My favorite thing to do while watching classic baseball is Baseball Reference surf. Start at the page for one of the teams you're watching, click on a player, and don't stop until your cuticles melt. I was watching the seventh game of the '91 World Series the other night -- Smoltz v. Morris -- so I started out on the '91 Twins, and clicked on Dan Gladden. Gladden to Bryan Hickerson to the '92 Giants to Kevin Bass (hey, he was pretty good when the Giants got him) to the '83 Astros to Joe Niekro to the '88 Twins to Kent Hrbek back to the '91 Twins to Brian Harper to...
And that's where I stopped. Harper was the catcher for the Twins for seven years, including the championship team in '91, and he had the weirdest career path that I can think of.
Note: Harper is currently a roving catching instructor for the Giants, and he's the father of Fresno Grizzlies slugger Brett Harper, so this is totally relevant to a Giants blog. It's not like I'm fishing for material on a slow January afternoon. C'mon, now.
Harper's bizarre career:
- 4th-round pick of the Angels in '77 as a 17-year-old
- Drafted as a catcher
- Moved off catcher when he was 21
- Put up a .350/.389/.617 line in AAA in his age-21 season, though it was in Salt Lake City
- Traded to the Pirates for Tim Foli
- Had a couple hundred at-bats for the Pirates spread over three years
- Kicked around for three other teams, usually spending most of his time in the minors as an outfielder
- Moved back to catcher by the Twins when he's 28
- One of the league's better catchers for several years in his early '30s
Harper went from a AAAA outfield journeyman to starting catcher on a contender in two years. That's insane. So this thread is filled for reminiscing about players with weird career paths. Here's another one:
- 6th-round pick in '95 as a 22-year old
- Drafted as a shortstop
- Asked to convert to pitcher, retired instead
- Reconsidered, came back as a pitcher
- Rocketed up through the system as a starting pitcher
- Got hurt
- Came back. Sucked
- No, seriously. Dude was awful in AAA for two straight years. One, I can understand because he was rehabbing from a serious injury. But two? He was done
- Wasn't done. Did well as a reliever in the majors
- Eventually he was the closer on the '04 Giants team that won the NL West and the World Series, and he is still racking up the saves today
See? That career path is almost too hard to believe. Open Random Career Path Thread.