Greatest 21 Days Baseball Profiles

Still 19 years old and without a big league game to his name, young Ivan Rodriguez expressed confidence in his abilities to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram in spring 1991. Even so, he knew he might have to start that year back in the minors, he told The Star-Telegram then . "That's all right. A half-season or (by) September, maybe I'll be in the major leagues. But once I'm there," Rodriguez told The Star-Telegram , "I'm not going back. My first year, I want to be rookie of the year. That's my thinking. In three years, All-Star catcher. Then people will be saying Ivan Rodriguez is the best catcher in baseball." As brash as Rodriguez might have sounded at the time, he ended up being correct on pretty much everything . In retrospect, he was even a bit conservative. He would make his major league debut that June - and play well enough to get into the rookie of the year discussion (he came in fourth ), if not win it.  Three years from then, he did make...

Throughout his long major league career, Jeff Kent separated his emotions from the game, he told The Associated Press in 2009. For Kent, it was about how others saw him and his focus on playing, according to The AP . "If you allow yourself as a player to get emotionally involved in every little thing that happens, I don't think you can stay as consistent as you ought to in this game," Kent told The AP . "I wanted other people to perceive me as a guy who was level emotionally." Kent spoke to The AP on the occasion of his retirement after 17 seasons in the majors . He hit 377 major league home runs and knocked in 1,500 runs, all while cultivating a certain reputation as a loner in the clubhouse, among other terms. But Kent also made it onto five All-Star teams, won the 2000 National League MVP award and has remained on the Hall of Fame ballot through five cycles, hovering around 15 percent of the vote. Kent's long career in baseball began in 19...

Mo Vaughn helped his Red Sox in May 1995 with his power and with luck . After a two-home run effort one day, Vaughn came back by hitting a bases-loaded bloop single the next day . "If you know what's coming you can hit the ball for miles," Vaughn told The Boston Globe afterward. "But you've got to be able to flip and hit changeups and breaking balls. So I was happy with today." Vaughn ended up helping Boston to the playoffs that year by hitting a total of 39 home runs, a league-leading 126 RBI and a .300 batting average. He also helped himself to the American League Most Valuable Player award . He also made the All-Star team for the first time that year, getting there two more times before his career was done. Overall, Vaughn saw time in 12 major league seasons, hitting a total of 328 home runs, with 1,064 RBIs. He also ended with a .293 career batting average . According to allegations in the 2007 Mitchell Report , though, at least some of ...

Juan Gonzalez hadn't won an MVP award yet, but, by then end of the 1993 season, he had completed his second-consecutive season with more than 40 home runs and third-consecutive topping 100 RBIs. So, when the Rangers announced in February 1994 that they'd signed Gonzalez to a long-term deal - five years, $30 million - Rangers president Tom Schieffer could be excused for being a little excited. "This kid is going to be in the Hall of Fame, and if anybody is worthy of it, he is," Schieffer told The Associated Press after the signing. "We have our fourth-place hitter for the next seven years. Now, all we have to do is make sure he stays healthy." For most of that deal Gonzalez did exactly what Schieffer hoped. He won one MVP, then a second . He helped the Rangers to the playoffs in three separate seasons. But it was another contract offer, one that Gonzalez didn't accept, that symbolized what should have been the second half of Gonzalez' caree...

The Red Sox minor leaguer played well the previous season, but his prospects for advancement were slim. A third baseman, he had at least three players ahead of him , one of them being Hall of Famer and longtime Boston third baseman Wade Boggs. There just didn't seem to be room for Jeff Bagwell , The Patriot Ledger News Service wrote in spring 1990. "I really don't worry about anybody else," Bagwell told the news service . "I do what I have to do. If I keep putting good numbers on the board, something's going to happen." The minor leaguer did keep put up numbers and something did happen. He got traded to the Astros and became a Houston legend . Now, all the numbers Bagwell continued put up have him in a good position to become a Hall of Famer himself, if not in the 2012 balloting, in the coming years. Bagwell's career, though, began with the Red Sox, taken in the fourth round of the 1989 draft, out of the University of Hartford . He pla...

Asked about the promotion of the White Sox' young first baseman in early August 1990, White Sox GM Larry Himes said they did so because the club needed a bat, The Chicago Tribune wrote . That young first baseman was Frank Thomas and he rewarded that confidence in just his second game , hitting a two-run triple against Milwaukee. "Frank adds that dimension of power to our lineup," Himes told The Tribune of Thomas' promotion from AA Birmingham. "I've watched our ballclub the last four or five days and decided we needed pop." And Thomas gave them pop. He gave them pop over much of the next 16 seasons , winning consecutive MVP awards in 1993 and 1994 and five All-Star appearances. When his career was finally over in 2008, after 19 total seasons, Thomas had amassed 521 home runs. He also tallied more than 1,700 RBIs and a career batting average of .301, numbers that in 2014 won him induction into the Hall of Fame . Thomas' career began in 19...