Charles Leonard Walters (born February 21, 1947) is a former

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

who played for the

Minnesota Twins The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central Division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area w ...

in 1969 and is currently a sports columnist and reporter for the

Saint Paul Pioneer Press The ''St. Paul Pioneer Press'' is a newspaper based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. It serves the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area. Circulation is heaviest in the east metro, including Ramsey, Dakota, and Washington counties, ...

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

Professional baseball

Walters had graduated from

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

in 1965 and was playing Legion ball when his high school's assistant principal called to notify him that the

were having an open tryout. Walters doubted that he would get a second look, but went to the tryout anyway. The Twins' chief scout, Angelo Giuliani, liked Walters' arm and team executive Joe Haynes offered Walters $400 per month and a $500 signing bonus to play minor league baseball. It took Walters four years to rise to the major leagues. In 1969 Twins manager

Billy Martin Alfred Manuel Martin Jr. (May 16, 1928 – December 25, 1989), commonly called "Billy", was an American Major League Baseball second baseman and manager who, in addition to leading other teams, was five times the manager of the New York Yan ...

elected to keep Walters on the team, and star player

Bob Allison William Robert Allison (July 11, 1934 – April 9, 1995) was an American professional baseball outfielder who played for the Washington Senators / Minnesota Twins of Major League Baseball from to . Allison attended the University of Kansas for ...

gave Walters the nickname "Big Shooter," which was later shortened to "Shooter." Walters pitched in six games in the major leagues, finishing with 6.2 innings pitched and a 5.40

ERA An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth. Comp ...

, 1 game finished, 6 hits, 4 runs, 4 earned runs, 1 home run, 3 base on balls, 2 strike outs and 1 hit batter. Defensively he had 1 assist.

References

External links

Walters columns at the Pioneer-Press website
1947 births Living people Major League Baseball pitchers Baseball players from Minnesota Minnesota Twins players American columnists Sportspeople from Minneapolis Minnesota Golden Gophers baseball players {{US-baseball-pitcher-1940s-stub