Doug DeCinces

DeCinces played PONY League Baseball and Colt League Baseball in Northridge, California, with fellow major league player Dwight Evans. He attended and played for Los Angeles Pierce College, and is in their Athletic Hall of Fame.

He began his major league career at the age of 23 with the Baltimore Orioles late in the 1973 season.[1] When the Orioles' Hall of Fame third baseman, Brooks Robinson retired at the end of the 1977 season, DeCinces was given the difficult task of replacing the legendary player.[3] Despite being booed by Orioles fans in his first game as Robinson's replacement, he endured to play for the Orioles for a total of nine seasons.[3]

On June 22, 1979, DeCinces hit a game-winning home run at Memorial Stadium off Detroit Tigers reliever Dave Tobik. The Orioles were trailing the Tigers 5-3 going into the bottom of the ninth inning. With one out, Ken Singleton hit a solo home run off Tobik to bring the Orioles within one. Eddie Murray reached base on a single, and, with two outs, DeCinces hit a two-run home run to give the Orioles a 6-5 victory.[4] The win has been called "the night Oriole Magic was born."[5] DeCinces said years later that the game and his home run "triggered something" and that "the emotion just multiplied from there," adding that the ensuing atmosphere of excitement was in no small part due to the excited call of the home run by announcers Bill O'Donnell and Charley Eckman on the Orioles' radio network.[6][7] The Orioles went on to win the American League pennant in 1979.

In 1982 the Orioles traded DeCinces to the California Angels for Dan Ford in order to make room for Cal Ripken, Jr. DeCinces was a member of the American League All Star Team in 1983.[1] Released by the Angels on September 23, 1987, he concluded his major league career by playing in four games for the St. Louis Cardinals late in the 1987 season.[1] In total, DeCinces played for 15 seasons (1973–1987) in the major leagues for three different teams, including nine years with the Orioles and six years with the Angels.[1]

Also in 1982, DeCinces hit three home runs in a game twice within a five day span as a member of the California Angels, on August 3 in a 5-4 loss to the Minnesota Twins and on August 8 in a 9-5 victory over the Seattle Mariners.

In 1988 DeCinces played for the Yakult Swallows in Japan. He missed the final two months of the season because of back problems and, on his doctors' advice, retired from baseball at the age of 37.[8] His experiences in Japan led to him being hired as a consultant for the 1992 film Mr. Baseball, about a veteran American ballplayer who is traded to a Japanese baseball club and is forced to contend with overwhelming expectations and cultural differences during the team's run at the pennant.

DeCinces twice finished in the top 25 voting for the American League Most Valuable Player, finishing third in 1982 and 11th in 1986 while playing for the California Angels.[1] In 1982 he also won the Silver Slugger Award.[1]

He was inducted into the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame on August 26, 2006.

On August 4, 2011, DeCinces, along with three others, was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with insider trading ahead of a company buyout. In a civil suit, the SEC alleged that DeCinces and his associates made more than $1.7 million in illegal profits when Abbott Park, Ill.-based Abbott Laboratories Inc. announced its plan to purchase Advanced Medical Optics Inc. through a tender offer.[9] Without admitting or denying the allegations, DeCinces agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle the SEC's charges.[10]

In November 2012, DeCinces received a criminal indictment on insider trading related to the same incident and was charged with securities fraud and money laundering.[11] On May 12, 2017, after a nearly two-month trial, a federal court jury in Santa Ana, California, found him guilty on 13 felony counts.[12][13] He was also called to testify in the trial of others implicated in the insider trading case.[14] On August 12, 2019, DeCinces was sentenced to eight months of home detention and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.[15] Hall-of-Fame former ballplayer Rod Carew extolled the charitable contributions of DeCinces at the sentencing, telling the court, "I am here because he has done so much more for other people".[16]

In postseason play, in 23 games, in 3 ALCS and 1 World Series, he batted .270 (24-for-89) with 13 runs, 2 home runs and 9 RBI.

• Comak, Amanda. "DeCinces enjoying life as businessman". MLB.com. Retrieved on Thursday, August 14, 2008.

• Career statistics and player information from MLB, or ESPN, or Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or Baseball-Reference (Minors), or Retrosheet, or Baseball Reference Bullpen, or SABR BioProject, or Pelota Binaria (Venezuelan Winter League)