, 1989. He was puzzled about why the Mets had traded for him only to seek to relegate him to low-A. “My career’s been such a jumpy mess,” he said. “Eventually, I’ll get my break. Sometime, somewhere, someone’s going to be impressed.”5

The Mets’ farm director at the time, Steve Schryver, explained that the transaction was more about McCarthy and Springer, who were about to become free agents. The team did not view Maksudian as a prospect, saying he was a bit weak defensively, but they thought he might develop into a pretty decent hitter.6

At 23 and disappointed with the course of his career, Maksudian, who took accounting and psychology in college, went home to Alabama and took a job in the front office of the Birmingham Barons, ready to settle into normal life. But it didn’t take long before he decided he still wanted to play and he signed with the woeful Miami Miracle, a new independent team in the Florida State League.7 He hit .313 with 9 home runs for a team that finished with a 43-91 record.

On December 5, 1989, the Toronto Blue Jays took Maksudian in the Rule 5 Double-A draft and assigned him to Knoxville, where he went on to hit .287 in 1990 and become a spark plug and team leader – but behind Randy Knorr and Ed Sprague on the Toronto catching depth chart. After starting him in Knoxville again for the 1991 season, the Blue Jays promoted him to Triple-A Syracuse by early May. He spent the rest of the season in Syracuse and again in 1992 until he was called up on August 30 as a utility player and – having hit four pinch-hit home runs – a left-handed bat off the bench. Most of the Blue Jays’ other left-handed batters were injured.8 When the August roster deadline passed the next day, Maksudian found himself still a Blue Jay and eligible for the postseason. As the team chased down a division championship and pennant in September, Maksudian had the only three pinch-hit at-bats he was to get as a Blue Jay. He went 0-for-3 and finished the season as the only one of 23 Jays players to make a plate appearance and not get a hit.9  He was on the bench for the postseason and caught in the bullpen.

After the World Series Maksudian was voted half of a World Series share and received a championship ring.10 But perhaps his biggest contribution to the team that fall was his talent for keeping his teammates loose – particularly Joe Carter, according to Sportsnet Magazine. “Mike Maksudian was a young guy who came up in [August] and had a fetish for eating bugs. He ate a lot of bugs while he was with the team,” Carter said. Tom Henke recalled the team organizing a pool to see him eat a locust in Kansas. “I caught a couple great big locusts out in the bullpen. We got a pool together: 700 bucks, still alive. He put a piece of spaghetti around one and chewed on it and swallowed. The bug was buzzing in his mouth. I thought Dave Winfield was gonna upchuck right there.”11 (Devon White also claimed to organize the locust snack, including the spaghetti.)12

The bug-eating antics became Maksudian’s main claim to fame with the media, generating many headline puns and nicknames – “Orkin Man” was one, after the pest control company – that followed him wherever he went for the rest of his career. The real story, as Maksudian told it, is this: The bargaining for the stunt continued in the clubhouse after the bullpen cleared out and reached $1,400 and Maksudian ate the bug. It was supposed to be just a private team thing, but a reporter who was still in the clubhouse heard it all and wrote about it.13 At the time, Maksudian needed the extra money, still making the league minimum, and the $1,400 was welcome, especially since his credit card had been pulled from the pile at a team dinner one night, leaving him on the hook for the entire bill. It turned out, however, that he didn’t collect the full amount. His teammates fined him $400 in kangaroo court for “eating during a game.”14 A coach later told him he should knock off the stunts; he was up in the bigs to hit, not make jokes. Maksudian took the tip to heart and toned it down – until manager Cito Gaston called him into the office one day and said, “Sheik,15 what’s wrong?” When Maksudian told him what the coach had said, Gaston dismissed it and said, “Forget that, just go back to being you.” When the Jays won the World Series, Maksudian vowed to fans that he would get a tattoo on his butt to commemorate the occasion.16 He barely had time to have it done before he was selected off waivers by the Minnesota Twins with a strong chance of making the team, according to Blue Jays general manager Pat Gillick and assistant GM Gord Ash when they broke the news to him.17

Maksudian’s 1993 season went south after he sustained a stress fracture in his arm in spring training and missed the early part of the season. On his return, he was sent to Triple-A Portland, where he batted well. He was called up to the Twins as an injury replacement on June 11 but played in only five games and went 2-for-12. His second series after the call-up was against Toronto, where he did not get an appearance. During the next series he got his first major-league RBI on a sacrifice fly against Oakland on June 13. He recorded his first hit, an RBI double, against New York Yankees pitcher Mike Witt on June 17. After the short stint was over, he was sent back down to Portland to make room for Kent Hrbek, who had been activated from the injured list on June 23.

The Twins released Maksudian on October 15 and two months later he signed with the Chicago Cubs. He said he also had an offer from Montreal, but decided to play in Illinois, where he still had family. In hindsight, he said, it was probably a mistake as Montreal was leading both leagues in wins (74-40) when the players strike began on August 12, 1994.18 His third trip to the majors began in Des Moines, Iowa, playing for the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate. Maksudian played in 58 games, batting .318 with 8 home runs before being called up to the Cubs in midseason after Ryne Sandberg announced his first retirement on June 13. There, Maksudian played in 26 games, batting .269, but was released on October 10, 1994.

Maksudian’s major-league career was over at age 29, but his dream lived on. He joined the Oakland A’s Edmonton Trappers of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League for the 1995 season and played in 100 games. But the season was a hard one. He had had rotator cuff/labrum surgery during the offseason and his comeback was not to be. He hit just .150 to start the year and only a second-half stretch of hitting over .300 raised his average to .265 by season’s end with eight home runs. “It’s been a battle since the day I walked back on the field,” he said. “I keep trying to find that same old swing, but I’ve had to make some changes. Every day you come out and you think to yourself, ‘This is the day I come out of it.’ And every day you don’t, you leave the yard upset with yourself. This is the worst I’ve ever hit in my life, but I’ll get past it.”19

Maksudian’s time with the Trappers was also hampered by an incident after he hit his first home run of the year, on June 30. Maksudian went to a club in downtown Edmonton with roommate Jim Bowie to celebrate, but the two became involved in a fight when Bowie, who is Black, was taunted with racial remarks by other patrons, who happened to be members of a Vietnamese drug gang (although police denied it).20 Maksudian hit one of them in the mouth as tempers flared and the bouncer advised him to leave quickly as he had just bloodied the lip of the gang’s leader. As he and Bowie tried to exit the second-floor bar, a bunch of gang members appeared downstairs, blocking their exit, and things escalated. As he threw a punch, Maksudian was stabbed in the chest. The knife just missed his aorta, nearly killing him. Maksudian said he moved his body just as he was being stabbed – a reaction that he believes saved his life.21 He was noticeably absent from the clubhouse for several days afterward with no explanation. Then the team released a statement on July 3, calling his injury a “contusion of the ribs,” implying that it was game-related. The true story came out days later. Bowie told reporter Robin Brownlee that he and Maksudian weren’t looking for trouble. The outing was part of a bet the two had made that whoever hit a home run first would have his drinks paid for by the other. “I finally hit one out after the season I’ve been through and this happens,” said Maksudian. “I was just starting to get my swing back too.”22 The wound was only three or four inches deep and hit no arteries or organs, so he was back playing within two weeks.

Although he finished the season at Edmonton with a hitting streak, Maksudian, then 29 and worn down from injuries, was at the end of his career. He was also about to become a father: His wife, Betty, was pregnant with their son Mason, so he hung up his spikes after the 1995 season. But he wasn’t quite finished with baseball. He said he had always planned to go into business after his playing days were over and he was not as sorry to see his career end as some players are. By this time, he had accepted the fact that he was a minor leaguer who was playing out the string. He was looking forward to having a family and enjoying a home life.23 By November, Maksudian was back in Montgomery, Alabama, holding baseball clinics for local youth and running camps.24 The camps were part of an idea for a new computer recruiting system he was developing that he hoped would be a boon to team scouts and managers. They were designed as showcases for local players who would be tracked in a database. The software did not gain a big market and he shelved the project.25

Maksudian went on to enjoy a successful career as an IT sales professional/consultant who has sold hundreds of millions of dollars in enterprise-class IT products and services. He and Betty founded New Economy Technology Solutions IT (NETSIT) in 2009 and as of 2022 lived in Scottsdale, Arizona, where the company has its headquarters.26 His company also has an office in Islamabad, Pakistan. The Maksudians have two children, Mason and Alex, and two grandchildren, and “Mak” said he loves golfing and traveling – and being a grandfather.

Notes

1 Ancestry.com, U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918.

2 Ed Mills, “Maksudian, Vallorosi Bigger Hits in College,” Morristown (New Jersey) Daily Record, July 6, 1987: 31.

3 “Major League Baseball Players From the Cape Cod League” (PDF) from archived page of capecodbaseball.org. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiyu8DShu_2AhVTXM0KHd5KCx0QFnoECAIQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcapecodbaseball.org.ismmedia.com%2FISM3%2Fstd-content%2Frepos%2FTop%2F2012website%2Farchives%2FCurrent%2520Year%2FAll_Time_MLB_CCBL_Alumni.pdf&usg=AOvVaw12xVRQAyN11fnOZ1OY1AeY, accessed March 30, 2022.

4 Vincent Edward Harris was a minor-league player for 10 years, playing mostly Class-A and Double-A ball. Baseball Reference, https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=harris001vin.

5 Anthony Rieber, “Maksudian Still Chasing a Dream,” Morristown Daily Record, August 20, 1989: C8.

6 Rieber, “Maksudian Still Chasing a Dream”.

7 Baseball Prospectus.com, https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/42338/defensive-indifference-the-strange-legendary-times-of-mike-maksudian/.

8 Allan Ryan, “Maksudian Lines Up with the Jays,” Toronto Star, September 1, 1992: C3.

9 Baseball Prospectus; Ryan.

10 Author interview with Mike Maksudian, April 4, 2022.

11 “Memories of ’92, SportsNet Magazine, https://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/blue-jays-oral-history-memories-of-92-stretch-run/.

12 Jim Byers, “Jays Get Key Win,” Toronto Star, September 9, 1992: D3.

13 Jim Byers, “Jays Bug Rookie Catcher the Day after the Locust,” Toronto Star, September 10, 1992: D3.

14 Maksudian interview.

15 Maksudian interview. “Sheik” was his nickname before the bug-eating incident.

16 500levelfan.com http://500levelfan.com/2010/05/14/blast-from-the-past-mike-maksudian/.

17 Maksudian interview.

18 Maksudian interview.

19 Robin Brownlee, “Trying to Find ‘That Same Old Swing,’” Edmonton Journal, May 30, 1995: D6.

20 Ian Williams, Robin Brownlee, and Charles Rusnell, “Trappers’ Catcher Knifed in a Fight,” Edmonton Journal, July 13, 1995: A1, A11.

21 Maksudian interview.

22 Robin Brownlee, “Stabbing No Laughing Matter,” Edmonton Journal, July 13, 1995: D3.

23 Maksudian interview.

24 Greg Klein, “Former World Series Winner to Hold Clinics,” Prattville (Alabama) Progress, November 25, 1995: 9.

25 Maksudian interview.

26 NETSIT company website, http://www.netsit.com/teams.php.