Wednesday, February 6, 2019

February 6

Frank LaPorte (1880)
Babe Ruth (1895)
Jake Levy (1900)
Glenn Wright (1901)
Dale Long (1926)
Smoky Burgess (1927)
Augie Garrido (1939)
Richie Zisk (1949)
Larry Young (1954)
Bob Wickman (1969)
Chad Allen (1975)

Pitcher Jake Levy had a minor league career that started in 1921 and lasted until 1945.  He played under a variety of names, making it difficult to determine his true record, but he won at least two hundred games.  He was also a good hitter, and early in his career played in the field when he was not pitching.
Augie Garrido was the baseball coach at the University of Texas from 1997-2016.  He has the most coaching wins of anyone in Division I.
Larry Young was a major league umpire from 1983-2007.
You may have heard of that "Babe Ruth" fellow.
Outfielder John Chad Allen played for Minnesota from 1999-2001.  Born in Dallas, he went to high school in Duncanville, Texas, and then attended Texas A & M.  He was drafted by the Twins in the fourth round in 1996.  He played for the 1996 Olympic team, so his professional career didn't really get started until 1997.  He had a solid year in Class A in 1997, followed by an undistinguished year at AA in 1998.  Despite that, he won the starting left fielder job for the Twins in spring training in 1999.  He did okay, hitting .277 with ten homers, although his OBP was only .330.  In 2000 he lost the starting left field job to Jacque Jones and was back in the minors, although he came up to Minnesota for the month of June.  He had a fine year at AAA, hitting .311 in Salt Lake.  Allen was with the Twins for most of 2001 as a reserve outfielder/designated hitter and was not awful, but not all that good, either.  He became a free agent after that season and signed with Baltimore for 2002, but was released in mid-April.  He signed with Cleveland a month later and had another good year at AAA, but was again released after the season.  Allen moved on to Florida for 2003, to Texas for 2004 and part of 2005, to St. Louis for the end of 2005, and to Kansas City for 2006.  He made brief appearances in the majors for the Marlins and the Rangers.  In 2007 he played for Orix in the Japanese League, then his playing career ended.  As a Twin, Chad Allen hit .275/.332/.401 in just over seven hundred at-bats.  He was named in the Mitchell Report as someone who had used performance enhancing drugs.  Allen said he had taken them to recover from a knee injury, and provided the commission with information on internet drug mills.  Chad Allen was the Twins' AA batting coach, for New Britain in 2013-14 and in Chattanooga in 2015, and was the batting coach for the AAA Rochester Red Wings from 2016-2018.  He was not retained in that position, however, and no information about what Chad Allen is doing in 2019 was readily available.

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