Off-The-Wall Baseball Player Moves
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Ron Wright, former minor-league slugger, now pharmacist in-training
The Phillies are not the only team in baseball with a history of off-the-wall player moves. And, then owner Bob Carpenter is not the only owner who kicked himself for a truly horrendous player move.
Here’s a move that the Pittsburgh Pirates assuredly soon regretted. In 1996, they traded one of their best pitchers, lefthander Denny Neagle to Atlanta for a seemingly impressive minor league prospect Ron Wright who was bashing monstrous homers and the Pirates were really high on a promising, power-hitting prospect. The Pirates also got starter Jason Schmidt (as “the player named later”) in the deal. But Schmidt was only a .500 pitcher in 5 seasons with the Bucs and only achieved prominence with the Giants from 2001-2005.
But while Neagle went 20-5 for the Braves in 1997 and followed with a 16-11 mark in 1998 and the Braves won the NL East both seasons, the Pirates struggled to a 79-83 record finishing 2nd to Houston in the NL Central 1997 as Wright “seasoned” in the minors and finished last in the division with a 69-93 mark in 1998.
New York Times’ reporter Lee Jenkins writes about Wright’s call-up by the Pirates;
In September 1997, the Pirates called Wright to the big leagues. They wanted him to get a taste of his future. But because Wright had a sore wrist, the Pirates did not want him to actually play. They had to protect their investment.
The next spring, the Pirates considered putting Wright on their opening-day roster, but they had another infielder who was out of minor league options. So they sent Wright to Class AAA Nashville, promising him that he would be back in Pittsburgh soon.
In his first week in the minors, while stretching on the outfield grass in Tucson, Wright felt a pain in his back. For a moment, he froze. Then he collapsed.
“It was like I’d been shot,” he said.
An ambulance took him from the field to a hospital behind the left-field wall. Then he flew to Los Angeles to have a disk removed from his back. He missed the 1998 season, and by the beginning of 1999 he still had not fully recovered.
Wright returned to Los Angeles for another examination. Doctors told him that his back was fine. But during the operation, his sciatic nerve had been clipped. For the rest of his life, his right leg would feel numb.
Wright ended up in the Seattle Mariners minor league system before being called up to the big club where, in his only Major League appearance in 2002, Baseball Library recounts that he went “0-for-3 and accounting for 6 outs on a strikeout‚ double play‚ and triple play.”
Jenkins writes about the aftermath for Wright;
The next day, when the Mariners arrived in Oakland, Piniella [former Mariners Manager Lou Piniella] called Wright into his office before the game. Seattle had burned its bullpen in Texas. Piniella needed an extra reliever from the minors. Someone had to be sent down.
“I wish I could give you another chance up here,” Piniella said.
Wright spent one more year looking for that second chance, and looking for that first hit. But after he collided with a catcher at home plate in Richmond, his right leg gave out again. He knew it was time to retire.
Oh, the pain of reactive, often panicked moves rather than thoroughly thought-out, pro-active ones.
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