Pat borders where is he now

He also was a member of the USA Baseball team that earned a gold medal in the Olympics, making him one of just four players in history to have won both a World Series championship and an Olympic gold medal. Berrios, begins his 22 nd year as a minor league pitching coach and his fourth in Williamsport. McKeithan, in his first season as a professional coach, played collegiately at Vanderbilt and most recently served as a hitting instructor at Driveline Baseball.

Traces of grey have crept into his hair and goatee, and happily, the tobacco bulge inside his cheek is long gone, but at the age of 52, he looks fit and trim, and he walks without the hobble common to men who squatted behind home plate for the better part of 25 years. That boyish smile — remember the look on his face as he admired the World Series trophy?

In the intervening nine years, it has been a busy time at the Borders ranch near his hometown of Lake Wales, Fla. Borders and his wife Kathy have nine kids, ranging in age from 24 to two. Lindsay is the oldest, Landry the youngest. I started paying attention to my kids a lot more and going to all their events. That consumed my attention, and rightfully so. Saw the bulk of them through high school and their high-school sports. It was hands-on with them as much as I could. It was good for them, good for me, good for everybody.

Meanwhile, major-league teams occasionally invited him to coach in the minors. As his playing career wound down, everybody said the old catcher would make a great coach.

Cito Gaston, his former Toronto manager, urged him to join the Jays as roving catching instructor. Borders said no. He was having too much fun at home. Then last year, the Phillies came calling. Pat Gillick, his old boss, mentor and friend, was running the club.

The talk got around to a job managing a short-season team in the low minors. He would be away from home for only three months. He could commute to spring training in Clearwater. He could still coach the high-school team in Winter Haven on spring evenings. She just gave me the last push. Borders says he quickly took to the job, especially after learning to use a laptop computer for the first time.

Spring training helped him ease in. And he could relate easily to his players, most of them in their very early 20s. His experience as a player, high-school coach and parent is serving him well. He also was looking forward to playing for manager Tony La Russa, who left the Athletics for the Cardinals after the season.

Borders impressed La Russa with his play at Cardinals spring training in In late March, Pagnozzi injured his left wrist and went on the disabled list. Borders was selected by La Russa to start at catcher in the season opener against the Mets at New York. He did most of the catching for the Cardinals in the first month of the season, playing in 17 of their first 25 games and batting. When the ballots came out for fan voting for the all-star team, Borders was the Cardinals catcher listed by Major League Baseball.

May was a different story. Pagnozzi, who played six games in April, played in 23 games in May and hit. He does a good job handling pitchers and shows imagination in his pitch selection. On May 10, Borders entered a game against the Dodgers in the 11th inning and played first base for the first time in the majors. Posted in Games , Hitters 5 Comments. Pat Borders really came alive in the playoffs. From October 12, to October 23, He picked up 33 hits over 26 postseason games. He hit safely in 16 consecutive games and got on base in 25 of these games.

Thanks, Phillip. The quote is from a game story by Rick Hummel in the May 25, , St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Who knows if anyone else will play pro ball in my family? So we want to enjoy it while we can. But now they come out on the field and shag balls and have fun, and they'll retain these memories. They're out there every day, unless I let them sleep.

Sometimes for the day games, I'll let 'em sleep when I go to the ballpark, and when they wake up they get mad at me. They're pretty good little players. Indeed, before a recent game in Portland, two of Borders' sons were on the field before the game, playing pepper with one of Borders' much younger teammates. When I was in Seattle this season, the kids came up with me and they had fun, but when I told 'em I was going back to Tacoma, they were elated. It's a smaller environment down here, so they can get closer to the field and closer to the players.

In a recent Sports Illustrated poll, major-league players were asked about their favorite non-baseball activity. Fortunately for Borders' six children, his priorities are a bit different. I have six kids, so I have to be as attentive as I can to their needs, if just because of I have this volume of kids.

Now I might go out on one hunt in a year, and that might just mean taking the boys on a simple dove-hunt. Still, Borders himself doesn't need this. He made good money in the majors, and he didn't need to spend most of these last four seasons in the minor leagues.