Troy O'Leary

Troy Franklin O'Leary (born August 4, 1969) is an American former professional baseball outfielder who played with the Milwaukee Brewers (1993-1994), Boston Red Sox (1995-2001), Montreal Expos (2002) and Chicago Cubs (2003). He batted and threw left-handed.

In an 11-season career, O'Leary posted a .274 batting average with 127 home runs and 591 runs batted in in 1198 games.

Career

O'Leary attended Cypress High School in Cypress, California. He initially committed to play college football at Oregon State as a wide receiver.^[1]

A 13th-round pick in 1987, O'Leary enjoyed a great 1992 season at Double-A El Paso, winning the Texas League batting title with a .334 average and stealing 28 bases. O'Leary had batted over .330 twice before. He was promoted to Milwaukee a year later, and after two seasons, he was selected off waivers by the Red Sox.

O'Leary hit his first career home run September 1, 1994 off San Diego Padres reliever Adam Clark.

O'Leary hit .308 in his first season with the Boston Red Sox and was named the 1995 Red Sox Rookie of the Year. O'Leary collected at least 70 RBI from 1996-2000 and reached double digit home run totals in all 7 seasons with the Red Sox.

Troy enjoyed the best year of his career statistically in 1999. He led the team with 28 home runs in the regular season, was second on the team to Nomar Garciaparra in RBI (103), and finished with a .280 batting average. He played in 157 of the 162 regular season games and finished with 596 at bats, leading the team in both categories. Troy also posted 84 runs (3rd on team), 167 hits (3rd on team), 36 doubles (4th on team), and a .495 slugging percentage (3rd on team).

One of the greatest moments of O'Leary's Major League career and in Boston Red Sox postseason history took place on October 11, 1999, in the deciding game 5 of the 1999 American League Division Series versus the Cleveland Indians. Boston was trailing 5-2 going into the top of the third inning. With runners on second and third, Indians starter Charles Nagy chose to intentionally walk Nomar Garciaparra, who had homered in the first inning, to load the bases for O'Leary. O'Leary responded by sending the ball over the right field fence for the first grand slam in Red Sox post-season history. When the seventh inning began, the game was tied 8-8. The Indians again, chose to intentionally walk Garciaparra to get to O'Leary, this time with Paul Shuey on the mound. O'Leary responded with a very similar swing to his grand slam in the 3rd inning, hitting a line drive over the right field fence for a 3 run home-run. O'Leary's heroics, along with 6 no-hit relief innings from Pedro Martinez, helped seal the victory and the Red Sox advanced to the 1999 American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees.

O'Leary would spend 2 more seasons with the Boston Red Sox until the signing of slugger Manny Ramirez made O'Leary expendable. Troy went on to play 97 games for the Montreal Expos in 2002 and 93 games for the Chicago Cubs in 2003. In what turned out to be the final at-bat of his major league career during game 7 of the 2003 National League Championship Series, O'Leary hit a pinch hit home run in the bottom of the 7th inning off of Josh Beckett. O'Leary spent 2004 with the Samsung Lions of the Korea Baseball Organization.

References

1. Dose of reality from O'Leary

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors), or Retrosheet, or Pelota Binaria (Venezuelan Winter League)