July 31- Tampa Bay Devil Rays

I had a lot of illusions going into the 2012 Major League Baseball season, especially considering how naïve I was thinking that my MLB Fan Cave experience was going to be all gumdrops and puppy dogs. While there were certainly a lot of moments of positivity from my experience, it was certainly met with a lot of heartbreak. I’ve focused a few of my prior New Era Cap posts on the darker sides of my experience and I assure you that this is not going to be another one, but there is one moment in particular that I need to get off of my chest, man up and admit to as it plays heavily with the story.

Flashback

It was March 29^th, the second game of Opening Day Series in Tokyo, Japan between the Seattle Mariners and my Oakland Athletics. The first game of the series didn’t exactly go as I wanted I it to, but things were certainly starting to look optimistic. In the bottom of the seventh inning the Athletics were down 0-1, but the bats were finally coming to life as Yoenis Cespedes clubbed a two-run shot to give the Athletics a 2-1 lead which was then followed by a solo home run by Josh Reddick immediately after. With a solid lead I was feeling a bit more at ease about things, well… until Jonny Gomes came up for his fourth at-bat in the bottom of the eighth inning. Jonny had struck out twice and flew out in his third at-bat, so I wasn’t really expecting much from him. In fact, I even turned around and said, “Here comes another strikeout to Tyler Hissey, the man who runs all the social media content for the Fan Cave. We talked for a quick moment about this as he was a bigger fan of the deal the Athletics had made to bring him in than I was. Of course, I was basing a lot of my knowledge about him off of his time with the Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals. Just as I said, “Yah, just not sure he was a good pick-up,” Jonny crushed the deepest home run of the series into left-centerfield. As stoked as I was to take the trip down the Home Run Slide for the third time in the early hours of the morning, I couldn’t help by look back at Tyler with a facial expression saying, “Yup! I screwed up on that one.” I’ll never forgive myself for that moment of ignorance. I’ve never been the kind of guy to look at a person’s negative qualities on the ball field as opposed to focusing on the things I know they’re more than capable of. Thus, the theme of the 2012 season; rather, the theme of my baseball fandom was established right then and there.

Jonny was born and raised in Petaluma, California, about an hour outside of San Francisco. His parents divorced when he was a toddler. His father was around, but not engaged. His mother raised him and his older brother Joey, who I wrote about on January 16th, on a home health-care worker’s salary. Times were so tough that he and Joey used to scavenge camp sites to retrieve beer and soda cans to recycle them for any cash they could. When it came to baseball, their mother was the biggest supporter, giving them the choice of basic needs like electricity or new baseball cleats. In almost every case the boys chose baseball. After all, candles work just as well, and when you have something to help keep you motivated in succeeding at life, that will always trump. Most of the Gomes’ lives were spent moving from house to house, sometimes staying with friends or their mother’s patients when they were evicted for not being able to pay rent, something Jonny never forgot.

He attended Casa Grande High School in Petaluma and quickly became one of the standouts on the team, right behind his best friend 16-year-old Adam Westcott. On May 23^rd, 1997 Westcott and Jonny, as sophomores, were playing for the Sonoma County League Championship. With the score tied in the top of fifth inning with the bases loaded (Jonny on third) and two outs, Westcott came to the plate. As Jonny described in an interview for ESPN’s E:60, “Adam’s up. Best player, best hitter, the game is on the line, what’s going to happen? It was like a movie, all you have to do is press play.” With the swing of the bat Westcott lobbed a single into shallow left-centerfield which allowed Gomes and the runner on second to score. The championship was theirs.

The next night the two boys went out with a few female friends joyriding. Both of them wanted the back passenger seat and ultimately decided to leave it on a coin flip to see who would be riding on the window, and who would be stuck in the middle. Westcott won the toss. That night on a usually deserted stretch of road know as “the roller coaster,” the teens almost hit head on with a car coming in the opposite direction, in an attempt not to hit one another the driver swerved and lost control of the car on a gravel bed on the side of the road. Due to their speed the car juked ferociously into a telephone pole. Most of the passengers walked away with a few scrapes and bruises, Westcott took the full force of the impact. He died two days later. To honor his friend Jonny got his first tattoo, Westcott’s initials (APW) wrapped in barbed wire.

After graduating from high school in 1999, Jonny attended Santa Rosa Junior College where he continued to play ball. His hard work and dedication to his craft paid off as he was selected in the 18^th round of the 2001 amateur draft by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. From 2001-2004 Jonny moved through the minor league ranks, even making a stop in my old home town of Bakersfield, California for a full season with Joey in 2002. Jonny played in 135 games that season in heat that is borderline the closest one can ever come to playing in the first ring of Hell. He crushed 30 home runs for the Bakersfield Blaze that season and hit .276. On Christmas Eve of that year Gomes experienced persistent chest pains, which he was originally going to try and sleep off. Instead, he checked himself into the hospital. A cardiologist charged a deliberator just in case and explained to Jonny that he was suffering a heart attack, an anteroseptal myocardial infarction (widow-maker) to be more specific. As a result of the heart attack, the Rays' team doctor had to keep nitroglycerin pills on-hand in case Gomes suffered a second heart attack.

In 2003 and 2004 Gomes got called up for a total of 13 games, but spent the majority of his time in AAA with the Durham Bulls routinely hitting dingers. In 2005 Gomes was finally called up for his longest stretch and played in 101 games that season, the highlight of which took place on July 30, 2005. This cap was only used for that one season as an alternate style, mostly Sundays. The July 30th game happened to fall on a Saturday. Close enough.

7/30/2005: The Devil Rays were hosting the Kansas City Royals that day with future American League Cy Young-winner Zack Greinke on the mound. Gomes was already having an exception July, the kind that any rookie would love to build a career on. In Gomes’s first at-bat in the bottom of the second inning, he went down on three straight pitches, Greinke’s first strikeout of the game. This would be the last time Gomes didn’t make contact with the ball. When Gomes’s came up in the bottom of the third inning he worked a 2-2 count on Greinke. When Greinke threw the hanging slider, Gomes turned on it, knocking it into the far corner of the left-centerfield stands at Tropicana Field. In his next at-bat, same results. For his fourth, and final at-bat of the game the Royals put in reliever Mike MacDougal and; sure enough, it was gone. Gomes had become the first player in franchise history to log three home runs in one game. The rest of the season went pretty well for Gomes. He finished with a .282 average, 21 home runs and 54 RBI which was good enough for a third place finish for the AL Rookie of the Year Award.

Jonny’s career became a bit odd after that as he and Devil Rays/Rays battled over what his role would be with the club. Gomes was immediate fan favorite, he hustled every game and always came to the defense of his teammates; however, his playing time diminished as players like Carl Crawford and Ben Zobrist were called up. He was sent up and down from AAA numerous times, but could never string enough hits together to keep face and stay up in The Show. At the end of the 2008 season Gomes and the Rays parted ways. He was immediately picked up by the Reds on a minor league contract, was cut after spring training, but stuck in AAA with the Louisville Bats where he was called up in May. Jonny spent three years with the Reds. During his time he had another three-home run game on August 13, 2009, the first two of which came off of former Nationals’ pitcher, my friend Colin Balester. Gomes also played 148 games in 2010, the most in a  season of his career, but he was also one of the lowest paid players at $800,000. I know that seems like a lot in terms of baseball dollars, but reflect that upon his skill level and the road he took to get there. In the middle of the 2011 season the Reds traded Gomes to the Nationals where he hit .204 with eight home runs and 12 RBI in 43 games. At the end of the season he was granted free agency where a hopefully Billy Beane was waiting with a $1 million contract.

Back to reality

Sorry, had a lot that I needed to cram in about the man before I could continue, it’ll all make sense in the end. In the month after I was eliminated from the Fan Cave I had two choices:

1. Wallow in my misery and not watch baseball.

2. Get my ass on the road and watch as much baseball as I possibly could.

Needles to say, option two was way more satisfying. The first leg of my tour took me to Seattle to meet up with my friend, and Mariners fan Tommy Bentley (@RealTomBentley). 

He allowed me to crash with him for a few days so I took care of all the tickets and beer (fair trade). On the first game of the series we each grabbed a beer and crushed them during batting practice, then we headed over to the Athletics’ side dugout for batting practice so we could grab a few pictures. A few of the guys were stretching, a few were in the cage, but the one thing I wasn’t expecting, nor was I paying attention to, was Jonny walking over to me. “Hey!” he said. “What the hell are you doing here?” Not ay any point in time before this moment had I ever met Jonny, nor did I have any clue that he knew who I was, but for the next few minutes we talked about why I wasn’t in the Fan Cave anymore, how my time was and what I was up to now. He didn’t have to do it, I certainly wasn’t expecting it, but I was truly appreciative of the fact that he took the time to get to know me as I was the Athletics representative in the Fan Cave.

The next day Tommy and I kept to the beer chug and batting practice routine, and sure enough Jonny came back over to shoot the breeze until it was his time in the cage. The thing that I never took into consideration that he finally mentioned was that he became genuinely interested in me because of the articles that Yahoo!, Deadspin and NBC Sports had written, as well as the MLB Tickets commercial I was featured in. If you haven’t noticed, Jonny has a lot of ink, and much like myself, people with ink generally like to talk to other people with ink. At the time I hadn’t planned on sticking around for the last game of the series, but I did mention that he would probably see me in Oakland. We shook hands and he went back to practice, but only after making a pit stop behind the cage  to play catch with one of his friend’s kids.

When we met up in Oakland it came on the afternoon when the Athletics had invited me to throw out first pitch, July 18, 2012. I wrote about this portion back on April 1^st, so I’ll try to keep in succinct. I was actually the second person who was going to be throwing out the first pitch. Roberta Gonzalez, a local Emmy Award-winning news broadcaster, was the first to go. She was way more nervous than I was, mostly because she would be throwing to Josh Reddick, her favorite player. She asked me if I wouldn’t mind warming up with her, I obliged needing the practice myself. What I wasn’t expecting was having to do three interviews with a few people on the field before my throw; thus, I wasn’t able to get loose. Jonny then spotted me, came over and chatted it up with me while the first lady took the mound. We both watched in awe as she threw a laser right down Broadway into Reddick’s glove. Jonny then turned to me, nudged my arm and said, “Well… don’t fuck it up.” Truly inspiring.

We saw each other again in Toronto when the Athletics took on the Blue Jays, you may remember this series as the time that Reddick did his Spider-man impersonation and the A’s dealt the Jays their worst home defeat in the franchise’s history, 16-0. I was only able to make it to the second game (the 16-0 game) and the final game of the series which the Athletics ended up losing despite home runs from Reddick and Brandon Inge. Prior to the game Jonny had spotted me as my seats were right behind the dugout, so we chatted it up again. It was at this point I had asked him about his version of “The Shark” he had been doing which I wrote about in my post from June 24^th. For him it was called the Mahi-Mahi, and it was something that he and Kurt Suzuki were doing. Even with that, I still needed a photo.

I touched on quite a bit of this in my post on Travis Blackley and the Australia World Baseball Classic cap, but I left a bit out. Prior to the first game in Cleveland against the Indians almost all of the pitchers had spotted me and came over to say hello and thank you for being so supportive of the team. There was a rain that had pounded down throughout the day which was looking like it might postpone the game so batting practice was canceled. But, as luck would have it, everything cleared up and the game was on. My tickets were a few rows behind the Athletics dugout and I really had nothing to do before the game so I kicked it in my seat. Shortly thereafter Jonny and the gang emerged from the dugout for warm-ups and stretching. At one point Jonny and I locked eyes and I gave him one of my “wink and finger point” hellos, he then became very animated and summoned me over to the rail. “Dude! I’m so glad you’re here, “ he said. “There’s someone here you have to meet.” He then walked with me headed toward home plate and called out to a dude named JJ. Like Jonny is Seattle, I wasn’t expecting JJ to know who I was. Jonny gave us a quick introduction before he headed back to the field, and I immediately knew this was somebody I needed to get to know.

JJ, a die-hard Reds fan, is a tattoo artist in Cincinnati at Doll Star Tattoo. Jonny and JJ had become acquainted during his time with the Reds and built a string relationship from it. In fact, most of Jonny’s ink that has been featured was done by JJ, including Jonny’s American History tribute piece on his leg. JJ was even featured in the E:60 piece. JJ knew who I was because

1. He’s a tattoo artist.

2. He’s a baseball fan.

In my travels I soon found out that reason number one was way more prevalent as tattoo artists love to talk and show off their creations. Anyway, JJ and I kicked it together and watched the game. Jonny unfortunately didn’t get any playing time that night, or throughout the series. The conversation started out about the Fan Cave, but it then led into all of the work that he had done on Jonny as well as a anti-Chicago Cubs piece he was doing for a Milwaukee Brewers fans which featured Bernie Brewer with an assault rifle blowing the Cub away. And people think my tattoos are weird. 

We grabbed some beers, some hot dogs and I also grabbed a cup of this buffalo chicken macaroni n’ cheese which was legendary. The Athletics won the game 3-0, which made for their third straight win. There wasn’t a very big crowd at The Jake that night, but there was a father and son who were sitting right behind us that we talked to occasionally throughout the game. The kid was about nine or 10 and kept hollering for a ball in between innings. I was a bit surprised that he never got one, seeing as there weren’t that many kids around, but I assured him that he would get one by the end of the game. When that time came he was a bit bummed out, so I reached into my backpack and pulled one out for him. For some reason Ryan Cook developed a tendency to throw baseballs at me anytime we met up, I’ll go into more detail in a future post about that, so I had one on me to give to anybody who wanted one. JJ and I thought this kid had been super cool so I was more than happy to give it to him.

JJ and I swapped numbers and said he would hit me when the two of them headed out. What they and I weren’t expecting was that in the hour between when the game ended and when I ran into them I was going to be four beers and a shot it. Long story short, I ran into a few of the TV crew for the Athletics who I had met randomly up in Toronto as well. So, we caught up. When I met up with JJ and Jonny they were only about two beers in, which was totally fine with me as I needed to stop or I would be sleeping in my car as I had to drive back to Pittsburgh that night only to have to drive to Buffalo, New York the next morning for a visit to New Era Headquarters only to then drive back to Cleveland for the next game and finally drive back to Pittsburgh again. Yah… so I enjoyed another beer on the next round, of course! Jonny and JJ had been talking about a design for another tattoo that Jonny was going to get at which I asked if I could sit in on it. I think it was the alcohol that gave me the courage to ask. Both of them were totally cool with it and said that they would be doing it the next day. In the meantime, since the bar was pretty dead we just chilled and engaged in conversation with the waitress which somehow broke out into a discussion about a party that she was going to head to where a “Jungle Juice-type” concoction was going to be served, except she didn’t call it Jungle Juice, but all three of us called it that. For the life of me, I can remember every detail of that conversation, venue, etc, but I can’t remember what she called it. No matter. It was late and they needed to rest so we parted ways until the next day. At this point I was sobering up significantly and felt that I needed to get something greasy in my belly. What I wasn’t expecting was to run into the TV crew again which of course ended with more beer and eventually some pizza. Needless to say, it was a miserable drive to Pittsburgh and Buffalo when I woke up in my car the next morning.

Jonny had left tickets for me at Will Call for the next game, and I was still in a bit of a cloudy mood after somehow making it to New Era in Buffalo 10 minutes before my meeting. Not wanting to let those tickets go to waste, as well not wanting to leave Cleveland without saying good-bye to everyone, I forged ahead and drove the two and-a-half hours to the game and kicked it with JJ. The A’s won 7-0 despite being struck out 16 times by Indians pitchers. This only aided my theory on strikeouts: Strikeouts don’t matter as long as they’re not all consecutive. 27 outs will happen, as long as you’re able to put runs on the board and get the win it shouldn’t matter how they occur.

I had to go run and meet up with a friend before the game ended so I regrouped with JJ and Jonny after the game. The hotel was only a few blocks away so Jonny elected to walk back with the two of us with a sack of Bud Lights rather than take the team bus. When we arrived JJ had the valet bring his truck up so we could get his tattoo gun and other supplies out of the back. Right at about the time the valet returned, the A’s team bus arrived. For some reason the feeling of “I want to be anywhere but here” washed over me. It’s not that I was nervous about being there or anything, I just felt out of place, like I was intruding. I had touched on this in my Blackely piece in that I’ve always done my best to not violate the line between the fans and the players. Tonight, I was clearly pole vaulting over it. JJ had his hands full with his equipment so I brought up the chair. Based on the time it took us to get everything I thought all of the players would have been up the elevator by the time we strolled inside. Nope! We caught the next elevator with winning pitcher Tommy Milone, Derek Norris, Coco Crisp and Evan Scribner. Norris elected to stand at the back of the elevator with his face against the wall; it was hard not to laugh. What I also didn’t know about this hotel was that the elevator only takes you to the sixth floor. From there you have to take another elevator to get to the floor that your room is on. Sooooooo… when we got to the sixth floor the entire team was milling about, waiting for their next elevators. That feeling of not wanting to be there grew stronger. I did my best to keep my eyes on the prize and not acknowledge anyone’s presence when JJ and I both heard Josh Donaldson yell, “Hey! Aren’t you that guy from the Fan Cave!?” I slowly turned my head, smiled and said, “Yah!” To which he responded, “Sick!!!” That was the extent of any conversation I had with anyone in that room. It took one more elevator with Chris Carter, Milone and Scribner and a walk to JJ’s room before I could let out my laughter from Donaldson’s reaction. “Sick!” has thus been incorporated into every conversation JJ and I have had since that night.

A few minutes after we got in the room Jonny rolled in with the bag of Bud Lights and passed them around before turning on he TV to MLB Network. We all chatted for a bit while JJ set up his machines, I did what I could to make myself useful. The commercial I was in for MLB Tickets came on at which Jonny, with a swig of beer in his mouth, pointed at it, swallowed and said, “This is how all of us first found out who your were.” Pro ball players watch MLB Network as often, if not more often than the fans do, and the first time most of them saw the ad was in the clubhouse of the Coliseum when someone noticed that hat I was wearing, the tattoos and yelled out, “I saw that dude in Deadspin!” This then evolved into “Fan Cave guy” after everyone finally saw me in person on July 18^th (redundant, I know). Regardless, it was still a weird feeling. Jonny then put all of the beers in the fridge and called room service to bring us up a few more. For some reason I asked him, “What about all the beers in the fridge?” To which he responded, “What happens when we run out of those?” You really can’t argue with that logic. It was in this time that I got to know him a little bit better. I asked him about his time in Bakersfield, to which he told me the story about the new guys and the bridge that I mention in my Hank Aaron piece from April 13th. He also told me about how Dusty Baker looks out for every one of his players and that Jayson Werth is one of the smartest, most dedicated players in the game; so much to the point where Werth has used his own money to help make that a winning ball club. He then had to take time out to give his wife and kids a call back home. Everything I ever felt that I needed to know about the guy had occurred within a 24-hour time frame: He’s loyal to his team, his family, his friends and especially his country after he showed off his “Tribute to the USA” tattoo that JJ had done for him. Tonight they were working on a piece for the inside of his right arm above the elbow of a heart with the date of his wedding inside. 

Seriously. How could you not love this guy?

 About an hour in I realized what time it was and also remembered that I had to drive back to Pittsburgh as to drop off my rental car and catch my train to Detroit the next morning. I said my good-byes, thanked both JJ and Jonny for their time and walked back to my car. I grabbed some food, took a light snooze and hit the road. I never saw the finished piece, as something as personal as that really isn’t my place to be nosey. When I rolled to Cincinnati in the middle of September JJ was unfortunately too busy to make it, but he was still able to pull some strings and get me a ticket for the game. One of these days I’ll get back and pay him back for that.

As for Jonny, I’ve only seen him once since that night; October 3, 2012, right after the A’s beat the Texas Rangers on the last day of the season to win the AL West Division crown. One of the guys from the TV crew, the ones I met up with in Toronto and Cleveland, had hooked me up with a media pass for that game. I’ll save most of the details for a later post, but I hung around until Jonny came out so I could tell him congratulations in person. We hugged it out, bro-style, and wished each other well. He had his family with him and plenty of celebrating to do, so I didn’t want to slow him down on that front.

I was both sad and happy for him when the offseason came around. The A’s had offered him a nice one-year deal, but the Boston red Sox upped the ante and gave him a two-year $10 million deal. For a guy who made roughly $1 million per year on one-year contracts, not to mention having gone through all the experiences that life had thrown at him, I didn’t once question why he signed that deal. The man has literally given his heart, and almost died in the process because of it, to play this game. He has always been at the forefront of local charities in and around the Bay Area, and wherever he has played professionally. He was the biggest supporter and mascot for the Petaluma baseball team who almost won the Little League World Series. While it’s a bummer that we couldn’t have his presence in the A’s clubhouse anymore, we all couldn’t be happier for him that he has moved on to greener pastures and still gives his all for the team, the fans and the city he plays in.

July 30- Oakland Athletics

This is one of the few articles I’m writing in which I’m writing in real time as opposed to the date that I am specifically writing for. I realize how far behind I am in these posts, a little more than 70 days if my count is correct, but this is an important post that lies heavily upon the game that’s about to take place, Game 5 of the American League Division Series.

There comes a time when the people play the game transcend themselves into something beyond what takes place on the field. Some guys do it more publicly, others in private. No matter what the motivator is the important thing to remember is that they are putting in the effort as often as they can. That’s what I see when I look at this cap. When New Era released the 2013 Memorial Day cap I immediately fell in love with them. If you recall my posts back in May I was a huge fan of the 2012 models witch only featured the digital camouflage on the logo, leaving the panel the exact colors of what the teams normally wear on the field. Prior to that all the caps were red, white and blue and featured some variety of the Stars and Stripes despite the fact that the colors may not have corresponded with the teams’ uniforms. Thus, the 2012 did a better job of that; however, like in years passed each hat used was worn on both Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, another thing I really didn’t mind. In 2013 New Era introduced caps specifically for each holiday. The Oakland Athletics Fourth of July cap is one I currently have waiting in the wings to write about as the approach that New Era took was original and fascinating. In the case of this cap, the Memorial Day cap, I love the approach with the all-digital camouflage panels; however, I’m a little confused about the color choice for the “A’s” logo. For the Fourth of July caps New Era went back to the Stars and Stripes motif, but they made the panels for each teams’ cap in the color which corresponded to where each team was playing: grey for the road, white for home and even a Canada Day cap specifically for the Toronto Blue Jays. The reason I bring this point up is because the Athletics played their Memorial Day game at the Coliseum against the San Francisco Giants; however, the “A’s” logo is in yellow which has been the traditional color scheme for the road cap. I know this is something that very few people think about, but for some reason it jumped out at me. I assure you that it isn’t a complaint; in fact, the color scheme actually works better for the cap and perhaps the traditional white “A’s” logo would have been lost within the rest of the cap. My only point of reference I have with this comes with my post from June 30th about the misprinted Texas Rangers caps in which the “T” logo was done in white as opposed to the red as it was intended.

The one constant in all of these caps is that the proceeds benefit Welcome Back Veterans, a program to help returning veterans get treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome as well as to create awareness for others who may not understand it. To date Welcome Back Veterans has raised over $17 million to make a difference in the lives of our courageous veterans and their families. While they may not seem like much, these caps are a great way to show your support as well as a way to give back to the brave men and women who serve their country to provide stability for our freedom and ways of life. As a cap collector I’m proud to add it to my collection. As a baseball fan I’m proud to wear it to show support for the game. As a citizen of the United States of America I’m proud to support those who serve.

I’ll do my best not to butcher this portion of the post as there is a lot of history behind it. Like my Memorial Day posts back in May I did my best o focus on how the military played a part in the history of each team. In a few cases I hit the nail on the head, while in others I focused more on people who served but were still living which really wasn’t the way I should have approached it if I were staying true to the holiday and its meaning. Rather, in most cases I treated it more like a Veteran’s Day piece. I don’t regret those decisions for the sake of their importance and the importance that the men and women I shared stories for still deserve the recognition they may never have gotten as quite a few of my stories dated back to World War I. Since I only own two of the three caps from last season I made sure to do a write-up on each, which I did on May 21^st and May 30^th. When it comes to this cap I’m focusing more on the veterans’ side of things so please don’t call me out for it as I’m well aware of what I am doing. So, without further ado, the story.

#62- If there was one player on this current Athletics team who I feel truly exemplifies what it means to be an Oakland Athletic as well as a great human being, I would have to nominate relief pitcher Sean Doolittle. In the last two years I’ve run into Doolittle four times, in every case he’s popped The Shark before he says hello. I realize that’s a personal thing to me, but the action goes a long way when it comes to character. We all know him as the jokester of the team, follow his Twitter account and you’ll see what I’m talking about. His comedy skills cover a wide range of topics, even his tweets about the Athletics always hit home as he comes off as a real fan of the game, but more important the teams and the fans who support them. His signature right arm extension and curl under the chin before he throws has become a phenomenon with fans called “Doolittling.” It’s much like “Tebowing,” except it’s awesome. I for one call it “What I do Every Night and Day When I Sleep,” but I’m a rare case. Seriously, I actually make that same motion in my sleep. See…

His bushy red beard has become a near iconic representation of the team itself; scrappy, rugged, but 100% Green Collar Baseball. He gets fired up when he comes off the mound after a great inning and cracks jokes amongst his teammates when he’s sitting in the bullpen or chillin’ in the dugout. But the one thing that many tend to forget about is that he’s a fan just like every one of us. Not necessarily a fan of the game, but a fan of the team that suits up and takes the field for. He has been since he was old enough to pick up a ball, much like the rest of us, while he was living in the Bay Area when his family was stationed nearby.

 Sorry for stealing this.

During this time of his life his family had season tickets to the Athletics before moving on to Tabernacle Township/Medford, New Jersey where he went to school at Shawnee High School before attending the University of Virginia.

I bring all of this up for a bevy of reasons, the first of which has to do with the amount of grief I’ve seen him get, direct or not, on social media. People make mistakes. It’s not our job to point them out, complain about them or rub in the person’s face. Yes, we all have the right to do so, but there is a fine line between being a fan and being a jerk. When I see Athletics fans blast him or any other player it upsets me. How can anyone call themselves a fan if that’s what you’re going to do to your own guy? I guess it’s one thing if a particular player is vocal about not wanting to be on the team and that he “plays for himself,” but all I need to do is direct you back to the picture above, mostly the kid on the left who is cheering on the team he loves much in the same way that we do. I don’t think he would do the same.

Like all of my other Memorial Day posts there is some connection that I try to keep with the team and the holiday. In the other posts I listed each teams’ record on Memorial Day; however, I have already done that in a previous post for the Athletics; instead, it just so happens that Doolittle came into the game played on this year’s Memorial Day, May 27^th. Doolittle pitched two shutdown innings, taking over for starter Dan Straily who had gone a solid six, only allowing one run to the Giants. Doolittle pitched perfectly, literally, striking out two and not allowing a single base-runner as he locked up his ninth hold on the season. Grant Balfour came in for the ninth inning and closed the door for his 11^th save on the year.

When I originally bought this cap I had no idea what I was going to do with it, from a writing perspective. I had already touched most of the military/Memorial Day history with the other two posts, but with this I had found myself in a bit of a jam. That is, until I caught a commercial on Fox Sports 1 right before Angie and I left to run errands. I tried to find the video online with no success, so hopefully a few of you have seen it by now. The commercial starts with Doolittle walking out from around a corner saying something to the tune of, “Hi, I’m Sean Doolittle, pitcher for the Oakland Athletics.” To be honest, which I saw this I almost laughed out loud as, for some reason which lies more heavily on his Twitter account and the station it was on, I thought something funny was about to happen. Nope! Instead, Doolittle was doing a public service announcement for the United Service Automobile Association (USAA), the service that provides insurance and benefits to veterans and their families. In the commercial Doolittle talked about his father and stepmother, both of whom are veterans. His father is retired Air Force and teaches ROTC back in his home state of New Jersey while his stepmother is still active duty Air National Guard stationed at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. This was the point where I started to get a rough idea of where I wanted to take this piece.

I conducted quite a bit of research and came across an article written and published by the Associated Press from late August, right around the time when I moved to Florida. In it, a writer followed Doolittle to the USS Hornet, a decommissioned US Navy aircraft carrier that was converted into a National Historic Landmark in 1998 where it has serves as a museum open to the public in Alameda, California. Doolittle’s visit came at his own inquiry which started as a photo of a patch from the Doolittle Raiders. 

Forever Into Danger

The patch set Doolittle on a quest of his lineage as the man behind the Raiders was Lieutenant Colonel James “Jimmy” Doolittle of the US Army Air Forces who planned and led the first air raid bombing of the Japanese Home Islands on April 18, 1942, six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The raid was not necessarily intended to win the war, but to boost morale throughout the country in stir up more support for the cause. They succeeded. Because of the surname Sean wanted to better understand the connection to see if there was any relation, especially considering that he comes from a military family. After many twists and turns it was determined that the late General was in fact Sean’s seventh cousin. On his cleats and under the bill of his cap Sean has a written tribute General Doolittle and the Doolittle Raiders, not necessarily because of the family ties, but for everything they did for their country.

Doolittle's contributions to the military have been widespread. This season he was one of the finalists for the Branch Rickey Award which is given annually to an individual in Major League Baseball in recognition of his exceptional community service. Doolittle has meets with veterans at the VA Hospital in Palo Alto and has invited them to games on numerous occasions, speaking with them in the dugout before home games. In August he went to Walter Reed in Washington, D.C. to meet with veterans and wounded warriors when the Athletics visited Baltimore to play the Orioles. He and his teammates started “A’s Relief” this season to honor local heroes from the Bay Area who are Good Samaritans and providing relief. The Reliever-of-the-Month receives four game tickets, food vouchers, onfield recognition and a chance to watch batting practice with the bullpen staff. The heroes also receive a donation to the charity of their choice. He also supports Freedom Alliance, an educational and charitable organization that honors service members and their families.

I know I haven’t talked much about baseball in this post, or really much about his playing career even though he has a truly extraordinary story of how he got the Majors, but that’s the story that everybody seems to know now. Everything I wrote above wasn’t exactly new information, but I felt that it was the right story to tell under the theme of this cap. I guess the thing that I mostly wanted to do with this piece was share a bit more humanity rather than just focus on his job. That is the part that I think a lot of people tend to not separate when talking about Doolittle the person, or any other player for that matter. Sometimes, and coming from me I know how ironic this is, there’s just more to life than baseball.

July 29- Houston Astros

The 1994 Major League Baseball season was an odd year for more than just the players’ strike that took effect on August 12^th. Several teams like the Montreal Expos had dug themselves out of the cellar and were on their way to potentially winning their first World Series title in the franchise’s history. Tony Gwynn was batting .394, becoming the first person since Ted Williams in 1941 to potentially hit for .400 or better in a season. Matt Williams was rapidly approaching the 62 home run mark for the San Francisco Giants as he already had a league-leading 43 on the season at the time. But most important, 11 teams introduced, changed or added new pieces to their uniforms/caps which were already boosting merchandise sales. Those teams were: the Giants (jersey), Oakland Athletics (hats/jerseys), Chicago Cubs (hat), Texas Rangers (hats/uniforms), Detroit Tigers (hat), Seattle Mariners (hats/uniforms), Milwaukee Brewers (hats/uniforms), Philadelphia Phillies (hat), Cleveland Indians (jersey), Toronto Blue Jays (jersey) and the Houston Astros (above- hats/uniforms). So, for the season to come to just an abrupt end was especially peculiar as there really wasn’t any kind of a warning sign, besides players wanting more money, to see it coming. And without a doubt one of the biggest companies potentially affecting by the strike was New Era.

The strike left a sour taste in the mouths of a lot of the fans and sales for anything took a bit of a dive. Hat culture was seemingly in its prime, but clearly not as much as it is in today’s times. Back then if you wore a cap it was no doubt a baseball cap, and the important thing to remember about baseball caps is that if you were wearing a fitted one, it was a New Era cap. New Era had won the MLB manufacturing contract prior to the 1993 season, making them the only company to design, produce and sell every Major League cap. So, when 1994 came around and eight new teams introduced new caps, things got a little bit crazy when the business of baseball came to a standstill. That’s not to say that people didn’t still buy caps, but the sheer volume wasn’t as high as it could have been. It’s funny to look back on all of it now because, as a cap collector, I know how hard it is to find a lot of the caps that were introduced that season. Of the eight teams listed above I have been able to track down and buy seven of them (including this one obviously), the only one that still remains a challenge is the alternate Phillies cap that I mentioned in a previous post from March 28^th.

Anyway, I’ve strayed slightly off topic. The Astros, besides the Brewers, had the most dramatic change of all. Rather than change maybe just the hat or something about the logo like a lot of teams do, they overhauled everything. They went from this…

To this.

And, unlike most teams, it proved to be a little bit of a game changer when it came to the success of the team.

At the end of the 1993 season then-Astros owner John McMullen sold the team to Drayton McLane, Jr. after McMullen’s attempts to move the team to Washington, D.C. were shot down by the other National League owners. McMullen was no impressed with low attendances even after the Astrodome had been completely renovated for the benefit of the Houston Oilers whom they shared the facility with. In McLane’s case, the timing couldn’t have been any better as Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell were on the verge of having breakout careers. Coinciding with the change in ownership, the team switched uniforms and team colors after the 1993 season in order to go for a new, more serious image. The team's trademark rainbow uniforms were retired, and the team's colors changed to midnight blue and metallic gold. The "Astros" font on the team logo was changed to a more aggressive one, and the team's traditional star logo was changed to a stylized, "flying" star with an open left end. It marked the first time since the team's inception that orange was not part of the team's colors. Despite general agreement that the rainbow uniforms, which most identified with the team, had become tired (and looked too much like a minor league team according to the new owners), the new uniforms and caps were never especially popular with many Astros fans. This cap in particular was the least popular of the three that were brought out, but this one was worn for the most games as it served as the game cap from 1994-1999.

The Astros faired pretty well under this cap including three straight National League Central Division titles under Larry Dierker after the team fired then-manager Terry Collins following the 1996 season when the team went 82-80, his only winning season. Dierker’s second season (1998) was met with the team’s best regular season record of 102-60, the only time the team has ever hit triple digits in wins; however, Dierker and the Astros never made it beyond the first round of the playoffs during his tenure.

On of the problems that has come up with writing these posts is not having enough material or even cramming too much material into one post. I’ve been doing my best to find a balance and if there is clearly one post that I have written that could have been a lot more it has to be my post on the Astros from January 19^th. With one cap I wrote about three of the most notable players in the team’s history and I honestly feel like I didn’t do it justice. I could have gone with different players, possibly even written about Biggio and Bagwell with this cap, but that was my mistake. I didn’t really know that my blog would evolve into something so big so quickly, so I apologize to you, the readers and especially the Astros fans who don’t get a lot of credit anyway. So, without further ado, I think my marking selection for this cap is more than worthy.

#12/20/’98- It’s funny how certainly numbers follow a player throughout their career and no one knows more about this than Ricky Gutierrez. A native of Miami, Florida, Gutierrez was the 28^th overall pick by the Baltimore Orioles back in 1988 out of American Senior High School in Hialeah. For five years he worked his way through the Orioles’ minor league system and was even traded to the San Diego Padres as a Player to be Named Later in 1992. On April 13, 1993 Gutierrez made his Major League debut batting .251 with 110 hits, 76 runs scored, five triples, five home runs and 26 RBI which were good enough for an 11^th place finish for the NL Rookie of the Year. Even though baseball had been shut down Gutierrez still found himself getting traded to the Astros in a blockbuster 11-player deal which also sent Derek Bell and Craig Shipley to Houston while the Padres received Steve Finley and future NL MVP Ken Caminiti as the centerpieces. For five years Gutierrez would play in Houston, the longest stint of his career, while wearing the #12. His stats weren’t really that impressive: .266 average, seven home runs, 13 triples and 132 RBI, but it’s the two moments in 1998 (’98) that involve the number 20 that are most identified with his career.

May 6, 1998- Gutierrez was batting in the seven-hole when the Astros were playing the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Rookie sensation Kerry Wood took the mound for the Cubs, making his fifth start of his Major League career. Wood had gotten the first five outs by the way of the strikeout and got the last out of the second inning on a flyball to centerfield by Dave Clark. When Gutierrez came up to bat to lead off the third inning Wood worked the count in his favor getting Gutierrez to a 1-2 count after four pitches. On the fifth pitch, a fastball down the pike, Gutierrez smacked a hotshot grounder in between Kevin Orie (third base) and Jeff Blauser (shortstop) for the first hit of the game for the Astros. That early into the game very few had any comprehension of what was about to happen, not even my friend and Oakland Athletics 2013 MLB Fan Cave Top-30 representative, who happened to be at the game. Wood would go on to strikeout 15 more Astros while only allowing one more base-runner for throughout the rest of the game, a hit by pitch to Biggio. 20 times the Astros had fallen victim to the K, tying the regulation game record set by Roger Clemens twice in 1986 and 1996 while with the Boston Red Sox. Gutierrez was the only person able to slap wood on any of Wood’s pitches and could have easily have been victim number six.

June 28, 1998- The Astros were on the road in Cleveland at Jacobs Field, squaring off against the Indians in the second year of Interleague. Gutierrez squared off against pitcher Bartolo Colon to open the top of the eighth inning. Colon's first two pitches were strikes, but over the next 17, Gutierrez took three balls and hit 14 fouls. With the 20th pitch of the at bat, Gutierrez struck out. This single match up accounted for 18% of the pitches that Colon threw in the game and it went down as the modern-day MLB record for seeing the most pitches (20) in a single at-bat.

The most interesting thing about Gutierrez’s career is that it improved significantly after the 1998 season as he joined both teams which helped make him a trivia answer for years to come. He signed with Cubs after the 1999 season and played in 125 and 147 games respectively in his two years there, batting .284 with 21 home runs and 122 RBI. He played two years with the Indians in 2002 and 2003, but got hurt throughout his second year despite hitting .275 in his first year. In 2004 the Indians sent Gutierrez to the New York Mets as part of a conditional deal, was later released to be picked up be the Cubs who then dealt him to the Boston Red Sox. This would turn out to be Gutierrez’s final season in the Majors, but at least it came with a World Series ring at the end.

July 28- California Angels

Most of time when I go into writing these posts I never do it with the thought in the back of my head saying, “Boy, the fans are really going to hate me for this one” until today. No, it won’t be that bad, but I guess that all really depends on perspective really.

I bought this cap on a random afternoon in New York City at the Lids nearest Madison Square Garden as the other Cave Dwellers and I had some free time in between games at the MLB Fan Cave. I think it had been about two or three days since I had last bought a cap so I made sure to go to the one place where I saw a lot of Cooperstown Collection models as to appease my fix. I had spotted this California Angels cap during one of my previous visits and declined on buying it as I couldn’t recall if the Angels had worn this cap with the red bill. For some reason something seemed off about it so I figure I would wait until I did more research. Instead, I picked up the Tampa Bay Devil Rays cap. Boy, was that dumb of me. Anyway, when I finally was able to get back to computer at the Fan Cave I looked up the dates and photos to make sure it was all up to snuff. Sure enough, it wasn't. The halo on this cap is red, unlike real one which featured a silver halo. That small difference aside, I sucked it up and held onto it. As far as the real one is concerned

 the Angels wore it for all of their home games from 1993-1996 during their last four years of being known as the California Angels as the name was changed to the Anaheim Angels in 1997. So, when the time came to get back to the Lids to retrieve my prize I took the N train to Union Square, blasting Journey’s “Separate Ways” and fist-pumping the entire time. Apparently New Yorkers are not too savvy on this practice as I was getting bewildered looks from the other passengers. Their loss. When I got to street level I was “rewarded” with an off-Broadway production of “Man Yelling at Woman Trying to Collect Change with a Kid Under Her Arm.” The reviews were mixed as West Coast critics are not used to this sort of abuse. I guess that happens when you don’t fist-pump to Journey. The next two blocks consisted of at least three people trying to pawn their rap/hip-hop CDs off to me and some guy yelling about the end of the world while wearing a pair of old school roller skates. The only thing I kept thinking in my head was something that fellow Cave Dweller Shaun Kippins had said a few days prior when one of our late night drivers asked how his day was going. To really understand the context of this you need to go back to the Atlanta Braves post from a few days ago, more specifically about the “Mr. Belvedere” section. When Shaun was asked that question, without skipping a beat he replied, “F---in’ New York” and sat quietly in the corner of the backseat until we got home. This became the official response to anything we ever saw “out of the ordinary” which in turn was merely everyday life in New York City. So yah, nothing really interesting happened when I actually purchased the cap, but everything that went on around me was certainly a gas.

Moving on… Of all the things that piss me off the most about this cap is that it has become iconic with the God awful remake/revision of the 1951 classic Angels in the Outfield (1994). 

I know a lot of you have seen it; Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s dad is a deadbeat who will only claim him out of foster care if the Angels win the pennant. So, JGL prays, gets a little help from Christopher Lloyd and some actual angels and the Danny Glover-run bunch of misfits featuring Tony Danza as their ace start winning games and eventually win the pennant thanks in part arm-flapping. Awful. In fact, some other notable faces got their big breaks in this movie.

This was actually shot AFTER they slept with the director.

  Oscar winner.

What makes this even more infuriating is that almost the entire movie was filmed at Oakland Alameda County Coliseum before Mt. Davis was erected, thus blocking out the Oakland hills in the back ground. 

So in a sense, Angels in the Outfield has become a historical relic for Oakland Athletics fans who want to see how beautiful the Coliseum used to be, all while sitting through American League Western Division propaganda.

The 1993-1996 timeframe in Angel history (in real life) was an especially trying time.  For most of the 1990s, the Angels played sub-.500 baseball, due in no small part to the confusion which reigned at the top. Gene Autry, though holding a controlling interest in the Angels, was in control in name only due to poor health in his advanced years. Autry’s wife Jackie, 20 years his junior, at times seemed to be the decision-maker, and at other times The Walt Disney Company, then a minority owner, seemed to be in charge. On May 21, 1992, an Angels' team bus traveling from New York to Baltimore crashed on the New Jersey Turnpike. Twelve members of the team ensemble were injured, including manager Buck Rodgers, who was hospitalized and missed the next three months of the season. In 1993, the Angels had a new spring training camp in Tempe, Arizona after 31 previous seasons in Palm Springs Stadium in Palm Springs, an idea Autry developed from the days when he stayed in his desert resort home. The Angels hoped a new facility would rejuvenate and improve the roster in the long run. The 1993 and 1994 seasons proved to be worse for the Angels than the previous three, particularly since the 1994 season ended in a baseball player strike that kept Angel fans waiting even longer for the team's fate to change. In 1995, the Angels suffered the worst collapse in franchise history. In first place in the AL West by 11 games in August, the team again lost key personnel (particularly shortstop Gary DiSarcina) and went on an extended slide during the final stretch run. By season's end, they were in a first-place tie with the surging Seattle Mariners, prompting a one-game playoff for the division title. The Mariners, managed by Lou Piniella and led by pitching ace Randy Johnson, laid a 9–1 drubbing on the Angels in the playoff game, clinching the AL West championship and forcing the Angels and their fans to endure yet another season of heartbreak and bitter disappointment.

The heartbreak of the collapse became even worse for loyal LA-area sports fans as the Los Angeles Rams decided to vacate “The Big A” and head to greener pastures in St. Louis, Missouri of all places in 1995 where they would eventually regroup and restructure their team and go on to win Super Bowl XXXIV against the Tennessee Titans. But, it all gets crazier. Disney effectively took control of the Angels in 1996, when it was able to gain enough support on the board to hire Tony Tavares as team president. Gene Autry, however, remained as chairman until his death in 1998. In 1999, Tavares hired Bill Stoneman as team general manager, under whose watch the Angels eventually won their first World Series Championship. Although Disney did not technically acquire a controlling interest in the team until after Autry's death, for all practical purposes it ran the team (the Autry loyalists on the board acted as "silent partners") through its Anaheim Sports subsidiary, which also owned the NHL's Mighty Ducks of Anaheim at the time. Disney, of course, had been a catalyst for the development of and population growth in Orange County, having opened its Disneyland theme park in Anaheim in 1955. Autry had named Walt Disney himself to the Angels' board in 1960; Mr. Disney served on the board until his death in 1966, and had been one of the proponents of the team's move to Orange County in 1965-66. In 1997, negotiations between the Angels and the city of Anaheim for renovation of Anaheim Stadium ended with an agreement to rehabilitate and downsize the facility into a baseball-only stadium once more. One condition of the stadium agreement was that the Angels could sell naming rights to the renovated stadium, so long as the new name was one "containing Anaheim therein." Anaheim Stadium was almost immediately renamed Edison International Field of Anaheim, though it was almost always referred to as simply Edison Field. Sportscasters also referred to the stadium at the time as The Big Ed, with a few others continuing to use the Big A nickname and, at times, Anaheim Stadium. Another condition of the stadium renovation agreement was that the team name itself be one "containing Anaheim therein." The emerging Disney ownership was itself in the process of renovating and upgrading its aging Disneyland park. Disney hoped to market Anaheim as a "destination city", much the same way it had done with Orlando, Florida, where Walt Disney World was located. Accordingly, the team changed its name again, to the Anaheim Angels on November 19, 1996. Thus, the California Angels were no more.

While the Angels did go on to win the World Series in 2002, the business end of getting to that place is by far one of the dumbest trails to victory in Major League history, and really the heart and soul of what made the Angels so unique was butchered repackaged and fed to us in the campiest way possible, the Disney way. Think I’m crazy for thinking this, click this link and I guarantee that ALL Angels fans will agree with me just based on the first photo.

#31- If there was one player who I would say deserved a World Series ring the most out of anybody who ever suited up for the Angels, besides Autry, it would have to be the longest-tenured pitcher to ever play for the Angels and my personal favorite to suit up for them, Chuck Finley. 

And a little Jim Fregosi love

Finley’s time with the Angels began in 1985 when he was selected with the fourth overall pick in the MLB secondary draft. He would only spend that season in the minors before making his Major League debut on May 29, 1986 against the Detroit Tigers in a one inning relief appearance in which he got shelled. Finley’s role as a starter didn’t develop until 1988 when he was thrown into the lions den for 31 games, compiling a 9-15 record with a 4.17 ERA and 111 strikeouts. His numbers weren’t exactly top tier; however, they were respectable for it being his first full season as a starter.

From 1989-1999 Finley dominated, with the exception of the 1992 season when he went 7-12, but still maintained a 3.96 ERA. Every other year, double-digits in wins and only one other losing season (besides 1992) in 1996 where he went 15-16 with a 4.16 ERA. Finley made four All-Star appearances during his time in California/Anaheim (1989, 1990, 1995 and 1996) and an additional one during his first year with the Cleveland Indians in 2000. Finely only registered for the AL Cy Young one year when he finished in seventh place with an 18-9 record, a 2.40 ERA and 177 strikeouts, which was way too low in comparison to the other names ahead of him on the list and their stats.

Of all the things that Finely is most known for (on the field), his deadly split-finger is one that tops the list, mostly because of the one stat that he holds that no other pitcher necessarily wants to break. Finely holds the record for most four-strikeout innings in Major League history with A.J. Burnett right on his heels. The split-finger is such a wild pitch to catch and it becomes even more erratic if it hits the ground before landing in the catcher’s glove. But, even with that, Finley still holds the majority of Angel pitching records. He is the Angels all-time career leader in wins (165), innings pitched (2,675), games started (379) and is second in strikeouts (2,151) behind some one trick pony named Nolan Ryan.

#44- If there was one moment that served as a broken record in the MLB Fan Cave out of Ricardo Marquez’s mouth, it would have to be his love of Chili Davis. Not only that, the one thing that he would always talk about, which ended up being a trivia question at the 2013 Fan Cave Top-30 trivia competition is his ERA: 0.00. Yes, Davis threw two innings of shutout baseball and even hit a dude in the process. All of this information I knew about before he brought it up, but I was also aware of the fact that Davis could hit the ball incredibly well, something that Ricardo seemed to forget at times. But, in keeping with his favorite story I humored him in asking if he knew who his only hit by pitch was against, thinking he might actually know it. He didn’t. This always bothered me about Ricardo way more than it should, but I think mostly because he held on to one stat about a guy and didn’t know much else about him despite saying that his is his favorite player. Stranger shit has happened, I guess. And the answer of who Davis plunked, your favorite and mine, Jose Canseco. But, where Ricardo stops, I take over.

One thing I will give credit for is that he does know that Davis is one of four guys to be born in Jamaica to play at the Major League level. In fact, he was the first. Drafted in the 11^th round of the 1977 draft by the San Francisco Giants, Davis made his MLB debut on April 10, 1981 and only played in eight games. In his first full season he hit .261 with 19 home runs and 76 RBI which was only good enough for a fourth place finish for Rookie of the Year. Yah, that talent pool was that good. Davis would go on to make two All-Star Game appearances with the Giants in 1984 and 1986 before he became a free agent at the end of the 1987 season. Without hesitation, the Angels picked him up and signed him to a deal.

From 1988-1990 Davis hit .268 with 55 home runs and 241 RBI, he would end up finishing 25^th for the AL MVP in 1989, but was granted free agency following the 1990 season where he was signed by the Minnesota Twins for the 1991 campaign which got him his first and only World Series ring as a player. He hit two home runs in that series against the Atlanta Braves. He also finished in 14^th place for the AL MVP that season with a .277 average, 29 dingers and 93 RBI. When Davis was once again given free agency at the end of the 1992 season the Angels swooped in again. 

Davis’ second run with the Angels ran the entire duration of this cap, 1993-1996. Even though the Angels were not exactly a success story, Davis made the most of his time in Anaheim. His best season came during the strike-shortened 1994 season in which he hit .311 with 26 home runs and 84 RBI despite only playing in 108 games. Davis made his only All-Star Game appearance with the Angels that year and finished 22^nd for the AL MVP. Davis hit .279, 156 homers and knocked in 618 runs in his career with the Angels and has been serving as the batting coach for the Athletics since 2012. Davis’ results as a coach have been swift and strong. The Athletics as a team have improved their batting average, going from .244 in 2011 to .238 in 2012 up to .254 in 2013. As for their home run production, 114 in 2011 to 195 in 2012 and 186 in 2013. Suffice to say, the man can teach hitting.