Nomar Garciaparra

Anthony Nomar Garciaparra (born July 23, 1973) is an American former Major League Baseball player and current SportsNet LA analyst.

After playing parts of nine seasons as an All-Star shortstop for the Boston Red Sox, he played shortstop, third base and first base for the Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Oakland Athletics.

Garciaparra is one of 13 players in Major League history to hit two grand slams during a single game, and the only player to achieve the feat at his home stadium.

The Milwaukee Brewers selected Garciaparra in the fifth round of the 1991 draft, however, he did not sign.

Instead, he enrolled at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he played college baseball for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

In 1992 Garciaparra played on the United States Olympic Baseball team in the Summer Olympics in Barcelona.

Garciaparra was an Atlantic Coast Conference All-Star and a first team All-American twice in 1993–94.

He batted .427 in his final season at Georgia Tech.

In 1993, he played collegiate summer baseball for the Orleans Cardinals of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL).

Garciaparra batted .321 and led Orleans to the league championship.

Garciaparra helped the Yellow Jackets reach the College World Series title game in 1994; they lost to Oklahoma.

Following his career at Georgia Tech, Garciaparra was a first round draft pick of the Red Sox in 1994, and entered the Red Sox farm system.

He began his professional career in Class A Advanced, as a member of the Sarasota Red Sox following his NCAA season.

Since the season was already well underway by the point Garciaparra joined the team, he only appeared in 28 games.

However, he batted .295 and hit his first professional home run.

In 1995, Garciaparra moved up to join the Double-A Trenton Thunder.

In 125 games, he batted .267 with eight home runs and again walked more than he struck out.

He also showcased his speed, stealing 35 bases, and continued gathering experience at shortstop.

After the 1995 season, rather than go home, Garciaparra embarked on an ambitious off-season training regimen to add 15 pounds of muscle.

In 1996, he found himself at the highest level of the minors playing for the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox.

That season, Garciaparra batted .343 with 16 home runs and 46 RBI in just 43 games and earned a late-season call up to the Major Leagues.

Garciaparra made his Major League debut on August 31, 1996, as a defensive replacement against Oakland, going 0-for-1.

His first Major League hit was a home run off Oakland pitcher John Wasdin on September 1, a game in which Garciaparra recorded three hits.

Garciaparra batted .241 with four home runs, 16 RBI, and five stolen bases in his initial stint with the club at the end of 1996.

On September 18, 1996, Garciaparra stole his first major league base against the Tigers, which happened on the same night where Roger Clemens tied his own MLB record for striking out 20 batters in a game.

Garciaparra is a six-time All-Star (1997, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2006), and was the AL Rookie of the Year and AL Silver Slugger Award winner at shortstop in 1997.

When he returned in 1997, Garciaparra set the league on fire in his rookie season.

He hit 30 home runs among his 209 base hits (a Red Sox rookie record), and drove in 98 runs, setting a new MLB record for RBIs by a leadoff hitter and most homers by a rookie shortstop.

He also batted .306, and his 30-game hitting streak set an A.L. rookie record.

Garciaparra also stole 22 bases, and his 11 triples led the league.

He was named Rookie of the Year in a unanimous vote, competed in the Home Run Derby as well as his first MLB All-Star Game, finished eighth in MVP voting, and captured the Silver Slugger Award for AL Shortstop.

He had the highest single-season batting average by a right-handed batter in the post-war era, batting .372 in 2000, and won the AL Batting Title in 1999 and 2000, the first right-handed batter to accomplish this in consecutive seasons since Joe DiMaggio.

Garciaparra, who is of Mexican-American descent, was born in Whittier, California and attended St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower, California.

His middle name comes from his father, Ramon; Nomar is "Ramon" spelled backwards.

When Nomar was a young boy, his father stressed the importance of not striking out, offering him 25 cents for each hit in tee ball and fining him 50 cents for every strikeout.

When Nomar was 13, Ramon once put him in a batting cage against a college pitcher who could throw 90 mph. After missing the first pitch, Nomar proceeded to hit solid line drives on the next two pitches.

As a boy, Nomar was nicknamed "No Nonsense Nomar" for his methodical and tireless preparation as an athlete.

In 2001, he suffered a wrist injury, the first in a series of significant injuries that plagued the remainder of his career.

Known for his ability to hit for average, Garciaparra is a lifetime .313 hitter.

He was inducted into the CCBL Hall of Fame in 2002.