Who Can It Be Now?
Miguel Angel (Reyes) Dilone was born on November 1, 1954 in Santiago in the Dominican Republic. According to the Baseball Reference Bullpen, Dilone was something of a baseball prodigy in the Dominican, playing for the national team as a 16-year-old in 1971 and stealing three bases in the 1971 Pan American Games.
The Pirates signed him the next year as a 17-year-old in 1972 and assigned him to Niagara Falls in the New York Penn League. There, his hitting was not great, but his batting eye was excellent -- with a .224 AVG, he still put up an OBP of .338. He only slugged .251, though, so it took him a while to grow into his talents. He spent three years in Single-A ball, culminating with his outstanding 1974 season in Salem in the Carolina League: .333/.414/.424, 85 SB (23 CS), 73 BB, 52 K.
That year earned Dilone his first cup of coffee in the major leagues with the Pirates for the 1974 stretch run. During his 12-game stint, Dilone served three times as a pinch hitter (walking once), once as a defensive replacement in the 9th inning of a blowout game, and 9 times as a pinch runner. After the 1972 season, the Pirates decided to have Dilone skip Double-A entirely. As a result, he spent all of 1975 and 1976 in the minor leagues -- getting a brief call-up to the big leagues each year.
Dilone's problem in Pittsburgh, however, was the fact that Pittsburgh had plenty of outfield talent ahead of him -- Richie Zisk, Al Oliver, and Dave Parker all featured for the front-running Pirates in 1974, 1975, and 1976. Then, in 1977, the Pirates chose to employ Omar Moreno over Dilone as the outfield speedster between Oliver and Parker. Dilone struggled for playing time for the first two months of the year and, when he did play, he struggled to hit -- needing a 1 for 2 performance in his final at-bats for 1977 to pull his average up to .136 after it had reach as low as .105. Despite this, he stole 12 bases without being caught, which was then a National League record.
Finally, on April 4, 1978, the Pirates decided to break their logjam in their outfield and sent Dilone to the Oakland A's with pitcher Elias Sosa in exchange for catcher Manny Sanguillen and infielder Mike Edwards. Dilone received more regular playing time in Oakland, but managers Bobby Winkles and Jack McKeon in total used 13 different players in the outfield that season -- 8 of which had at least 40 appearances. Dilone also made 47 pinch-running appearances himself that year. Given that playing time, however, Dilone did not perform all that well -- .229/.294/.271, 50 SB but 23 CS (leading the league), and no pop whatsoever in his bat.
In 1979, Dilone again ran into an outfield starting to take shape that did not need or include him as one of its components. That was the season that Rickey Henderson made his debut with the A's as a 20-year-old, making Dilone excess to requirements. So, the Oakland A's sold Dilone's contract to the Chicago Cubs on July 4, 1979. In Chicago, Dilone actually performed reasonably well (.306 AVG, .342 OBP), even if his power numbers were pathetic (zero extra-base hits for a .306 SLG and a .000 ISO).
The Cubs of that era preferred Dave Kingman, Jerry Martin, Mike Vail, and Scot Thompson to Dilone in the outfield and had Ivan de Jesus as their leadoff hitter, so Dilone was sent down to Triple-A Wichita at the start of 1980. Then, the Cubs gave up on Dilone and sold his contract to Cleveland. There, he turned in his finest season as a major leaguer, hitting .341/.375/.432 with 30 doubles, 9 triples, and 61 stolen bases in 79 attempts. His surprise year helped lead a surprise Indians team to a nearly respectable finish in the AL East -- 79-81, good for sixth place.
1981 was another good year for both Dilone and the Indians. Dilone finished with 29 steals and a slash line of .290/.334/.346, and the Indians finished the year one game above .500 overall. The problem for the Indians in both 1980 and 1981, however, was that the AL East was absolutely loaded. The Orioles, Yankees, Red Sox, Brewers, and Tigers all finished above .500. That left the Indians in sixth place for 1981 at 52-51. Only the Blue Jays -- which were terrible at 37-69 -- were under .500.
Yet, all was not well. In September of 1981, Dilone went public with his request to be traded, saying that team officials "have not been supportive of his efforts." As the story stated further, "[q]uestions were first raised about Dilone's attitude when, in Tuesday night's Orioles game, Dilone did not run out a ground ball." The story mentioned that Dilone had injured his thumbs and was not playing regularly, then finished by quoting him saying that, "These things have been bothering me for a long time, but I have kept everything inside me until now."
The Indians did not accommodate Dilone's request, however, and Dilone stayed with the Indians through 1983 -- even re-signing with the team after the 1982 season. In 1983, though, the team finally did trade Dilone after a train-wreck of a season which found Dilone getting sent back to Triple-A after 78 plate appearances in which Dilone reached base 23 times on 13 hits and 10 walks (.183/.284/.254). On August 25, 1983, the Indians obtained pitcher Rich Barnes from the White Sox. The White Sox apparently did not want to have Dilone available for any postseason series, so Dilone did not go back to Chicago until September 1.
His stay with the White Sox was exactly one week. On September 7, 1983, Miguel Dilone went back to where his career began, as the Pittsburgh Pirates traded pitcher Randy Niemann to the Sox for Dilone. Dilone's second stint in the Steel City stretched to seven substitute September showings (as my alliteration mercifully comes to an end). The Pirates, seemingly reminded that Dilone was not the answer to any of the club's questions, allowed Dilone to become a free agent that fall.
Dilone then signed with the Montreal Expos for 1984. At the age of 29, he stole 27 bases in 29 attempts, hit .278/.346/.367, and appeared in 88 games. That decent year convinced the Expos eventually to re-sign him (an event which took place on March 4, 1985), and Dilone turned in a disappointing 51 games. When the Expos tried to send him outright to Triple-A to make room for pitcher Bert Roberge, Dilone refused the assignment. As a result, the Expos gave Dilone his unconditional release.
But he was not done with major league baseball yet. Dilone was signed by the San Diego Padres. After a month in Triple-A, the Padres called Dilone up on August 8. Dilone again failed to impress, and after the season, he became a free agent that no one signed.
Mustache Check: Miguel's wispy seven hairs on his upper lip -- though barely visible -- certainly qualify as a mustache.
Family Ties
Miguel Dilone's son, Miguel Dilone Jr., is a 20-year-old middle infielder in the Rockies system. Junior appears to have similar abilities to his father -- not a ton of power, pretty good speed, and a decent batting eye. Junior's problem looks to be that his fielding is suspect. He's a long way away from making an impact, and his struggles in Low-A ball this year make that impact even less likely.
Trivial Pursuit
According to the book Big League Trivia: Facts, Figures, Oddities, and Coincidence from Our National Pastime by Madison McEntire from 2006 :
Miguel Dilone is the only player to steal 50 or more bases without hitting a triple. Dilone appeared in 135 games for Oakland in 1978 but batted just 258 times, collecting 58 hits and stealing 50 bases. He scored just 34 runs, also the fewest by a player with at least 50 steals.
A Few Minutes with Tony L.
My recollection of Miguel Dilone was that he was a poor man's Omar Moreno. You knew that Dilone would try to steal if he got on base -- with that last clause being the most tentative part of the statement since getting on base was always the problem. The Brewers always seemed to have success against him -- he hit .250/.301/.319 against the Crew versus career numbers of .265/.315/.333 -- and Dilone's lack of power meant that his coming up to the plate was never a "scary" time.
While Dilone was never a star in the major leagues, he has long been revered in his home country, the Dominican Republic. He played 22 seasons for the Cibao Eagles in the Dominican Winter League, and he is the all-time leader in stolen bases in that league, totaling 395 in his 22 season and leading the league 11 times. As a funny aside, I do enjoy the fact that the Google Translation for his stealing of bases in the Major Leagues refers to him having "defrauded"50 in 1978 and 61 in 1980. To be fair, this biography has been aided somewhat by my ability to at least work out what various websites in Spanish mean rather than relying on those translations -- but the translations help.
Dilone has had a pretty tough time over the past five or so years. On March 16, 2009, Dilone was working with a teenager on his hitting (one of his sons teammates at the time, it appears) near a batting cage in Cibao. A foul ball hit one of the pipes on the screen behind the plate and hit Dilone in his left eye and nose. Dilone's nose was broken. Even worse, the hit to his eye was so devastating that the surgeon had to remove Dilone's left eye and fit it with a prosthetic eye.
As if that wasn't bad enough, something even worse happened to Dilone and his family in September of 2012. Dilone's mother Estela was found dead in her residence in Santiago. She had been tied up and gagged (amarrado y amordazado). As it turned out, the men who killed her had entered her residence in La Joya -- an industrial part of town where she had lived for forty years -- intending to steal from her to get money for drugs. Three of the killers were sentenced to 30 years each in prison in May of 2014 for the murder.
At least some justice was done, though Mr. Dilone will never get his mother back.
Who Can It Be Now?
Ronald William Hassey was born on February 27, 1953, in Tucson, Arizona. He is as Tucsonian as it gets: he attended Tucson High School and then the University of Arizona in Tucson before finally signing a major league contract.
Hassey was first drafted in the 23rd round of the 1972 June Draft by the Cincinnati Reds as a shortstop out of high school. He did not sign and went to the University of Arizona. There, after his junior year in 1975, he was drafted in the 22nd Round of the June Draft by the Kansas City Royals as a third baseman. Again, he did not sign. Finally, after his senior year of college -- during which Arizona won the College World Series -- it was "now or never" for him, and he signed with Cleveland after the Indians drafted him as a catcher in the 18th Round of the 1976 June Draft.
Once he signed, he moved quickly up the Indians chain -- as, frankly, he had to do if he wanted to have a major league career. He hit very well at each stop in the minors and showed a little home run power to boot.
His first major league action came in 1978. In what had to be one of his career highlights, he hit his first-ever major league home run off Nolan Ryan that year. The Indians use four different catchers that year, including two fourth-year players in Ron Pruitt and Gary Alexander and second-year man Bo Diaz, and Hassey got playing time in May and June before being sent back down to Triple-A Portland for some additional work. Hassey also split 1979 between Triple-A (this time in Tacoma) and Cleveland. He pinch-hit in one game early in the season, was sent down shortly after the Indians signed Dell Alston as a free agent, and then was recalled in June. After that, Hassey only played in the minors on a rehab assignment.
The Indians cleared out some of the impediments to Hassey being the regular catcher for the team after the 1979 season. The team let Ron Pruitt go, shifted Gary Alexander to a DH/PH role, and created a platoon between the lefty-hitting Hassey and the righty-hitting Bo Diaz. That job-sharing platoon continued through the 1981 season when Diaz, who was named as an all-star that year for the All-Star game played after the strike in Cleveland, was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies.
Perhaps a sign that all was not rosy for Hassey showed up in a Sports Illustrated "Inside Pitch" baseball notes column in 1983. Indians Manager Mike Ferraro called out Hassey by name, complaining that "Hassey has a lot of ability, but he's complacent. It's his makeup. He doesn't look like he's eager to do anything. When he isn't in the lineup for three or four days, he doesn't come to the ball park for early hitting. With all the money there is in this game, you would think you would want to go after it."
Ouch.
Despite that tongue lashing, Hassey remained in Cleveland until June of 1984, when he was traded for the first time in his career. The trade was a major deal that affected the National League East pennant race in a very significant way: Hassey was sent to the Chicago Cubs along with reliever George Frazier and starter (and eventual NL Cy Young Award winner) Rick Sutcliffe in exchange for minor leaguer Darryl Banks, outfielders Mel Hall and Joe Carter, and pitcher Don Schulze. Disappointingly, Hassey was hurt in July and did not play again until September. He did not appear in the NLCS against the Padres, either.
Viewed as a spare part by the Cubs behind both Jody Davis and Steve Lake, Hassey was sent to the New York Yankees with Porfi Altamirano, Rich Bordi, and Henry Cotto in exchange for Brian Dayett and Ray Fontenot. With the Yankees in 1985, he enjoyed his best season as a big-leaguer at the age of 32, hitting 13 homeruns with a .296/.369/.509 slash line in just 92 games. He split time in a semi-platoon with Butch Wynegar, who struggled at the plate that year to hit for average or power (he still got on base, though).
Despite the good season, Hassey was traded with pitcher Joe Cowley to the Chicago White Sox in December of 1985 in exchange for two minor leaguers and pitcher Britt Burns. Strangely, if the Yankees had been willing to trade Hassey a few months earlier, they would have had Tom Seaver. But, they waited until December to get rid of him.
Apparently, though, someone in the front office -- maybe George Costanza -- decided that the Yankees should not have traded Hassey away. Or, perhaps, they realized that they had no real catchers on the team should they not resign Wynegar from free agency. So, two months later, the Yankees sent minor leaguer Glen Braxton, pitcher Neil Allen, catcher/utility player Scott Bradley, and cash to the White Sox for Hassey, Matt Winters, and two minor leaguers.
Hassey broke camp with the Yankees and stayed in New York through the end of July in 1986. After watching Hassey for four months of the season, whoever wanted Hassey back must have changed their mind. Or, perhaps, it was the White Sox who change their minds. Or, neither team had a clue. In any case, for the third time in seven months, the Yankees and the White Sox again made a trade involving Ron Hassey: Hassey, Bill Lindey, and Carlos Martinez went to the Sox in exchange for Ron Kittle, Joel Skinner, and Wayne Tolleson in a trade apparently engineered by George Steinbrenner himself.
After that trading frenzy, Hassey stayed with the Sox as Carlton Fisk's backup (alongside Ron Karkovice) and as a sometimes DH. Seeing that he was not going to get the opportunity to play regularly on Chicago's South Side, Hassey signed a free agent contract with the Oakland A's.
In Oakland, he played on three straight AL championship teams while serving as Bob Welch's personal catcher. He called the fateful curveball in the 1988 World Series thrown by Dennis Eckersley that Kirk Gibson golfed out of the park in Game One of that series. And, even though he did not play in the 1989 World Series, he was on that roster that were the champions.
Hassey closed out his playing career by serving as the third of four catchers for the Montreal Expos in 1991. By that time, Hassey was 38 years old and was the third-oldest player in the National League. For his career, and perhaps this says as much about catchers as it does Hassey, he ranks 108th overall in Career Wins Above Replacement at 14.7.
Trivial Pursuit
As of June 6, 2014, there have been a total of 23 perfect games in major-league history. While a number of players have been involved or played in more than one -- after all, Seattle was involved in two in less than four months in 2012 -- only one catcher has caught two perfect games: Ron Hassey. Hassey was the catcher in Cleveland on May 15, 1981, in front of 7,290 people in cavernous Cleveland Municipal Stadium for Len Barker's perfect game. Then, in his last major league season, Hassey was behind the plate when Dennis Martinez fired his gem on July 28, 1991, against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Dodger Stadium before 45,560 fans.
Another interesting bit of trivia: while Rickey Henderson was Nolan Ryan's 5000th Strikeout victim, Ron Hassey was victim #4999 and victim #5001.
Family Ties
Though Ron Hassey is the only person in his family so far to reach the major leagues, his father Bill Hassey played in the minor leagues in 1949 and 1950. Then, Ron's son Brad Hassey starred at the University of Arizona before spending 6 seasons in the Toronto Blue Jays system.
A Few Minutes with Tony L.
Ron Hassey is a card-carrying, lifetime member of the Backup Catchers Club. He's the kind of guy who filled a role -- lefty hitter off the bench -- while also filling a difficult defensive position. That Club is smaller these days since clubs no longer carry three or four catchers. Much as Greg Gross lamented the loss of the "designated pinch hitter" role, teams cannot afford to use up three roster spots on catchers in this age of twelve or thirteen pitchers in the major leagues.
Hassey also is a lifetime "Baseball Man." He left Montreal after the 1991 season and became a Yankees scout for a year. After that, he started his coaching career in 1993 as the first-base coach for the expansion Colorado Rockies. He stayed in Denver for 3 years before moving along to St. Louis to coach with the Cardinals for a year. The opportunity then arose for him to move back to his native Arizona, as he took a position in the Arizona Diamondbacks front office.
When he left the Diamondbacks and for the first time, he became a manager in the Florida Marlins organization at Double-A Carolina. He did that for a season before moving back to the big leagues as a coach with the Seattle Mariners. He stayed in Seattle until after the 2009 season, when he rejoined the Marlins organization as a manager with Single-A Jupiter. He was promoted up the chain in 2012 to manage the New Orleans Zephyrs.
At the end of the 2013 season and at the age of 60, Hassey announced his retirement from baseball. As he put it, "I'm 60 years old, and I've been in this game 37 years. I have my major league pension, and it's just a good time to get out. What I'll do now, I have no idea. I may not do anything. It depends on how I feel."
Enjoy your retirement, Mr. Hassey.
Who Can It Be Now?
Jorge Orta Nuñez was born in Mazatlan in the state of Sinaloa in Mexico on November 26, 1950. Orta began playing in his native Mexico at the age of 17 for Fresnillo, or at least we assume he did because there are no statistics available for him at that club.
Orta's father Pedro was a Cuban baseball player. One source calls Pedro "The Babe Ruth of Cuban baseball," but another site --the Baseball-Reference bullpen, which is one that I trust somewhat more than the first -- notes that Pedro's nickname in Spanish was Charolito, which they say means "patent leather" but which I think means "Little leather" or "little tray" since charol translates either as patent leather or tray. In fact, it could be that he was a self-promoter because when "charol" is used with the reflexive verb darse (giving oneself something), it means that someone is bragging or boasting.
That Spanish lesson aside, Jorge Orta was born while Pedro was playing baseball in Mexico. Jorge loved baseball and purportedly chose to play baseball in the Mexican League in 1968 over going to UCLA on a basketball scholarship. Now, this may be true, but the doubt I have comes from the fact that UCLA in that time won its fifth NCAA title in six seasons with the great Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at center. It's certainly possible that Orta received the scholarship offer and turned it down; it's just one of those claims that sounds like something to take with a grain of salt -- like, for example, the idea that Alabama offered someone a football scholarship and it was turned down. I mean, you have to be a good football player to get "offered", but literally dozens -- well over 100 -- are made each year to get to the 25 to 30 players that Saban signs each year. And, in the 1960s, there were fewer constraints on scholarships.
All that is not to disparage Orta. He was an excellent baseball player at a very young age, and the White Sox were impressed enough by his play in the Mexican League to purchase his contract from Mexicali in the Mexican Northern League in November of 1971. Orta jumped directly to the major leagues and struggled with the bat. So, in mid-July, he was sent down to AA Knoxville. There, he crushed the ball to the tune of .316/.397/.526 and got a call-up back to the majors in September, never to play in the minor leagues again.
Orta had good speed but pretty bad base stealing instincts. Over his 16-year major league career, Orta had 63 triples and 79 stolen bases -- 40 of those steals came in 1975 and 1976 -- but he was caught stealing 60 times. That success rate certainly cost his team more runs than it created, as we know now. That said, Orta was an above-average hitter who had a good batting eye -- he took walks and had a contact percentage above the league average as well.
Orta today is remembered for a play in the 1986 World Series -- a play which some thought would lead to the adoption of instant replay in baseball. It only took 28 years, but we have that instant replay now. The play, of course, is the Don Denkinger "blown call" at first base. Orta tapped a slow roller to first base, where Jack Clark fielded the ball. He tossed the ball to Cardinals closer Todd Worrell. From one angle, it looked like the ball arrived in Worrell's glove while Worrell still had his toe on first base. Worrell's foot came off the base around the same time as Orta arrived at first. Denkinger undoubtedly was out of position -- as you can see in the video, rather than being in fair territory to get a view of when the ball went in the glove and when Orta hit the base, he was behind the play nearly in the first-base coaching box. That would have been the Series-clinching game for the Cardinals.
Another famous game for Orta came on June 15, 1980. In a Cleveland Indians 14-5 drubbing of the Minnesota Twins, Orta went 6-for-6 with five singles and a double. That tied an American League record for most hits in a 9-inning game.
Outside of those two games, Orta had a solid career. He was a two-time All-Star, in 1975 with the White Sox and in 1980 in his first season with the Indians. He was not a great defensive player over his career -- especially when playing second base. He ended his career as a designated hitter, so once his hitting abilities started failing after the age of 34, the Royals released him to end his major league career midway through the 1987 season.
Orta has stayed in the game as a coach and manager. His most recent coaching position was in the Arizona League in 2013 with the Texas Rangers organization. Before that, he spent five seasons coaching rookie league ball for the Cincinnati Reds.
Everybody Wants You
Orta was traded after the 1981 season by the Cleveland Indians to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers traded away second base prospect Jack Perconte -- who was already 26 years old at that point -- and former Rookie of the Year Rick Sutcliffe to get Orta and two minor leaguers (catcher Jack Fimple and pitcher Larry White). Orta's time with the Dodgers lasted only for the 1982 season -- he was traded twice in the offseason between the 1982 and 1983 seasons.
Trivial Pursuit
When the Toronto Blue Jays played their first game in the old Exhibition Stadium, their opponents were the Chicago White Sox. In 32-degree temperatures and snow flurries on April 7, 1977, the White Sox faced off against Bill Singer. The game started with a walk to Ralph Garr. Later in the inning, Jorge Orta drove in the first run in Exhibition Stadium history on a sacrifice fly. Despite the good start in the first inning, the White Sox lost the game 9-5.
A Few Minutes with Tony L.
Jorge Orta was a tough out generally, and he hit right around his career statistics against my Milwaukee Brewers. I remember him most as the lefty-hitting half of a DH platoon paired with Hal McRae for the Royals in the mid-1980. Certainly, I believe that my memory is most likely influenced by the success that the Royals had in that time.
Overall, Orta did have a successful career. Clearly, one must be successful to last for 16 seasons in the major leagues. About 7 years ago, the Royals Review on SB Nation rated Orta as the #95 Greatest Royal of All-Time for his years in Kansas City. Certainly a part of that ranking came from the Denkinger play and the afterglow from that series win, but it does show that Orta's role in Kansas City earned him a measure of respect from Royals fans.
Orta also was inducted into the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in 1996. When he retired, Orta was the all-time leader in home runs in the Major Leagues for players born in Mexico. He has since been passed only by Vinny Castilla. Being one of the best players that your country has ever had is certainly a feat worth noting.
Who Can It Be Now?
Gary Wayne Alexander was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He was drafted for the first time after his senior year in high school by the Montreal Expos in the 23rd round of the June amateur draft in 1971, but he chose not to sign. Instead, he attended the Los Angeles Harbor College -- a school also attended by fellow baseball players Enos Cabell and Dock Ellis, among others. He then was drafted for the second time by the San Francisco Giants in the January 1972 Special draft in the second round and signed.
The Giants promoted him fairly aggressively through their system, likely because Alexander showed great power potential. In his first full professional season, which was 1973 in the Midwest League, Alexander hit 17 homers, drove in 66, walked 89 times (for an OBP of .394) and struck out 126 times. Over his next two minor league seasons, he totaled 50 homers over A, AA, and AAA.
In 1977, Alexander appeared on his first baseball card. You probably have seen it and remember it, because he shared card 476 in the 1977 Topps set with Rick Cerone and Atlanta Braves legend Dale Murphy.
He turned up again in the late 1980s in the Men's Senior Baseball League/Men's Adult Baseball League in Southern California. He played again in a Senior League for the Bradenton Explorers in the Senior Professional Baseball League.
After that, the trail on him goes cold. If you go to the Trading Card Database, you'll see that they think he turned into a white infielder (who, as it turns out, had exactly the same first, middle, and last name but was definitely not the same player).
"Nanu Nanu"
1982 was the final year that "Mork and Mindy," the show that unleashed the comedy of Robin Williams on America, was on the air. At the end of each episode, Williams would contact "Orson" on Ork. On Ork, the words mean goodbye were "Nanu Nanu." Here, we will use this category to identify those players whose last Topps card during his playing career appeared in the 1982 set.
As the category description above mentions, this was the last Topps card on which Gary Alexander appeared during his career. Despite the fact that Alexander was only 28 years old and had shown that he had good pop in his bat, the Pirates released him after the 1981 season. That probably was spurred on by the fact that they had two catchers on their roster under age 26 -- Steve Nicosia and Tony Pena -- and that both of those guys could hit some as well.
That doesn't explain why no other team took a flyer on him. But, as a result of his release, Alexander spent the next two seasons in the Mexican League.
A Few Minutes with Tony L.
I do not have any recollection of Gary Alexander from 1981-1982.
That said, it's not like he was invisible. He is a guy who might have been a bit before his time in terms of being a major league player, though. For instance, baseball over the past 15 to 20 years has been dominated by the "Three True Outcomes" players -- guys whose trips to the plate result either in a home run, a walk, or a strikeout. Think Adam Dunn. As the blog post from Baseball Reference indicated in the third chart, Alexander was a TTO guy -- over 40% of his plate appearances resulted in one of those outcomes. As many stories or posts about Alexander mention, he struck out 166 times in 1978 and led the American League in that category.
A few other random facts of interest:
1. On September 29, 1976, Gary Alexander caught and hit fifth (behind Bobby Mercer) as John "The Count" Montefusco no-hit the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta. Montefusco walked only one and struck out just four batters in a game that finished in less than 2 hours.
2. Alexander was traded from the Giants to the Athletics along with 7 other players and $300,000 for Vida Blue in the middle of spring training in 1978. Alexander then was traded again in 1978 to the Cleveland Indians.
3. After the 1980 season, Alexander was traded again, this time likely during the winter meetings. Joining him in moving from Cleveland to Pittsburgh were Victor Cruz (not the Giants WR), Rafael Vasquez, and Bob Owchinko. In return, Cleveland got catcher Manny Sanguillen (whom the Indians promptly released in February of 1981) and future Hall of Fame pitcher Bert Blyleven.
4. You can still buy the contract from which the facsimile signature on the front of this card was taken directly from Topps.
If anyone wants to play Remington Steele (which hit the airwaves for the first time in 1982 as well) and find out where Gary Alexander is, I will be happy to issue an update here in another post and I'll even give out a prize of some sort.
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Update: As Bo mentioned in the comments, it appears that Mr. Alexander is alive and well and working for the Los Angeles Fire Department. So, not only did he spend his youth entertaining us as a baseball player, he is now spending his adulthood after baseball protecting and serving the people of Los Angeles.
