Current Biography Excerpts: Baseball

Jim Abbott is one of an elite group of major-league pitchers to have thrown a no-hitter, a feat he accomplished while he was a New York Yankee in 1993. Abbott, who began the 1995 season as a member of the Chicago White Sox and ended it as a California Angel, is also among the few hurlers whose fastballs have been clocked at over ninety miles an hour. What makes his success all the more remarkable is the fact that he plays ball without a right hand. He was born with a rounded stub at the end of his right arm, with one small, finger-like protrusion where his right hand should be. He pitches with his left hand, with the palm of his glove resting on the stub. After each pitch, he quickly switches the glove to his left hand, so that he can catch or field balls thrown or hit back. Prior to becoming a major-league pitcher, Abbott was an Olympic gold medalist, a collegiate baseball all-star, and a high-school standout in three sports.

Abbott's athletic achievements have amazed sports fans and inspired countless numbers of Americans with disabilities, who flock to ballparks to see him pitch. He receives hundreds of letters a week, many of them from handicapped children and their parents, and he tries to answer as many as he can, even though he has never considered himself to be disabled. "I just don't think all of this about me playing with one hand is as big an issue as everyone wants to make it," he told Ira Berkow of the New York Times (December 25, 1992). "I don't try to run from the attention about it; I just accept it." Abbott maintains that the toughest thing he faces is not his disability but major-league hitters. The feeling is apparently mutual. "He's got the hand that counts," Larry Sheets of the Baltimore Orioles told a reporter for the Washington Post (April 26, 1989) after facing Abbott's power pitching for the first time.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1995 Current Biography Yearbook.

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BOGGS, WADE
June 15, 1958- Baseball player.

With five American League batting titles and a .346 career average (tied for the fourth-highest of all time) to his credit, the Boston Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs has established himself as one of the greatest hitters ever to play the game of baseball. Since becoming an everyday player in 1983, his second season in the majors, Boggs has averaged 101 walks per year, and his career on-base percentage (the frequency with which a batter reaches base via hit, walk, or being hit by the pitch) is an astounding .437. The only player in this century to collect 200 or more hits in six consecutive seasons, Boggs is also the only man to have four straight seasons of at least 200 hits and 100 walks. Unlike most hitters, Boggs does not guess what pitch the pitcher will throw and gear himself up for it. Instead, he readies himself for any pitch and, because of his 20-10 vision and extraordinary hand-eye coordination, he is able to wait until the last possible instant before swinging. As a result, he almost never gets fooled by a pitch. "He has great rhythm and balance in his stance," the former Red Sox (and current Chicago White Sox) hitting coach Walt Hriniak told Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune (April 2, 1989). "No one can compare with him in regard to putting the bat on the ball. He's the greatest hitter I've ever seen." A mediocre defensive third baseman when he first came to the big leagues in 1982, Boggs has improved himself immeasurably since then through tireless practice.

Notwithstanding his statistical accomplishments, Boggs is viewed by some as a selfish player who is more concerned with individual achievement than team success. He has, for example, never won the American League's award for most valuable player and, after his most outstanding season (1987) to date, finished a distant ninth in the voting for that honor. He is also criticized for his relatively low home-run and RBI totals. (Boggs has reached double figures in homers only once in his career and has averaged a modest eight home runs and sixty-eight RBIs a season since 1983.) Boggs has deflected such criticism by insisting that he could hit more home runs if he wanted to--a contention with which his fellow players have readily agreed--but that if he were to do so, it would decrease his batting average, something he will not allow to happen. "I try to hit the ball as far as I can without making an out," Boggs told Paul Ladewski of Inside Sports (March 1989). "Home-run hitters pop out and strike out more often than line-drive hitters, but everybody wants to see a guy hit thirty home runs even if he bats .240....Why try to hit thirty home runs when you could try to get 250 hits and contribute more to the team?"

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1990 Current Biography Yearbook.

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BONDS, BARRY
July 24, 1964- Baseball player.

There appears no longer to be any dispute among expert observers of major-league baseball that the best all-around player in the game today is Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants left fielder and the most feared hitter in the National League. Bonds is the son of Bobby Bonds, the former major-league outfielder who is now a coach and batting instructor with the Giants. Barry began his major-league career with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1986, unspectacularly. During his first four years in Pittsburgh, he probably attracted more attention with his irascible and mercurial disposition than with his good, but not extraordinary, playing. During his last three seasons with the team, from 1990 through 1992, however, he was the major leagues' most productive player, averaging 30 home runs, 100 runs batted in, and 134 stolen bases per season and playing the key role in the Pirates' capture of three consecutive National League East titles. When Bonds became a free agent following the 1992 season, the new owners of the San Francisco Giants signed him to the most lucrative contract in baseball, a six-year agreement worth at least $43.75 million. Although the Giants finished one game short of the division title in 1993, Bonds was at his career best in virtually every offensive category, including batting average (.336), and he led the National League in home runs (46), slugging percentage (.677), on-base percentage (.458), total bases (365), runs batted in (123), and intentional walks (forty-three, the second-highest total in history).

In 1993 the Baseball Writers of America voted Bonds the most valuable player in the National League for the third time in four years. He also won his third Golden Glove award, for superiority in fielding, and he again played in the All-Star game. His career totals in 4,514 regular-season at bats through the strike-shortened 1994 season include 1,287 hits, 276 doubles, 41 triples, 259 home runs, 760 runs batted in, 811 walks, 309 stolen bases, a .285 batting average, and a .536 slugging average. Moreover, his tremendous speed and strong arm make him one of the best left fielders in the game. His post-season performances, however, in his three league championship series appearances, in 1990, 1991, and 1992, have been disappointing. In sixty-eight at bats in the play-offs, he had a .191 average, one home run, and two runs batted in. Bonds, who bats and throws left-handed, has been described as the complete player by many, including Jim Leyland, his manager at Pittsburgh: "He can do it all. He can hit, he can run, he can steal, he plays left field better than anybody [else] I've ever seen. When he's zeroed in mentally, there's nobody better."

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1994 Current Biography Yearbook.

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CANSECO, JOSE
(kan-SAY-koh, hoh-SAY)
July 2, 1964- Baseball player.

Perhaps the most feared hitter in baseball is Jose Canseco, the right fielder of the Oakland Athletics. Canseco, who throws and bats right-handed, has ranked among the leading home-run and RBI producers in the minor leagues since his first full season, in 1986. Despite his imposing six-foot- three-inch 240-pound frame, Canseco also possesses excellent speed. In 1988 he became the first big-league player to hit forty home runs and steal forty bases in a single season. In the same year he also led the majors in home runs and RBIs and was named the American League's most valuable player. Canseco and his Oakland A's teammates played in three consecutive World Series from 1988 through 1990, winning the championship in 1989. In June 1990 Canseco signed a five-year contract for $23.5 million, making him baseball's highest-paid player at that time.

Canseco's outspokenness and flamboyant lifestyle have made him both one of the most popular and one of the most disliked figures in the world of sports. Although many fans admire his ability to back up his boastfulness with long home runs and impressive statistics, others have criticized his occasional brushes with the law, his rumored use of steroids, and his sometimes rude behavior in public. Canseco has frequently expressed frustration with the high expectations and intense scrutiny to which he is subjected. As he told Peter Gammons of Sports Illustrated (October 2, 1989), "I love playing baseball, but sometimes I feel like the gorilla in the zoo. People watch the gorilla, stare at it, point at it, trying to figure out why it's doing what it's doing."

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1991 Current Biography Yearbook.

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CLEMENS, ROGER
Aug. 4, 1962- Baseball player.

By the time the Boston Red Sox pitcher Roger Clemens was twenty-five years old, he had won two Cy Young Awards as the best pitcher in the American League as well as a Most Valuable Player Award and had set a major-league record for strikeouts in a nine-inning game. Combining a ninety-six-mile-per-hour fastball, uncanny control of his pitches, and a fiercely competitive nature, the tall, powerful right-hander established himself as the premier pitcher in the American League and its most dominating hurler since Jim Palmer in his heyday with the Baltimore Orioles in the mid-1970s. Clemens's consecutive Cy Young Award selections in 1986 and 1987 made him only the fourth pitcher ever to win the award two years in a row. His combined two-season record was an astounding forty-four wins and thirteen losses. A victim of arm and shoulder ailments in 1984 and 1985, his first two major-league seasons, Clemens underwent successful shoulder surgery in August 1985 and rebounded in 1986 by winning his first fourteen decisions--the fifth best winning streak by a pitcher at the start of a season in major-league history and only one win short of the league record. The streak included a record-setting twenty-strikeout performance against the Seattle Mariners on April 29. No pitcher had ever struck out more than nineteen batters in a nine-inning game before. Clemens's 1986 performance earned him the league's MVP award for the year. It also helped to win for the Red Sox the American League pennant and to bring them to within one strike of the World Series title, before a stunning comeback by their opponents, the New York Mets, took it away.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1988 Current Biography Yearbook.

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DOUBLEDAY, NELSON
July 20, 1933- Baseball executive; former publisher.

Nelson Doubleday, the scion of one of the major American publishing dynasties, has parlayed an unlikely partnership between the family book company and a major-league baseball franchise into a winning investment. Doubleday is the grandson of F. N. Doubleday, the founder of Doubleday & Company Inc., and the great-great-grandnephew of Abner Doubleday, the apocryphal "inventor" of baseball. Working his way up the executive ladder in the publishing company, he became its president in 1978. Two years later the company bought the then lowly New York Mets, the National League baseball team, and Doubleday became chairman of the Met board as well. Over the next six years, the Mets developed into a championship team, while Doubleday & Company showed signs of foundering. In 1986 Nelson Doubleday carried off a double coup, personally buying the baseball team from Doubleday & Company for a record $100 million in partnership with Fred Wilpon and, in a separate transaction, selling the publishing company to Bertelsmann A.G., the West German communications conglomerate, for a reported $475 million.

Nelson Doubleday is the son of the late Nelson Doubleday Sr., who built the company founded by F. N. (Frank Nelson) Doubleday into a mass-market giant among trade publishers, and the late Ellen McCarter (Violett) Doubleday. His ancestor Abner Doubleday actually existed and may have contributed to the popularization of baseball, but he certainly did not invent the game. Nelson was born on July 20, 1933, in Oyster Bay, Long Island. During Nelson's infancy the aging Rudyard Kipling, one of the Doubleday company's many illustrious authors, dedicated his poem "If" to him. Growing up in Oyster Bay, Nelson and his sister, Neltje (who now has the last name Kings, from her second marriage), lived, in Neltje's words, the "very isolated life" of "two rich kids sitting in a big house with lots of nannies and maids." According to Neltje, Nelson, a "very silent" child, was much more interested in baseball than in books. "He went to day camp and hated it," she remembered, as quoted by Christine Dugas in Business Week (August 4, 1986). "He wasn't much of a participator. But he liked to listen to Dodgers [baseball] games on the radio." Like his father, Nelson was "not a reader," Neltje said. "I think in many ways he mimicked our father, who always said, I don't read books, I sell them.'"

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1987 Current Biography Yearbook.

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GASTON, CITO
(GAS-tuhn, SEE-toh)
Mar. 17, 1944- Baseball manager.

When, in May 1989, Cito Gaston was promoted from hitting instructor to manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, the team had the second worst record for the first thirty-six games of the season in the history of the franchise. There was concern in the Toronto front office that Gaston was too friendly with the players to be a successful manager, but the team responded well to his easygoing manner and fought their way to a division crown, the first of four in Gaston's five years as manager. A victim of high expectations, he was mercilessly criticized by the fans and the media for the talented squad's late-season collapses, and he faced the prospect of being fired if the Jays did not reach the 1992 World Series. Silencing the critics, Gaston piloted the Blue Jays past the Atlanta Braves in 1992 to become the first black manager to win the World Series, and in 1993 he became the first manager since 1976 to lead a team to consecutive World Series championships, as Toronto topped the Philadelphia Phillies.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1993 Current Biography Yearbook.

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GOODEN, DWIGHT
Nov. 11, 1964- Baseball player.

Succeeding Fernando Valenzuela of the Los Angeles Dodgers as baseball's reigning pitching prodigy, Dwight Gooden has contributed mightily to the revival of the New York Mets, who had finished in the basement of the National League East in five of the seven years between 1977 and 1983. New York's resurgence began in 1984, when Gooden led both major leagues in strikeouts and became the National League's youngest Rookie of the Year ever. It continued in 1985, when Gooden led both leagues in victories and earned-run average as well as strikeouts and became history's youngest winner of the Cy Young Award, for best pitcher in the National League. Although less brilliantly, Gooden contributed importantly to the Mets' 1986 championship season. Fans and the press have nicknamed Gooden "the Doctor," or "Doc," because he "operates" on batters in a manner comparable to that in which basketball's Julius ("Doctor J") Erving operates on opposing players. He is also known as "Doctor K," an allusion to the score keeping symbol for the strikeout. Gooden's chief weapon is a blazing, ninety-five-mph fastball, which he uses in conjunction with a hard-breaking curve and a slippery change-up.

As Thomas Boswell observed of Gooden in the Washington Post (September 20, 1985), no pitcher has "ever been so good so young." In an article in New York (October 7, 1985), Joe Klein quoted Mike Shannon, the broadcaster for the St. Louis Cardinals: "He ain't twenty years old. I'm sitting up there, watching him work on the curve. He tries this, he tries that. He throws it hard, throws it soft, grips it different. He tries everything. Nothing works. He keeps trying. He never loses his poise. He ain't twenty or he ain't human."

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1986 Current Biography Yearbook.

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GOSSAGE, RICH
July 5, 1951- Baseball player.

The relief pitcher, who for a long time was professional baseball's unsung hero, has finally come into his own. The most fearsome of the major-league salvage artists enjoying the new recognition of their importance and the increased income accruing from it is the San Diego Padres' short reliever Rich Gossage, a hulking, mean-looking righthander who intimidates opposing batters with his ninety-four-mph jumping fastball and what he calls his "slurve," a combination slider-curve. The Padres, denizens of the cellar of the National League West throughout their previous fifteen-year history, signed Gossage to a multimillion-dollar contract in January 1984 in the hope that he would help make them serious title contenders--which indeed they became, taking the National League championship in 1984. Gossage, an eight-time All-Star, came to the Padres from the New York Yankees of the American League, for whom he saved 150 games over six years. Before becoming the big stopper in the Yankee bullpen, he pitched short relief for the Chicago White Sox (1972-76) and the Pittsburgh Pirates (1977). At the time of his signing with San Diego his major-league career saves totaled 206.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1984 Current Biography Yearbook.

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HENDERSON, RICKEY
Dec. 25, 1958- Baseball player.

Considered by most baseball authorities to be the best lead off batter in the game's history, Rickey Henderson of the Oakland A's possesses the four ideal traits of a number-one hitter--blazing speed, the ability to hit for both power and a high average, and a keen batting eye. In 1982 he smashed Lou Brock's single-season stolen-base record of 118, swiping an amazing 130, and, at the end of the 1990 season, he was just two short of Brock's career stolen-base record of 938. Discussing Henderson's skills with Murray Chass for an article that appeared in the March 1986 issue of Inside Sports, the Texas Rangers' manager Bobby Valentine said: "He's the type of guy who keeps pitchers awake all night the night before they're going to pitch....They have to make sure they don't walk him, because he turns a walk into a double or a triple. Then, when they throw strikes, they have to make sure the strikes are in the right spot, or else he can hit the ball out of the ballpark....With Rickey you have to choose between the slow death or the quick death."

Throughout his career, Henderson's childlike (some say immature) personality has consistently attracted almost as much attention as his athletic feats. He likes children and regularly talks to young spectators before, and often during, games. During batting practice, he sometimes goes so far as to search the field and dugout for broken bats than he can give to youngsters as souvenirs. "What Willie Mays, and few others, have brought to baseball, Henderson has--a child's enthusiasm and an ambassador's touch," Thomas Boswell, the veteran baseball writer of the Washington Post, once observed.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1990 Current Biography Yearbook.

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HERNANDEZ, KEITH
(huhr-NAN-dez)
Oct. 20, 1953- Baseball player.

Keith Hernandez, the savvy captain of the New York Mets, has won the Gold Glove award nine consecutive times and is widely regarded as the best fielding first baseman in baseball today. In addition, he is a career .300 hitter, with a reputation for consistency at the plate and dependability in the clutch. Hernandez began his major-league career with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1974, won the National League's Most Valuable Player award in 1979, and helped the Cardinals capture the World Series in 1982. Traded to the Mets in 1983, he contributed vitally to the New York team's rise from last place to pennant contention in the National League and to the 1986 world championship. Part of his contribution was an encyclopedic familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of virtually every pitcher and batter in the league--an invaluable help to his generally younger, less experienced teammates. Another part was his hitting, including twenty-four game-winning runs-batted-in in 1985--a major-league record. And then there was his state-of-the-art fielding. In every inning of every game in the 1986 World Series he demonstrated, as Craig Wolff of the New York Times reported, "how to hold a runner on and still be in position to field aground ball, how to scoop up throws in the dirt, how to field the bunt, and even how to stand on first base."

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1988 Current Biography Yearbook.

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HERSHISER, OREL
Sept. 16, 1958- Baseball player.

The latest in a long line of outstanding pitchers to wear the uniform of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Orel Hershiser won more games (sixty) in his first four major-league seasons (1984-87) than such former Dodger greats as Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and Don Sutton managed to win in a similar period of time. Then, in 1988, Hershiser, whose best pitch is a sinking fastball, vaulted to superstardom on the wings of a spectacular season in which he compiled a record of 23-8 and an E.R.A. of 2.26, set a major-league record by pitching fifty-nine consecutive scoreless innings (breaking Drysdale's record of fifty-eight, set in 1968), won the Cy Young Award as the National League's top pitcher, and was named the most valuable player in both the league championship series and the World Series. And the Dodgers, who had been picked by most preseason prognosticators to finish no higher than fourth, won the world title.

In an era in which both professional and amateur athletics have been tarnished by scandals involving everything from gambling to illicit sexual activity to illegal drug use, Hershiser has become almost as renowned for his simon-pure lifestyle as for his pitching feats. Devoutly religious (he even recites hymns to himself on the mound and in the dugout), he does not smoke, drink, or swear, and he remains a devoted family man. Hershiser's career was placed in jeopardy early in the 1990 season when he was forced to undergo arthroscopic surgery to repair severe damage in his right shoulder. He missed the remainder of the season, and his future status remained uncertain.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1990 Current Biography Yearbook.

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HUIZENGA, H. WAYNE
(HY-zeng-uh)
Dec. 29, 1939- Corporation executive; entrepreneur.

"I enjoy building something good and having a successful product and making money," the entrepreneur H. Wayne Huizenga has said. The hero of a real-life Horatio Alger story, in his early twenties Huizenga worked as a garbage-truck driver. Striking out on his own, he started a one-man trash-collection operation that, within a decade, had grown into a highly profitable enterprise providing employment for several dozen people. In 1968, combining his business with three other companies, he created Waste Management, Inc., which, when he resigned as president and chief operating officer in 1984, having decided to retire, ranked as the largest trash haulage and disposal business in the world. Bored with inactivity, he began buying properties in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, his adopted hometown, and soon became a major player in the city's economy.

In 1987 Huizenga and two partners acquired a nineteen-store chain called Blockbuster Video. As chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Blockbuster Entertainment Corp., he used his skills as a master deal maker to help transform the business into the world's largest video-rental chain and, in the words of one reporter, into "the company that is to videos what McDonald's is to hamburgers." With revenues of more than $2 billion in 1993, its share of the market has reached 20 percent, and it has reportedly grown larger than the next 550 video-rental chains combined. After Blockbuster's merger with the media giant Viacom, in 1994, Huizenga was named vice-chairman of Viacom and chairman of a new entity called the Blockbuster Entertainment Group. In 1995 he left Blockbuster to become the chairman and chief executive officer of Republic Waste Industries, a relatively small solid-waste collection business. As the owner of the Miami Dolphins football team, the Florida Marlins baseball team, and the Florida Panthers hockey team, Huizenga is the only person in the United States whose holdings include three professional sports clubs.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1995 Current Biography Yearbook.

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JACKSON, BO
Nov. 30, 1962- Baseball player; football player.

One of only a handful of athletes ever to play in two sports at the professional level, Bo Jackson has become a worldwide celebrity not only through his feats on the baseball and football fields but also through his equally lucrative career as a commercial spokesman for Nike athletic shoes and other products. A Heisman Trophy winner at Auburn University in 1985, Jackson was the first player to be selected in the 1986 college draft, but he spurned a multimillion-dollar offer from the National Football League's Tampa Bay Buccaneers and instead signed a professional-baseball contract with the Kansas City Royals of the American League. Strictly a baseball player for one season, Jackson stunned the sports world in 1987 by signing a five-year contract with the Los Angeles Raiders of the NFL, announcing that he intended to play pro football in the fall while continuing to play baseball in the spring and summer. Jackson's incredible athletic ability has awed his fans, but it has also brought him harsh criticism from those who believe that, by insisting on playing two sports, he shows a lack of respect for both and makes it impossible for himself to be truly great in either one.

Jackson has countered that he has been playing both baseball and football since he was sixteen years old, and that playing both seems perfectly natural to him. "I've chosen to live my life this way, and I could care less what anybody thinks," Jackson told Ken Picking of USA Today (July 20, 1988). "I can honestly say I've never felt physically fatigued. At my age, why should I? I can't stand idle time. I have the rest of my life to rest and relax. Now is the time for me to do what I can do."

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1991 Current Biography Yearbook.

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LASORDA, TOMMY
Sep. 22, 1927- Baseball manager.

If anyone were to cut Tommy Lasorda, the garrulous and combative manager of baseball's 1988 world champion Los Angeles Dodgers, he would "bleed Dodger blue"--a metaphorical slogan of his that exemplifies his combination of sincerity and instinctive showmanship. Lasorda joined the Dodger organization forty years ago as a minor-league pitcher, which he remained, except for two brief tries in the majors, until 1960. After working devotedly in the Dodger system for sixteen years as a scout, a farm-team manager, and the third-base coach in Los Angeles, he became manager of the Dodgers in time to guide the team to the National League pennant in 1977. Since then, the Dodgers have won five divisional titles, three additional pennants, and two World Series, the most recent in 1988.

Especially in 1988, the Dodgers' success was achieved against odds that probably would have been insurmountable without Lasorda's charged personality, his knowledge of the game, and his grasp of motivational and competitive psychology. Naturally good-natured and gregarious, he has an informal rapport with his players that contributes to team cohesiveness and camaraderie without undermining his authority, which he asserts in clubhouse tirades as fearsome as his dugout vituperation against umpires and opposing teams. His enthusiasm, optimism, and intensity in competition are contagious, and his aggressiveness often forces the opposition into defensive mistakes. As Jerry Sullivan observed in New York Newsday (October 2, 1988), Lasorda has come through more than a decade of success as a major-league manager a basically unchanged and simple man: "He remains baseball's bowlegged moveable feast, an American original...willingly present[ing] himself in caricature--as the engaging, eternally grateful baseball man performing the only job to which he's ever aspired." Through the 1989 season, in which the club finished fourth, fourteen games behind the league-leading San Francisco Giants, the Dodgers under Lasorda have won a total of 1,097 games and lost a total of 955. His .535 winning percentage is third-best among active major-league managers, behind only those of Sparky Anderson of Detroit and Whitey Herzog of St. Louis.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1989 Current Biography Yearbook.

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Greg Maddux
MADDUX, GREG*
Apr. 14, 1966- Baseball player.

In ranking right-handed pitchers in major-league baseball, one must go back to Walter Johnson in the "dead ball" era before 1920 to find a match for the sustained efficiency demonstrated over the past four years by the National League's Greg Maddux. In 1994 Maddux became the first pitcher in either league, National or American, to win the Cy Young Award for best pitcher more than two years in succession, and he went on to earn the award a fourth time in 1995. Unusually well-rounded for a pitcher, he has in addition won the Gold Glove Award for fielding five years in succession (1991-95). Maddux pitched for the Chicago Cubs for seven years before joining his current team, the Atlanta Braves, following the 1992 season. He had earned run averages of 2.18 in 1992, 2.26 in 1993, and 1.56 in 1994; with 1.63 in 1995, he became the first pitcher since Johnson (in 1918-19) to register back-to-back ERAs below 1.70.

Maddux helped lead the Braves to a first-place finish in the National League's East division in 1995 with a league-leading 19 wins and two losses, bringing his major-league win-loss record to 150-93. He contributed two wins--and no losses--to Atlanta's victories in two National League play-off rounds, and he went on to win one game and lose one in the 1995 World Series, in which the Braves defeated the American League's Cleveland Indians. "What Maddux has done," the sports journalist Tom Verducci has observed, "is put up Dead Ball numbers in a Rabbit Ball era." In The Bill James Player Ratings Book (1995), James dubbed Maddux "nature's perfect pitcher" and one apparently "headed for the Hall of Fame." "The most amazing thing about him," James wrote, "is that Maddux got to be the best pitcher in the league--and then he got better."

The complete article can be found in the February 1996 issue of Current Biography. An updated version of the article will appear on the 1983-1996 Current Biography CD-ROM (to be released in January 1997) and in the 1996 Current Biography Yearbook (to be published in December 1996).

* Photo courtesy of the Atlanta Braves.

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MATTINGLY, DON
Apr. 20, 1961- Baseball player.

Unheralded when the New York Yankees brought him up from the minor leagues, twenty-seven-year-old Don Mattingly may be the best player in baseball today, and he is incontestably the greatest Yankee first baseman since the legendary Lou Gehrig. After only four full seasons from 1984 through 1987, Mattingly has broken a slew of long-standing club records, surpassing marks that had been set by greats like Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio. Unlike most great hitters, Mattingly hits for both power and a high batting average; in addition, he rarely strikes out. The .331 average that he has compiled at the plate since 1983 places him third on the all-time Yankee list, behind Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and in 1987 Mattingly set one major league record by hitting six grand slams and tied another by belting at least one home run in eight consecutive games. In 1984 he won the American League batting title with an average of .343 and was named the American League's Most Valuable Player after the following season, when he batted .324, swatted thirty-five home runs, and drove in a phenomenal 145 runs. Moreover, along with Keith Hernandez of the National League New York Mets, Mattingly is the game's premier defensive first baseman, having led American League first basemen in fielding percentage for four straight years and having captured the Rawlings Gold Glove Award for defensive excellence in three of those years.

Don Mattingly is a fierce competitor and perfectionist who is never satisfied with his performance, even when he has Hall of Fame-caliber seasons, and he strives constantly to improve. In a New York Times (March 16, 1987) article Murray Chass wrote that the Mattingly his teammates know "has intensity' as his middle name." As Yankee third baseman Mike Pagliarulo told Chass, "[Mattingly's] got a great mental attitude. What I admire most about him is his intensity. When he's at the plate, he never loses his concentration. We could be losing 10-0, and he's at the plate as intense as ever." But Mattingly's contribution to the Yankees cannot be measured solely by his productivity at the plate. According to Kelvin Chapman, a former second baseman for the New York Mets, "Most first basemen, they're not really infielders, because they don't go into the hole or catch balls or throw people out." And Mattingly is considered the best Yankee first baseman since Joe Pepitone in the 1960s. "I try to play first almost like a shortstop or second baseman plays their position," Mattingly has said, as quoted by Paul Needell in the New York Daily News (April 7, 1985). "I know a lot of times people think, Oh, a first baseman kind of stands by the bag and gets what's hit at him and catches the throws.' But if I can play deep and cut off balls in the hole, that allows [second baseman] Willie [Randolph] to range more the other way. The more I can do, the more Willie can do."

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1988 Current Biography Yearbook.

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MONAGHAN, THOMAS
Mar. 25, 1937- Corporation executive; baseball-team owner.

Historians trying to describe the social climate of the United States in the 1980s will likely be hard-pressed to do so without mentioning, at least in passing, Domino's Pizza. Fueled by the nation's exploding population of singles and two-income, childless couples as well as by the "couch-potato" trend of that decade, Domino's, which features free home delivery of a hot pizza in thirty minutes or less, grew from 290 stores in 1980 to more than 5,000 by 1990. The chain's founder and chairman, Tom Monaghan, is a straight-arrow type whose life story follows the classic Horatio Alger pattern. Raised in orphanages and foster homes, Monaghan graduated last in his high school class, was expelled from a Catholic seminary, and attended college six times without getting past the status of freshman. In 1960 he and his brother, Jim, borrowed $900 and bought a foundering pizzeria in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Although Jim pulled out of the business less than a year later, Tom hung on, slowly opening new stores and surviving two near-bankruptcies, a devastating fire to his headquarters, and a five-year legal battle with the Amstar Corporation over trademark infringement. His perseverance paid off. By 1989 Domino's had 5,100 outlets and annual sales of $2.3 billion, and Tom Monaghan's personal fortune was estimated at $480 million.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1990 Current Biography Yearbook.

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MORGAN, JOE
Sep. 19, 1943- Baseball player.

The second baseman Joe Morgan has been a welcome anachronism in an age of increasing specialization in major-league baseball. One of the game's underappreciated greats, Morgan established himself as a stellar all-round second baseman in the years following his arrival in the majors in 1964. At his peak, in the 1970s, he was widely considered the most complete player in the National League, and he has continued to excel over the whole range of fielding, hitting, running, and stealing bases even in the twilight of his career. The speed and power that contribute to his prowess are, remarkably, packed into a five-foot-seven, 155-pound body--diminutive by major-league standards.

In addition to his playing skills, Morgan brings morale to a club: since reaching his prime with the Cincinnati Reds, perennial National League contenders in the 1970s, Morgan has only once played for a team that has finished below third place, and every team he has joined has improved upon his arrival and declined after his departure. After completing the 1983 season with the Philadelphia Phillies, Morgan retired, because he felt that it was time for him to be at home with his family in Oakland, California. Then the Oakland A's approached him, and he signed a one-year contract. When he started the 1984 season with the A's, he was among the top ten base stealers in baseball history, with 681 steals, and he held the major-league record for most consecutive errorless games by a second baseman (ninety-one) and the National League records for most games (2,190), seasons (nineteen), and putouts (5,056) by a second baseman. In the 1984 season Morgan broke the record for most career home runs by a major-league second baseman, with 268.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1984 Current Biography Yearbook.

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NETTLES, GRAIG
Aug. 20, 1944- Baseball player.

Belying third baseman Graig Nettles' equanimity on major-league baseball's playing fields and his detachment from clubhouse politics are a prickly temperament, a glib tongue, and an often devastating sense of humor--traits that brought him in the 1970s into an adversarial relationship with George Steinbrenner, the ostentatious owner of the New York Yankees, a man widely perceived as the American League's fickle spendthrift. The last straw for Steinbrenner, apparently, was Balls (Putnam, 1984), a memoir of Nettles' baseball career, written in collaboration with Peter Golenbock, in which the owner comes across, for the most part, as an egomaniacal Simon Legree. When the book's advance promotion came to Steinbrenner's attention in March 1983, Nettles was summarily traded to the San Diego Padres of the National League.

With Nettles' departure, New York lost its team captain, one of its best left-handed power hitters, and one of the best defensive third basemen of all time. The agile infielder, who began his major-league career in 1967 and joined the Yankees seven years later, holds the major-league seasonal records for assists and double plays by a third baseman (412 and fifty-four in 1971) and the American League career record for home runs by a third baseman (333). He led the American League in chances per game, the best indicator of a player's range, in 1971, 1973, and 1976, and he had a league career fielding average of .964, exceptional for the hot corner. With San Diego during the 1984 season he batted .228, hit eleven doubles, one triple, and twenty home runs, and drove in sixty-five runs, eight of them game-winners. In the league championship series against the Chicago Cubs he contributed two runs-batted-in to the Padres' victory; he also had two RBIs in the World Series, which San Diego lost to the Detroit Tigers.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1984 Current Biography Yearbook.

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PINIELLA, LOU
(puh-NEL-luh)
Aug. 28, 1943- Baseball manager.

The hottest and most precarious seat in professional baseball is probably that of manager of the American League's storied New York Yankees, whose activist owner, George Steinbrenner, is viewed by some of his critics as "a fickle Simon Legree." The current holder of that seat is Lou Piniella, an intensely competitive former Yankee outfielder who has described himself as a "temperamental Latin." Piniella, one of the all-time top-ten New York hitters, retired as a player in June 1984 and remained with the team as a batting coach until October 1985, when he assumed his present responsibilities. "Managing is the ultimate challenge...," Piniella has said. "I can't worry about what happened to my predecessors. You've got to be optimistic and say it won't happen to me. If it does, life goes on. My job is to keep the players prepared, to keep them enthusiastic, to keep them with the thought that winning is numero uno." In his autobiography Sweet Lou (Putnam's, 1986), written with Maury Allen, he professes himself to be "a contented man--and success or failure as a Yankee manager cannot change that."

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1986 Current Biography Yearbook.

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RIPKEN, CAL, JR.
Aug. 24, 1960- Baseball player.

Named one of ten "living legends" in a recent Sports Illustrated article, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Cal Ripken Jr. is among the most remarkable athletes of his generation, and he is perhaps the best all-around shortstop in baseball history. As of the end of the 1992 season, Ripken had played in 1,735 straight games, the second-longest consecutive-game streak ever, behind only Lou Gehrig's 2,130. Amazingly, Ripken has been in the starting lineup for every one of those contests, and between June 5, 1982 and September 14, 1987, a span of 904 games, he played every inning of every game--an incredible 8,243 consecutive innings, the longest such streak in history. Ripken's durability is all the more unusual because he plays shortstop, which is considered to be the most wearing, both mentally and physically, of the infield and outfield positions. (Gehrig, by contrast, played first base, generally rated the least demanding position.) Moreover, Ripken plays in an era of coast-to-coast travel and long-term, guaranteed contracts in which players routinely sit out games with injuries. Describing his willingness to take the field in every Oriole game since May 1982, Ripken told Ralph Wiley for Sports Illustrated (June 18, 1990): "You gotta play as many games as you can. Since there are so many possible plays, you can't get it all unless you're there every day. You can't get it from a book. You play games. And after you play so many games, experience so many different ground balls, runners, hitters, and situations, you learn to prepare for each hitter, each count, each pitch, each option--even each potential injury."

A two-time winner of the American League's most-valuable-player award, Ripken has more career home runs than any shortstop in league history, and he is one of only eight players ever to hit twenty or more home runs in each of his first ten seasons. No less remarkable defensively, he holds the major-league records for most consecutive errorless games by a shortstop (ninety-five), fewest errors by a shortstop in a season (three), and highest seasonal fielding percentage by a shortstop (.996). He has led American League shortstops in assists six times, in double plays and putouts five times each, and in total chances four times. At six feet, four inches in height, Ripken is also the tallest full-time shortstop in major-league history. The son of Cal Ripken Sr., a former manager of the Orioles, he is the older brother of Billy Ripken, a second baseman for the Orioles since 1987.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1992 Current Biography Yearbook.

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SANDBERG, RYNE
Sept. 18, 1959- Baseball player.

With his ability to hit for power as well as average, his peerless defensive skills, and his speed on the base paths, Ryne Sandberg may be the greatest all-around second baseman in baseball history. A perennial All-Star and a lock for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, he started out in the Philadelphia Phillies farm system after a phenomenal high-school athletic career, in which he excelled in football and basketball as well as baseball. In one of the most lopsided trades in the history of professional baseball, in 1982 the Phillies sent the veteran Larry Bowa and the young prospect Sandberg, whose future was thought to be limited to duties as a utility infielder, to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for a young shortstop. After spending his rookie season as a third baseman, Sandberg was moved to second base, where he quickly emerged as one of the best fielders in the game, earning a Gold Glove in his first year at the position. Demonstrating hitherto unseen slugging prowess, in 1984 he earned most-valuable-player honors as the long downtrodden Cubs captured the National League eastern division title. Sandberg, who has been dubbed "Kid Natural" for the effortless elegance of his play, collected a record nine straight Gold Glove awards, and when he blasted forty home runs in 1990, he became the first second baseman in more than fifty years to lead the league in home runs. Prior to the 1992 season, he became baseball's richest player, signing a contract worth more than $7 million annually. A quiet, almost laconic hero, Sandberg walked away from his multimillion-dollar salary in the middle of the 1994 season when his numbers at the plate dropped below those he had routinely posted in past seasons, choosing to retire rather than play below his own high standards.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1994 Current Biography Yearbook.

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SANDERS, DEION
(DEE-ahn)
Aug. 9, 1967- Baseball player; football player.

Combining explosive speed, dazzling talent, and a flamboyant personality seemingly tailor-made for the spotlight, Deion Sanders is a force in both the National Football League and major-league baseball. Nicknamed "Prime Time" by a high school friend, for his play on the basketball court no less, he has lived up to the moniker in the NFL, not only as an All-Pro cornerback but also as a spectacular punt and kickoff returner and occasionally as a wide receiver. One of the few defenders who can dominate a game, he is viewed by many observers as the best defensive player in the sport. His development on the baseball diamond has been a little slower, but he has worked to make himself a dangerous lead-off hitter and one of the game's premier base stealers.

Even though he has excelled in both sports, Sanders's apparent inability to set his priorities during the three months when the baseball and football seasons overlap each year has made him the target of criticism, with some observers questioning his worth to any team in a sport not given his full attention. When he began his professional career, Sanders put football first, leaving baseball in early September, but after joining the Atlanta Braves, who were pennant contenders the three seasons he was on the team, he began to play both sports during baseball's division race and playoffs. In shuttling back and forth between the baseball diamond and the football field, Sanders, who had already become the only pro player ever to hit a major-league home run and score an NFL touchdown in the same week, became the first person to suit up for both professional sports in one day. After two chaotic years of trying to play both at the same time, he decided to stay with baseball for the duration of its season before turning to football. Perhaps even more impressive than Sander's playing two sports is his desire to play every down in football games. He has received limited play at wide receiver, but he wants to become as dominating on offense as he is on defense. "I've always been an offensive-type football player, even on defense," Sanders told Kevin Cook of Playboy (August 1994). "When I get the ball, people can see the offense in me--I'm taking it to the house, thinking about scoring every time I touch the ball."

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1995 Current Biography Yearbook.

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STRAWBERRY, DARRYL
Mar. 12, 1962- Baseball player.

To baseball's lowly New York Mets, finishing last in the east division of the National League in 1983 was not a novel experience. This time, however, the club emerged from its customary losing season with an unaccustomed sanguinity. The chief reason for the hopefulness was one man, the celebrated rookie right fielder Darryl Strawberry. Called up from the minors in May 1983, the lean and lanky left-handed power hitter suffered the criticism of disappointed fans and the press for almost two months while he painfully "learned the league," as he put it. Then he surged, hitting over .300 during the last half of the season, accumulating season totals of twenty-five home runs and seventy-four runs-batted-in, and becoming the National League Rookie of the Year. Before the beginning of the 1984 season, Strawberry's teammate and friend Mookie Wilson told a reporter: "One thing we had to convince Darryl of last year was that no one guy can do it by himself. He knows that now. He's more relaxed about things. But we all feel pressure for this team to do better....This year, if the young pitchers come on, we should be better--a lot better. At least competitive. The next year, though, '85, watch out for us."

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1984 Current Biography Yearbook.

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THOMAS, FRANK
May 27, 1968- Baseball player.

The unanimous selection of Frank Thomas as the most valuable player in the American League in 1993 confirmed what baseball people have been saying about the Chicago White Sox first baseman ever since he made the majors in August 1990--that Thomas, who has earned the nickname"The Big Hurt," for his solid six-foot five-inch, 250-pound frame and for the psychic agony he inflicts on opposing pitchers, is perhaps the best hitter in the game. An exclamation mark was added to that assessment when he won a second consecutive most-valuable-player award, for the strike-shortened 1994 season. "Someday soon we will see a team intentionally walk Frank with the bases loaded," the sportscaster Ken Harrelson told Steve Wulf of Sports Illustrated (September 13, 1993). "And when they do, I will stand up and applaud them for their intelligence."

Although he hit more than one hundred home runs in his first three-and-a-half major-league seasons, Thomas, who has remarkable patience for a young slugger, has twice led the league in walks. Not only a star at the plate, he is perhaps the "most popular and admired player in either league," as Bob Verdi wrote in the Chicago Tribune (November 11, 1993). Despite the attention his awesome offensive output has brought him, Thomas has managed to remain both humble and focused. He has taped the letters "DBTH," for "Don't believe the hype," above his locker, and he works diligently to improve his already formidable skills. "If you get me started talking about hitting, I'm warning you, I can talk all day," Thomas told Johnette Howard of Sport (April 1992)."I love it. I feel like I was born to hit. I feel that's what I care about more than anything in the world."

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1995 Current Biography Yearbook.

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UEBERROTH, PETER
(YOO-buhr-roth)
Sep. 2, 1937- Baseball commissioner.

Although he was a brilliant entrepreneur, the multimillionaire Peter V. Ueberroth was relatively unknown before he became president of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee in 1979. His skillful management of the summer games--the first ever to be financed exclusively from private funds--netted a remarkable surplus of over $200 million for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and earned him the title of Man of the Year from both Time magazine and the Sporting News. Taking on another challenge after the Olympics, Ueberroth succeeded Bowie Kuhn as commissioner of baseball. His forceful style and business acumen have led many observers to predict that he will be baseball's most impressive commissioner since Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who originated the position in 1920.

Peter Victor Ueberroth was born in Evanston, Illinois on September 2, 1937, the son of Victor Ueberroth, an aluminum-siding salesman, and Laura (Larson) Ueberroth. His mother died when he was four, and after about a year his father remarried. He and his second wife, Nancy, an accountant, had a son six years later. During Peter's childhood, the Ueberroths lived in Madison, Wisconsin, Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, and Davenport, Iowa, but they finally settled in Burlingame in northern California. He became involved in baseball at an early age as a third baseman, catcher, and pitcher on American Legion and sandlot teams, but he insists that he was merely a mediocre player. Ueberroth continued his interest in sports at Fremont High School in Los Angeles, where he earned letters in baseball, football, and swimming, though sports were not his only extracurricular activity. By the time he entered high school, he was self-supporting, and in his sophomore year he moved out of his parents' home to live and work at Twelveacres, an orphanage for children from broken homes, where he earned $125 a month as its recreation director.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1985 Current Biography Yearbook.

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VINCENT, FAY
May 29, 1938- Sports executive; lawyer.

No commissioner in the history of major-league baseball has endured as tumultuous a first year in office as Fay Vincent, who assumed his position in September 1989, following the death of his close friend A. Bartlett Giamatti, under whom he had served as deputy commissioner. During his first year at the helm, Vincent was forced to deal with three major crises: an earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area that halted the 1989 World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics for ten days; a thirty-two-day "lockout" of spring-training camps by the major-league owners in 1990, which delayed the opening of the regular season for a week; and a lengthy investigation into alleged improprieties by George Steinbrenner, the principal owner of the New York Yankees, which resulted in his being ousted from that position in the summer of 1990. In the opinion of most observers, Vincent's actions in each of those cases were those of a man possessed of uncommonly good judgment, grace, and perseverance. "He has already shown us a lot of qualities as an individual," David Dombrowski, the general manager of the Montreal Expos, told Greg Boeck during an interview for USA Today (August 1, 1990). "He showed compassion and understanding in the way he handled the earthquake. And he showed toughness, integrity, and the ability to command respect with the Steinbrenner decision. The list goes on."

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1991 Current Biography Yearbook.

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WEAVER, EARL
Aug. 14, 1930- Former baseball manager.

"Tired of yelling at people," the irascible and colorful Earl Weaver retired in October 1982, after fifteen successful seasons managing the Baltimore Orioles--the longest unbroken tenure of any contemporary major-league baseball manager. Over that span, Weaver guided the Orioles to a winning percentage second to none, to four American League pennants, to a world championship, and to five 100-win seasons, a record matching Connie Macks and excelled only by Joe McCarthy's six. As the scourge of umpires, he won another distinction, that of the most ejected manager in the majors, with eighty-nine dismissals from games and three suspensions. A brilliant, driven scrambler whose aggressiveness was more methodical than mad, Weaver made unprecedented use of statistical science in the charting of players and the configuring of lineups, and he was a master at motivating his men. As Terry Pluto observed in his biography The Earl of Baltimore (1982), "Clearly, his record makes Earl a hot commodity, but it is his temper, his inner constitution, and his wit which have made him a star and the games resident genius." Weaver's major-league career winning percentage was .596, the third best in history, excelled only by Joe McCarthys .614 and Frank Selees .598.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1983 Current Biography Yearbook.

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WINFIELD, DAVE
Oct. 3, 1951- Baseball player.

When David M. Winfield left the University of Minnesota in 1973, he was a multi-threat natural athlete of such potential that professional teams in three sports drafted him. He opted for baseball--specifically the San Diego Padres of the National League. After "eight years of mediocracy" (his agent's phrase) as an outfielder in San Diego, Winfield jumped leagues to sign with "a winner," the New York Yankees, who gave him not only the most lucrative contract in the history of sports but also a star-class showcase for his prowess. With his size (six feet six, 220 pounds) and speed, Winfield the outfielder foils home runs with leaping catches that only a man of his height and body control could make. It is at the plate, however, that he is most feared. Always a powerful batter, he used to describe himself as "a wrist hitter, a line-drive hitter." Ironically, since arriving in Yankee Stadium (the structure of which is not conducive to homers by righthanders), Winfield has developed into a slugger. Going into the 1984 season, his major league career statistics include 1,514 games played, a .283 batting average, 254 doubles, fifty-six triples, 236 home runs, and 961 runs batted in. Winfield puts at least as much energy into his work with the David M. Winfield Foundation, a charitable foundation serving underprivileged youth, as he does into baseball.

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1984 Current Biography Yearbook.

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YOUNT, ROBIN
Sep. 16, 1955- Baseball player.

"Living on the edge," Robin Yount has said, "is the only way to play." Exhibiting that all-out attitude on the baseball field for twenty years with the Milwaukee Brewers, Robin Yount has been one of the most durable and, with his formidable abilities both at the plate and in the field, most complete players in the sport. He has split his career between two demanding positions, shortstop and center field, and he has won the American League most-valuable-player award for his performance at both spots. A consistent and clutch batter, on September 9, 1992 he joined the exclusive 3,000-hit club, which virtually guarantees him election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Yount's longevity is remarkable, given his lifelong love of motorcycles and fast cars. Known to Milwaukee fans as "Rockin' Robin" and to his teammates as "Kid," he has competed in professional motocross, go-kart, and auto races. By his own account, mental intensity is the key to surviving his high-risk lifestyle. "If I'm blessed in any way, it's with concentration," he explained to Peter Gammons for Sports Illustrated (April 30, 1990). "I can blot things out and tunnel my focus. To me, concentration is the one skill that ties together every sport--golf, baseball, racing. You know how people get hurt on motorcycles or in race cars or in baseball? They don't concentrate."

The complete article can be found on the Current Biography CD-ROM and in the 1993 Current Biography Yearbook.

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