Friday, February 23, 2018

February 23

Barney Dreyfuss (1865)
Paul Cobb (1888)
Roy Johnson (1903)
Ray Brown (1908)
Mike Tresh (1914)
Elston Howard (1929)
Ron Hunt (1941)
Ken Boswell (1946)
Juan Agosto (1958)
John Shelby (1958)
Bobby Bonilla (1963)
Rondell White (1972)
Scott Elarton (1976)
Edgar Gonzalez (1983)

Barney Dreyfuss was the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1900-1932.
The brother of Ty Cobb, John Paul Cobb (known by his middle name), played in over a thousand minor league games over ten years, batting .283.
Ray Brown was a star pitcher in the Negro Leagues from 1931-1945.
Reliever Juan Roberto (Gonzalez) Agosto was a member of the Twins for a couple of months in 1986.  Born in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, he attended high school there and signed as a free agent with the Red Sox at age 16.  He was in the low minors for them for four years, and did not pitch well.  He had serious control problems, walking 111 in 119 innings in 1977 and 89 in 120 innings in 1978.  The Red Sox gave up on him, releasing him after the 1978 season.  It's unclear where he played in 1979, but he signed with the White Sox in 1980.  He still was not exactly a control pitcher, but he did manage to bring his walks down from about seven or eight per nine innings to three or four.  He made brief appearances with Chicago in 1981 and 1982 and came up to stay awhile when in June of 1983, when he was still only 25.  He had been primarily a starter throughout his early minor league career, but shifted to the bullpen in 1981.  That was the role he filled as a big leaguer.  He pitched pretty well for the White Sox from 1983 through 1985, but got off to a poor start in 1986 and was sold to Minnesota at the end of April.  He split the rest of the year between Minnesota and AAA Toledo.  Agosto pitched 20.1 innings in 17 appearances as a Twin; oddly, more than a quarter of those innings came in his first appearance, when he pitched 5.2 scoreless innings of relief in a 7-4 victory over the Yankees.  The rest of his time in Minnesota did not go so well:  as a Twin, he was 1-2, 8.85 with a WHIP of 2.80.  Agosto was released after the season and signed with Houston.  He put things together with the Astros:  he pitched extremely well in AAA, came up to Houston on the first of August, and posted ERAs under three for three consecutive years (1987-1989).  He led the league in appearances in 1990.  A free agent after the 1990 season, Agosto signed with St. Louis, but apparently left his magic behind.  He had a poor year in 1991 and was again pitching poorly in 1992 when he was released in mid-June.  He finished the season in Seattle, became a free agent again, and signed with San Diego for 1993.  The Padres sent him to AAA and released him in May.  He re-signed with Houston but made only six appearances before being sent back to AAA again.  After the season, he went to Mexico to pitch, and then tried for a comeback with Pittsburgh in 1996.  He made 24 appearances for AAA Calgary and did not pitch badly, but was not brought back to the big leagues.  His playing career ended after that.  More recently, Juan Agosto was living in Sarasota, Florida and was the director of Royal Palm Ranch, Inc., but it appears that this corporation is no longer active.  No further information about what Juan Agosto is doing these days was readily available.
Outfielder Rondell Bernard White was a member of the Twins from 2006-2007.  He was at the end of his career, an end which has obscured the fact that he was actually a fine ballplayer for a long period of time.  He was born in Millegeville, Georgia and went to high school in Gray, Georgia.  He was drafted by Montreal in the first round in 1990.  He hit well throughout the minors, capped by a 1993 season when he hit .343 with 19 homers between AA and AAA.  That got him a September call-up, and White was with Montreal for most of 1994, although he had difficulty finding playing time in an outfield that featured Moises Alou, Marquis Grissom, and Larry Walker, all of whom were 27 years old that season.  Grissom was traded to Atlanta that off-season, opening center field for White, and he responded by hitting .295 with an OPS of .820.  He remained a regular outfielder for the Expos for the rest of the decade, shifting to left in 1999.  That was probably his best season as an Expo:  he hit .312 with 22 homers that year.  He was having another fine season in 2000 when he was traded to the Cubs on July 31, 2000.  He stayed with the Cubs for 2001 and continued to play well, although he missed a couple of months due to injury, something that had happened in prior seasons as well.  A free agent after that season, he signed with the Yankees for 2002, was traded to San Diego in March of 2003, was traded to Kansas City in August of that year, and became a free agent again after the season.  He signed with the Tigers and stayed there for two years, continuing to hit well but continuing to battle injuries.  A free agent again, after the 2005 season, he signed with Minnesota.  Unfortunately, the combination of injuries and age was too much for him to overcome.  As a Twin, Rondell White hit .229/.266/.354 in 446 at-bats.  In December of 2007, he was mentioned in the Mitchell Report in connection to steroids.  At last report, Rondell White had gone back to Gray, Georgia.  He is the son-in-law of Jerry Manuel.

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