Drafted by the Kansas City Royals in the 7th Round of the 1980 draft Don Slaught was a good glove capable hitting catcher who had a sixteen year career in the majors. Drafted out of UCLA he was an academic All-American with a GPA of 3.4. While he had an interesting career something he did in college was impressive in that he was pushing in the director of sabermetrics. According to the St. Joseph News-Press article of March 3, 1983 Slaught, "an econmomics major, has worked on other baseball-related college projects the last couple of years.
"One was a statistical analysis in which he determined that in 1921 Babe Ruth… had the most outstanding single-season performance in baseball history.
"In another, Slaught traced what he calls a player's marginal revenue product in terms of ability and performance contributed to a team and the effects on television and gate receipts.
"He proposed that the formulas he followed could be self in evaluating trades, arriving at optimal lineups, setting salary structures, identifying strong and weak points of players and making historical comparisons." Dang!
Debuting with the Royals in 82 he appeared in the 84 post-season where he hit .364 in the Royals defeat to the eventual Champion Tigers.
Over the winter he was traded to the Rangers in a multi-team deal that saw Jim Sundberg go to Kansas, Danny Darwin and Tim Leary to the Brewers and Frank Willis to the Mets. After three years in Texas it was off to the Yankees for pitcher Brad Arnsberg. In New York the major criticism of Slaught's game was revealed. "The Royals, Rangers and three Yankees managers have criticized the way Slaught called a game." He said the staff had better numbers when he caught but after two years he was traded from the Yankees for Jeff Robinson and prospect Willie Smith in what was seen as a win for the Yanks. In Pittsburgh, the other flaw in his game was noticed. In his first eight years he had been on the disabled list six times. In 86 he suffered a broken nose and fractured cheek bone from an 'Oil Can' Boyd fastball. He missed nearly two months after that beaning. Pulled groin in 1988 shorted a season where he had gotten off to a good start. 1991 it was a 'freak hamstring' injury and was forced to sit out the last month of the season.
In spite of the perceived flaws on July 2, 1993 Slaught hit two three-run-home-runs and a sacrifice fly to drive in seven runs against the Reds in a 10-9 win over Cincinnati. Along with his baseball work he was also getting into coaching before his career ended. After losing the seventh game of the NLCS in 1991 drove home from Pittsburgh to Arlington, Texas, it took 24 hours. He got home to find out the Japanese team the Chunichi Dragons wanted him to coach their catchers.
In the spring of 96 he signed with the Reds and was purchased by the Angles who then traded him, late in the season, to the White Sox. In 1997 he briefly played for the Padres before he was released.
Slaught served as the Tigers' batting coach but resigned at the end of the 06 season because of missing his family and being away from his business interests.
On the card we have Slaught looking at either a play on the infield during an afternoon game-since he is in pinstripes more than likely at Yankee Stadium, though it could be a spring game.
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