ROD CAREW

'Rodney Cline "Rod" Carew' (born October 1, 1945), is a former Major League Baseball player for the Minnesota Twins and California Angels from 1967 to 1985.
He was born to a Panamanian mother on a train in the town of Gatun, which at that time was in the Panama Canal Zone . As the train was segregated, Carew's black mother was forced to ride in a rear car. When his mother went into labor, a white doctor named Rodney Cline, who was Jewish, delivered her baby. In appreciation, the baby was named after the doctor. He emigrated to Washington Heights, New York City at the age of 14. One day after graduating high school, Carew signed a contract with the Minnesota Twins.

Contents

Major League Career

Confusion over conversion to Judaism

Trivia

Tragedy

Post-retirement

Chewing tobacco use

See also

External links

Major League Career

Rod Carew earned the American League Rookie of the Year award in 1967 and was an All-Star in every year but his final one, 1985. In his career, Rod Carew won seven batting titles.
In 1972, Carew led the American League in batting, without hitting a single home run. During the 1977 season he hit .388, which was, at the time, the highest since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941. (In 1980, the Kansas City Royals' George Brett hit .390. Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres hit .394 in 1994. To date, that is the closest anyone has come to hitting .400 since in a full season.) For his efforts, Carew won the American League's Most Valuable Player award. In addition, he is one of only two players (the other being Ty Cobb) to lead Major League Baseball in batting average in three consecutive years, doing so from 1973 through 1975. Carew was famous for his ability to steal home, doing so 17 times during his career. This was especially rare in the era he played making the statistic especially noteworthy.^[1]
Originally a second baseman, Carew moved to first base in 1975 to lengthen his career. Frustrated by the Twins' inability to keep its young stars and racist comments made by team owner Calvin Griffith, Carew announced his intention to leave the team in 1979. He was traded to the-then California Angels for outfielder Ken Landreaux, catcher/first baseman Dave Engle, right-handed pitcher Paul Hartzell, and left-handed pitcher Brad Havens.
On August 4, 1985, Rod Carew joined the 3,000 hit club. The 3,000th hit was struck against Minnesota Twins left-hander Frank Viola at Anaheim Stadium.
A free agent in 1986, Carew did not receive any competitive contract offers. On Jan 10, 1995, arbitrator Thomas Roberts awarded collusion damages of $782,036 to Carew for 1986 as part of the second collusion award.
[1]
For his career, Carew finished with 3,053 hits and a lifetime batting average of .328.
Carew was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991, his first year of eligibility. He was the 22nd player so elected. In 1999, he ranked #61 on ''The Sporting News'' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was nominated as a finalist for Major League Baseball's All-Century Team.

Confusion over conversion to Judaism

Carew received death threats when he announced his intention to marry a Jewish woman. However, while his children were raised in the Jewish tradition, Carew himself never formally converted.
Bolstering the conversion myth is ''The Chanukah Song'', a 1994 comedy song about famous Jews written by Jewish entertainer Adam Sandler, in which he sings: "O.J. Simpson... NOT A JEW! But guess who is: Hall of Famer Rod Carew — he converted". Despite the fact that that statement is false, Sandler has repeated it in subsequent versions of the song.
Just the same, in an article in 1976 in Esquire magazine, sportswriter Harry Stein published an "All Time All-Star Argument Starter," consisting of five ethnic baseball teams. Carew was the second baseman on Stein's Jewish team.

Trivia

Hall Of Famer Rod Carew went to George Washington High School in New York City the same school Baseball all-star Manny Ramirez.

Tragedy

Rod Carew's daughter, Michelle, was diagnosed with leukemia in September, 1995. Her Panamanian-Jewish ancestry drastically lowered the likelihood of finding a suitable donor for a bone marrow transplant. In spite of Carew's national pleas, no donor could be found and she died in April of 1996 at the age of 18.

Post-retirement

Following his retirement, Carew has worked as a hitting coach for the Angels and the Milwaukee Brewers.
On January 19, 2004, Panama City, Panama's National Stadium was renamed Rod Carew Stadium. [2] In 2005, Carew was named the second baseman on the Major League Baseball Latino Legends Team.
His #29 has been retired by both the Minnesota Twins and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Chewing tobacco use

Rod Carew began using chewing tobacco in 1964 and was a regular user up to 1992, when a cancerous growth in his mouth was discovered and removed. The years of use had wreaked havoc on his teeth and gums, and Carew has spent a reported $100,000 in restorative dental work. [3]

See also

★ List of players from Panama in Major League Baseball

★ DHL Hometown Heroes

★ List of major league players with 2,000 hits

★ List of Major League Baseball players with 400 doubles

★ List of Major League Baseball players with 100 triples

★ List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 runs

★ List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 RBI

★ 3000 hit club

★ Hitting for the cycle

★ List of Major League Baseball batting champions

★ List of Major League Baseball runs scored champions

External links

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★ rodcarew29.com Official website

Accomplishments