American baseball catcher and coach
Baseball player
Stephen Wayne Yeager
(born November 24, 1948) is an American former
professional baseball
catcher
. Yeager spent 14 of the 15 seasons of his
Major League Baseball
career, from 1972 through 1985, with the
Los Angeles Dodgers
. His last year, 1986, he played for the
Seattle Mariners
. From 2012 to 2018, Yeager was the catching coach for the Dodgers. He was co-
MVP
of the
1981 World Series
.
Early and personal life
[
edit
]
Yeager was born in
Huntington, West Virginia
.
[1]
He attended
Meadowdale High School
in
Dayton, Ohio
.
[1]
Yeager hit two
grand slams
in a single game while playing for Meadowdale.
He is the cousin of the late test pilot
Chuck Yeager
.
[2]
Los Angeles Mayor
Tom Bradley
was the
best man
at his wedding to local rock musician Gloria Giaone.
[1]
Yeager is Jewish, having converted to
Judaism
when his career was over.
[3]
He later moved to
Granada Hills, California
.
[4]
Minor league career
[
edit
]
He was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers on June 6, 1967, in the 4th round of the
1967 Major League Baseball draft
, when he was 18 years old.
[5]
[6]
After one game with the
rookie
level
Ogden Spikers
of the
Pioneer League
, Yeager was sent to the Dodgers'
Single-A
affiliate, the
Dubuque Packers
of the
Midwest League
.
[6]
The following season, in 1968, Yeager played 59 games for the Single-A
Daytona Beach Dodgers
of the
Florida State League
.
[6]
In 1969, he played 22 games for the
Bakersfield Dodgers
, the Dodgers' Single-A affiliate in the
California League
, where he threw out 26 runners from behind the plate.
[6]
That season he suffered a fractured leg in a first-inning collision with a runner at home plate, but was not aware how bad his injury was, and finished the game.
[5]
Yeager was promoted to
Double-A
before the end of the 1969 season, playing in one game for the
Albuquerque
Dodgers
of the
Texas League
.
[6]
He spent the next two-and-2/3 seasons with the Double-A franchise.
[6]
In 162 games played over the 1970 and 1971 seasons, he hit .276, with 77
RBIs
in 490 at bats.
[6]
He threw out 84 runners, second in the league that year, and was named to the Texas League
All-Star
team as a catcher in 1971.
[6]
In
spring training
in 1972 he won the Dodgers writers' Dearie Mulvey Memorial Trophy as the best rookie.
[5]
With the Dukes becoming the new
Pacific Coast League
Triple-A
affiliate for the Dodgers in 1972, Yeager was promoted while remaining in
Albuquerque
for another season.
[6]
“You won't beat that arm of his,”
Tommy Lasorda
said that season.
[5]
With the Triple-A Dukes, he played 82 games, batting .280 with 45 RBIs and a slugging percentage of .502, in 257 at bats.
[6]
[5]
Major league career
[
edit
]
Los Angeles Dodgers (1972-85)
[
edit
]
Yeager made his Major League debut with the Dodgers on August 2, 1972, and went on to play 15 seasons in the major leagues.
[6]
He started 34 games that season and batted .274/.374/.406.
[6]
In the winter before the 1973 season he was named to the Dominican League All Star team.
[5]
He backed up
Joe Ferguson
in 1973, and split time with Ferguson for the pennant-winning 1974 club as he hit .266 with 12 home runs.
[6]
Thereafter, Yeager was the starting catcher for the Dodgers and became an integral part of the Dodgers' success in the 1970s and early 1980s.
In 1976, he led NL catchers in assists, with 77.
[6]
In 1977, he came in second in voting for the
Gold Glove Award
.
[5]
He led NL catchers in baserunners caught stealing percentage in both 1978 (46.7%) and 1982 (43.1%).
[6]
Yeager helped the Dodgers get to the
World Series
in
1974
,
1977
,
1978
, and
1981
.
[6]
In the '81 Series against the
New York Yankees
, he shared the
World Series Most Valuable Player
award with teammates
Pedro Guerrero
and
Ron Cey
. Yeager, who was backing up
Mike Scioscia
by that time, did not have overwhelming stats for the Series, as he went 4-for-14 (.286), but one of his hits was a double and two were home runs.
[6]
One of the homers, off
Ron Guidry
, turned out to be the game-winner in Game 5.
[5]
While with the Dodgers, Yeager caught
Jerry Reuss
'
no-hitter
on June 27, 1980.
[7]
Yeager injured his knee in 1982 and broke his wrist the next year, which severely limited his playing time.
Seattle Mariners (1986)
[
edit
]
He was traded from the
Dodgers
to the
Seattle Mariners
for
Ed Vande Berg
on December 11, 1985.
[8]
He retired after hitting .208 in 130 at bats in 1986.
[6]
Characteristics
[
edit
]
Lou Brock
called Yeager "the best-throwing catcher in the game."
[5]
His specialty was defense and his command of the game on the field. In one nationally televised game, he made a putout to second base ? and the
radar gun
in place to record pitches caught his throw to second (from a crouch) at 98 mph. He was very good at managing the game from his position and was even more highly regarded for his abilities with young pitchers. In 1974, he had 806 putouts, the most in the National League.
[6]
This compensated for his overall subpar offense, as illustrated by arguably his best offensive year occurring in 1974 when he batted .266 in fewer than 100 games.
[6]
Despite this reputation, Yeager was still somewhat of a clutch hitter as he had an average of .321 when hitting with the bases loaded during his career, as well as hitting 4 home runs in 21 World Series games.
[6]
He also had success hitting off pitcher
Ken Forsch
. While never hitting more than two
home runs
off any other pitcher, he managed to hit 5 against Forsch in his career.
With the Dodgers, whenever
knuckleballer
Charlie Hough
pitched, Yeager would use a special enlarged catcher's mitt and would hold it in a cupped style, palm facing upward, instead of the normal upright "target" position.
Throat protector
[
edit
]
In 1976, Yeager was injured when teammate
Bill Russell
's bat shattered as he hit a ground ball and a large, jagged piece from the heavy end of the bat slammed into the throat of Yeager, who was in the
on-deck circle
.
[5]
The wood hit him in the neck and pierced his
esophagus
, necessitating surgery.
[5]
After the incident, at Yeager's urging Dodger trainer Bill Buhler invented and patented a device that hangs from the catcher's mask to protect the throat.
[5]
It was soon worn by most catchers throughout the Majors and other leagues.
Coaching career
[
edit
]
Steve Yeager coached the Dodgers catchers from 2012?2018.
[9]
Minor league coaching career
[
edit
]
In 1999, Yeager was the
hitting coach
for the Dodgers' Single-A
San Bernardino
Stampede, which won the
California League
championship. He managed the
Long Beach Breakers
in the independent (now-defunct)
Western Baseball League
in 2001.
[6]
The team won the league championship in their inaugural season that year, beating the
Chico Heat
3 games to 2. He was the
Jacksonville Suns
hitting coach in 2004, when the team won the championship, and in 2005-06 he was the hitting instructor/coach for the Dodgers AAA farm club, the
Las Vegas 51s
. He later joined the A Dodgers affiliate Inland Empire 66'ers and became the hitting coach in 2007.
Yeager was instrumental in the conversion of
Russell Martin
from third base to behind the plate.
In 2007, he became the manager for the
Long Beach Armada
of the independent
Golden Baseball League
.
[6]
Personal life
[
edit
]
In September 1979, he and his family appeared on an episode of
Family Feud
. They played for a total of 6 days.
In 1982, Yeager posed semi-nude in a
Playgirl
magazine.
[10]
[5]
In 1991, Yeager filed for
Chapter 7 bankruptcy
.
[11]
In July 1996, Yeager was sued by the
New York City Department of Consumer Affairs
in the
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
for allegedly misleading dozens of investors into donating between $2,900 and $3,500 into a fraudulent sports card brokering business.
[12]
He was sued for the same scheme in November of that year in Illinois and in 1997 in California.
[11]
By 1997, Yeager had been divorced three times.
[11]
Yeager served as a technical advisor and also played a small role as Coach Duke Temple, in
Major League
,
Major League II
, and
Major League: Back to the Minors
.
In 2008, Yeager sued two filmmaking companies for nonpayment of $50,000 allegedly promised to him to serve as a technical advisor on the film
Playing with the Enemy: A Baseball Prodigy, a World at War and a Field of Broken Dreams
. Yeager allegedly had been hired to teach the film's lead actor to play baseball like a convincing professional ballplayer.
[13]
Yeager is a co-owner of a
Jersey Mike's Subs
franchise.
[14]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
"Steve Yeager"
.
- ^
"Major league catcher Steve Yeager returns to Long Beach to join Armada"
.
Signal Tribune Newspaper
.
- ^
"Jewish Baseball Players"
. Baseball-almanac.com
. Retrieved
January 23,
2011
.
- ^
The Big Book of Jewish Baseball - Peter S. Horvitz, Joachim Horvitz - Google Books
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
Steve Yeager | Society for American Baseball Research
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
q
r
s
t
u
v
w
"Steve Yeager Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More"
.
Baseball-Reference.com
.
Sports Reference
. Retrieved
28 March
2023
.
- ^
"Retrosheet Boxscore: Los Angeles Dodgers 8, San Francisco Giants 0"
.
- ^
"Orioles Trade Roenicke for Bordi, Hudler,"
The Washington Post
, Thursday, December 12, 1985.
Retrieved July 10, 2023.
- ^
Coach Bio | MLB.com
- ^
"Yeager Expects Ribbing For Playgirl Photo".
Associated Press
. August 29, 1982.
- ^
a
b
c
Dillman, Lisa (4 June 1997).
"Yeager Sued by Sports Collectibles Investors"
.
Los Angeles Times
. Retrieved
28 March
2023
.
- ^
"Ex-Dodger Yeager Is Sued by the City"
.
The New York Times
. 3 July 1996
. Retrieved
28 March
2023
.
- ^
Reitman, Valerie; Feeley, Jef (6 October 2008).
"Ex-Dodger Steve Yeager Sues Filmmakers Over Payment"
.
Bloomberg.com
. Retrieved
28 March
2023
.
- ^
"Former Dodgers' star Yeager has found missing ingredient"
. Retrieved
April 14,
2012
.
External links
[
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]