27dec Happy birthday to the former Ranger great Dean Palmer, who had a 14-year career, 1989-2003, with 3 teams; the Rangers were his first…they drafted him in the 3rd round, 1986, out of Florida High School in Tallahassee….after showing big power in the minors and good defensive instincts at 3B, he got a Sept callup in 1989…it didn’t go real well and he spent all of 1990 in the minors…he got another shot in 1991 for 81 games and it didn’t go real well either, as he hit only .187…but with that came 15 HR…another thing that came with it: strikeouts…lots of strikeouts…and that would be the way his career would roll out…but he was the Rangers’ primary 3B from 1992 through part of 1997, with the exception of injury-truncated 1995, when he got into only 36 games…that year he was off to a great start and appeared to have figured out who and what he was…that continued when he came back in 1996, when he had his best year here, hitting .280/.348/.527/.876, all career highs…he had 38 HR and 107 RBI, also career highs…his defense at 3B was solid as well and he also played 154 games…but in 1997, as the Rangers continued their Captain Ahab-like eternal chase for their own Great White Whale, the leadoff-hitting, table-setting, slash-and-dash CF, one became available…the team that had him needed a power bat…so it was that Dean went to KC and Tom Goodwin came here…it didn’t hurt that this relieved the Rangers of the free agent conundrum he was about to present and they had a couple years of control with Goodwin…they also had Fernando Tatis on the way, so it made sense then, and even now it would take me about a nanteenth of a second to sign off on it…Dean had a strong 1998 season with KC, making the All-Star team and in 1999 went to Det as a free agent and played with them through 2003…today he coaches high school baseball in Tallahassee…a good dude who is 46…Chris Giminez has had 6 years in the majors, 2009-2014, with 4 teams, including a second hitch with 1; the Rangers were his fourth…he was drafted by Cle in the 19th round 2004, out of Nevada-Reno, and debuted in 2009…he’s been a backup catcher as he’s made his way around the majors and he was taken off waivers in March 2014 from Oak…he became a free agent but signed here and got into 34 games, 118 PA, hitting .262/.331/.355/.686…in Aug he was traded to Cle for future considerations and finished the year with them, then signed here as a free agent and will go into spring training as a part of the catching picture…maybe he will fit in some way; maybe he won’t…that catching picture is cloudy, but in any case, he’s a respected cat in the room and it seems like there could be a place on the coaching side someday… who knows?—maybe a manager in waiting…he’s 32…Jim Leyritz had 11 years, 1990-2000, with 6 teams and a second hitch with 1; the Rangers were his third…he was signed as an amateur free agent by NYY in 1985 out of the University of Kentucky, and debuted in June 1990…he was kind of a bat without a position; they played him at C and at the corners of both the infield and outfield…he was never a full-time guy; he had only 2 seasons of over 100 games in his career, and he was traded in each of those…he was one of the many who over the years has benefited from an association with NYY, leading many inside the game and outside of it think they are better than they actually are…he did have his moments, though; there was the walk-off HR in the 15th inning of game 2 of the 1995 ALDS vs. Sea, giving NYY a 2 games to none lead; he also hit a HR off Mark Wohlers in game 4 of the 1996 World Series vs. Atl which brought NYY back from a 6-0 deficit and tied the game at 6-6; they eventually won the game and it sent them on their way to another World Series victory…in 1998 he went to the World Series with SD; they faced NYY and during player introductions in the first game at Yankee Stadium he was given a standing ovation from the fans who remembered his post-season heroics…earlier in that post-season he hit 2 big HR vs. Hou in the National League Championship Series…the first was off Billy Wagner in the 9th inning of game 2; it hit the right field foul pole at the Astrodome and tied the game, but SD didn’t wind up winning it…in game 3 he hit a home run off Randy Johnson that broke a 1-1 tie and was the eventual game-winner…in 1999, after rejoining NYY, he hit a HR in B8 of game 4 of the World Series…including post-season play, that was the last home run of the 20th century…he spent his first 7 years with NYY and then after 1996 was traded to Ana…at the trade deadline of that year he was traded along with a PTBNL who turned out to be Rob Sasser to the Rangers for Ken Hill…while here he got into 37 games, 114 PA and hit .282/.446/.329/.776, 0 HR, 14 RBI…the year in total, might have been his best; he ended it hitting .277/.379/.393/.772, 11 HR, 64 RBI…at the end of the year he was traded to Bos along with Damon Buford for Aaron Sele, Mark Brandenburg, and Billy Haselman…his last year was 2000 with a second hitch with NYY and LAD…he moved around a lot in his career and most who move around do so in free agency…he didn’t; he was involved in 6 trades and after LAD granted him free agency at the end of 2000 he never played in the major leagues again…he did play another 3 years at AAA with SD, with Newark in the indy leagues, and in Mexico…he also found his share of trouble off the field over the years, the most notable of which came on 28dec 2007, when he got into a car accident in Broward County, FL…the driver of the other car was ejected and died at the scene; she was not wearing a seat belt and both she and he were driving drunk…he was also driving with a suspended license…he has since been acquitted of vehicular manslaughter after pleading it down to a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence; he got a year’s probation and a $500 fine…in 2010 he settled with the victim’s family for $350,000…in 2009 he was hospitalized in Florida after allegedly threatening suicide; later that year he was arrested for battery against his former wife…those charges were dropped…he now co-hosts a radio show on MLB radio and another on Angels Radio 830 AM in Los Angeles called ‘Inside the Game with Leyritz and Brennan’…the man once nicknamed ‘The King’ is 51
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 06:30:46 +0000
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