Since he popped up in the player lists above, I want to inform you about the fate of Wally Gaston, the last original Coon to stick with the team. When we let him go after the 1988 season for his seriously deteriorating pitching, I wasn’t too sure that he would ever pitch again in the majors.
He did. He made ONE appearance for the Thunder after that. He retired in 1991.
Always loved the guy.
The offseason – November 1992
November 22 – SP Woody Roberts (166-109, 3.10 ERA) re-signs with the Condors for 5-yr, $4.25M. The 31-yr old Roberts had just four days earlier become a free agent. Roberts, who has 1,947 career strikeouts, was the Condors’ first-round pick in 1980 and has spent all of his career with the team.
November 23 – The Raccoons flip 1B/3B Matt Brown (.209, 1 HR, 15 RBI) to the Indians for INF Sixto Moreno (.234, 15 HR, 111 RBI). Neither the 23-yr old Brown, nor the 27-yr old Moreno are expected to fill starter roles for their new teams.
November 23 – The Titans add 25-yr old 2B Dave Dixon (.290, 2 HR, 98 RBI) in a swap with the Falcons for 29-yr old SP Dennis Lauzon (51-58, 4.33 ERA) and AAA CL Francisco Gutierrez.
November 24 – The Canadiens and the Wolves make a deal for 27-year old infielders. INF Kelly Carpenter (.253, 36 HR, 157 RBI) and a minor leaguer head north to Vancouver in exchange for 1B Carlos Guzman (.314, 14 HR, 95 RBI) and a minor leaguer.
November 27 – Paydays don’t stop for Hector Atilano despite the infielder being already 41 years old. The Scorpions will pay him $860k to don the green stripes for 1993. Atilano has 2,542 career hits, 186 dingers, and a .315 batting average. He batted .312 with 10 homers for the Capitals last year. Atilano is just 42 hits away from Claudio Rojas’ all-time record.
Atilano still going strong keeps surprising me. He refuses to age. While he still trails Rojas in the hits category, he is far and away in the total bases category with 3,759 TB. Rojas has only 2,874 TB! So that’s a total of 290 extra bases for somebody who had 2,584 career base hits. Woow. Rojas thus ranks only 12th in career TB, with five current or former Raccoons ahead of him: 3rd Mark Dawson (3,349), 6th Tetsu Osanai (3,118), 7th Armando Sanchez (3,093), 8th Yoshinobu Ishizaki (3,076), and 11th Daniel Hall (2,967).
So much for mixed-to-positive news. Now … - I tried to locate teams that were really hot on Jeff Martin to load them with a certain marble column in a deal for both. The Stars had an interesting left-hander in Les Browning, age 24, and were eager to get Martin.
But...
Maybe I should have asked the marble column first. Tetsu Osanai would exercise his 10/5 rights to veto any trade. Any. He has ten years and 141 days of experience. Oh, holy cow. There is no way we can just release him. He is due another $4.5M and that can’t be paid by the team under any circumstances.
Well, that crashes all plans, basically. There is no room for two first basemen on the roster. Since we can not get rid of this one, we can’t add Baldivia come spring. The only possible option would be to designate Osanai for assignment, but who could be so stupid …? He will definitely not accept a minor league assignment.
Oh, good riddance, we’re stuck with a marble column batting two-eleven with four home runs for four more years …!! (bursts into tears)