Francisco Rodriguez (born December 11, 1972) is an American former professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

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 in

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), ...

Amateur career

Rodriguez won the

Dick Howser Trophy The Dick Howser Trophy is bestowed annually to the national college baseball player of the year. The award is named after former collegiate and Major League Baseball (MLB) player and manager Dick Howser, who died of brain cancer in 1987 at the a ...

in 1991. At the time of the award, Rodriguez was playing for Howard Junior College in Big Spring, Texas. As the equivalent of the Heisman Trophy for college football, The Dick Howser Trophy is the annual national award for the outstanding collegiate baseball player. Since 1991, no other junior college baseball player has won the award. Rodriguez was an outstanding shortstop and pitcher for the Howard College Hawks and he led his team to the 1991 National Junior College World Series Championship held annually in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Professional career

Rodriguez was drafted as a shortstop by the

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...

in the second round of the 1990 amateur draft. An agreement was reached a few weeks into the 1991 season, after which he was assigned to the

Class A-Short Season Class A Short Season (officially Short-Season A) was a level of play in Minor League Baseball in the United States from 1965 through 2020. In the hierarchy of minor league classifications, it was below Triple-A, Double-A, Class A-Advanced (cre ...

Elmira Pioneers. When his new teammates greeted him at the

Elmira-Corning Regional Airport Elmira Corning Regional Airport is in Chemung County, New York, seven miles northwest of Elmira and eight miles east of Corning. It is in the town of Big Flats but its mailing address is Horseheads, New York. The airport was formerly Elmira R ...

, the

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

native was wearing clothes that bore the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...

logo. After Rodriguez advanced to Class A Lynchburg Red Sox, the Red Sox realized he had greater value as a pitcher, a position he quickly began playing. He made his major league debut for the Red Sox in 1995. Soon after, he was traded to the Minnesota Twins for closer

Rick Aguilera Richard Warren Aguilera (born December 31, 1961) is an American former professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as a right-handed pitcher from 1985 to 2000. Aguilera won a world championship as a member of the ...

. He did not pitch well for the Twins, posting a 25–32 record with the team in over three years of service. The

Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion team ...

claimed him off of waivers in May 1999. He played for the Mariners through the end of the 2000 season. He played for the Cincinnati Reds in 2001 and has not pitched in the majors since. He has a career record of 29–39 and an ERA of 5.53. In 2008, he returned to pro baseball playing for the Newark Bears of the Atlantic League where he pitched a 2–1 record, with a 7.79 ERA.

Coaching career

, Rodriguez is an assistant coach for the baseball team at

SUNY Maritime College State University of New York Maritime College (SUNY Maritime College) is a public maritime college in the Bronx, New York City. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. Founded in 1874, the SUNY Maritime College was the fir ...

in the Bronx, New York.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodriguez, Frank Major League Baseball pitchers Boston Red Sox players Minnesota Twins players Seattle Mariners players Cincinnati Reds players Tacoma Rainiers players 1972 births Living people Baseball players from New York (state) Newark Bears players Eastern District High School alumni Sportspeople from Brooklyn Baseball players from New York City American expatriate baseball players in Australia Maritime Privateers baseball coaches Brisbane Bandits players Lynchburg Red Sox players New Britain Red Sox players Pawtucket Red Sox players Salt Lake Buzz players Louisville RiverBats players Elmira Pioneers players Gulf Coast Red Sox players Howard Hawks baseball players