August 16

Hick Carpenter (1855)
Baby Doll Jacobsen (1890)
Fats Fothergill (1897)
Tiny Bonham (1913)
Gene Woodling (1922)
Puddin’ Head Jones (1925)
Buck Rodgers (1938)
Gene Brabender (1941)
Mike Jorgensen (1948)
Al Holland (1952)
Nick Leyva (1953)
Rick Reed (1964)
Xavier Hernandez (1965)
Terry Shumpert (1966)
Quinton McCracken (1970)
Damian Jackson (1973)
Roger Cedeno (1974)
Ryan Hanigan (1980)
Yu Darvish (1986)
Martin Maldonado (1986)

 

Nick Leyva is a long-time minor league coach and manager and major league coach.  He managed the Philadelphia Phillies from 1989-1991.

Right-hander Richard Allen Reed pitched for the Twins from 2001-2003.  He was born in Huntington, West Virginia, attended Marshall University, and was drafted in the 26th round by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1986. He made his major league debut with Pittsburgh in 1988.   He spent the next eight years bouncing back and forth between AAA and the majors, first with the Pirates, then with Kansas City, Texas, and Cincinnati.  He always pitched well in the minors, but never could stick in the majors.  His major league ERAs tell the reason why, but he never got much of a chance and his WHIPs were pretty decent many of those years, suggesting bad luck may also have been a factor.  He was a replacement player in 1995, knowing that he would pay a price for it but believing he had no choice due to the medical bills incurred by his ill mother. After playing at AAA for all of 1996 with the Mets, Reed finally made the big-leagues to stay in 1997 at the age of 32. He was a rotation starter for the Mets, and a good one, from 1997 through July of 2001, when he was traded at the deadline to Minnesota for Matt Lawton.  He was apparently unhappy about leaving New York, but did not complain publicly about it at the time. Reed did not pitch well for the Twins that year, but had a solid year in 2002, helping the team to the playoffs. After a poor 2003, when he was 38, the Twins released him. He signed with Pittsburgh that off-season, but did not make the team and called it a career.  As a Twin, he was 25-25, 4.47, 1.30 WHIP in 390.2 innings.  He appeared in 72 games, 65 of them starts.  He became the pitching coach at Marshall University in 2005, but decided to step away from baseball for good.  At last report, Rick Reed was living in retirement in Huntington, West Virginia.

Outfielder Quinton Antoine McCracken played in 24 games for the Twins in 2001.  He was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, went to high school in South Brunswick, North Carolina (where he started on the football and basketball teams and ran track in addition to playing baseball), and attended Duke.  He was drafted by Colorado in the twenty-fifth round in 1992.  He was a high average hitter, hitting .359 in a 1995 season split between AA and AAA.  He was also fast, stealing 60 bases at Class A Central Valley in 1993.  He came up to the Rockies at the end of 1995 and stayed through 1997 as a part-time centerfielder.  He hit .291 over that time, but was left unprotected in the expansion draft and was chosen by Tampa Bay.  He hit .292 in 1998, but he got off to a bad start in 1999 and then was injured in late May, missing the rest of the season.  He split 2000 between AAA and the Devil Rays, then was released.  He signed with St. Louis for 2001, but failed to make the team.  The Twins signed McCracken on April 13 and sent him to AAA Edmonton, where he hit .338.  They brought him to the majors for about six weeks; he got 64 at-bats, making six starts in the outfield and eight at designated hitter (a foreshadowing of Jason Tyner’s use in that role).  His batting ability stayed in AAA, however; he hit .219/.275/.313.  He became a free agent after the season, signing with Arizona.  He made a surprising comeback there, hitting .309 as a half-time outfielder in 2002.  He went back down in 2003, however, and was traded to Seattle after the season for Greg Colbrunn and cash.  He played poorly with the Mariners, was released in June, and signed back with the Diamondbacks, where he again made a comeback, hitting .288 as a reserve the rest of the way.  He again could not sustain it the following year, and became a free agent after the 2005 season.  McCracken signed with Cincinnati for 2006, but played sparingly and was released in early July.  The Twins re-signed him a couple of weeks later and sent him to Rochester; he hit .284 there, but was not promoted and again became a free agent after the season.  He played for independent Bridgeport in 2007, then his playing career came to an end.  For a twenty-fifth round draft choice, though, he had a pretty good career.  Quinton McCracken was assistant director for player development for the Arizona Diamondbacks through 2012, and worked for the Houston Astros from 2013-2018, serving as their director of player personnel the last two seasons.  He became the third base coach for the Durham Bulls in the Tampa Bay organization in 2019 and still holds that position, at least in theory.