Larry Eugene Hisle (; born May 5, 1947) 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 ...

player and

hitting coach In baseball, a number of coaches assist in the smooth functioning of a team. They are assistants to the manager, who determines the starting lineup and batting order, decides how to substitute players during the game, and makes strategy decisio ...

. He 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) ...

(MLB) as an

outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to c ...

for the

Philadelphia Phillies The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. Since 2004, the team's home stadium has been Citize ...

(1968–71),

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 ...

(1973–77), and

Milwaukee Brewers The Milwaukee Brewers are an American professional baseball team based in Milwaukee. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. The Brewers are named for the city's association wi ...

(1978–82). A two-time All-Star, he was the American League (AL) RBI champion. As a coach, Hisle was a member of two World Series-winning teams for the

Toronto Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games ...

Playing career

Hisle was drafted by the Phillies in the second round of the

1965 MLB draft Events January–February * January 14 – The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland meet for the first time in 43 years. * January 20 ** Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in for a full term ...

as the 38th overall pick. He signed in August and made his professional debut with the Class A

Huron Phillies The Huron Phillies was a primary name of a minor league baseball teams based Huron, South Dakota between 1920 and 1970. Huron teams last played in the Northern League from 1965 to 1970. Previous Huron minor league teams played as members of the D ...

in 1966. Hisle made his MLB debut on April 10, 1968 and played in seven games before being sent back down to the minors. Hisle played his first full season in 1969, when he batted .266 with 20 home runs and finished fourth in NL Rookie of the Year voting. His average plummeted to .204 over the next two seasons and he was subsequently traded to the

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brookly ...

on October 21, 1971. Five days later, the Dodgers traded him to the St. Louis Cardinals. He spent all of the 1972 with the Triple-A

Albuquerque Dukes The Albuquerque Dukes were a minor league baseball team based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. History The first Dukes team was formed in 1915 as part of the Class D Rio Grande Association. The team finished in third place with a 32-25 record. Fran ...

, where he batted .325 with 23 home runs, 91 runs batted in and 20 stolen bases over 131 games. He was traded along with John Cumberland by the Cardinals to the Twins for

Wayne Granger Wayne Allan Granger (born March 15, 1944) is a former Major League Baseball right-handed relief pitcher who played for the St. Louis Cardinals (1968, 1973), Cincinnati Reds (1969–1971), Minnesota Twins (1972), New York Yankees (1973), Chicago W ...

on November 29, 1972. In a

spring training Spring training is the preseason in Major League Baseball (MLB), a series of practices and exhibition games preceding the start of the regular season. Spring training allows new players to try out for roster and position spots, and gives estab ...

game for the Minnesota Twins on March 6, 1973, Hisle was MLB's first

designated hitter The designated hitter (DH) is a baseball player who bats in place of another position player, most commonly the pitcher. The position is authorized by Major League Baseball Rule 5.11. It was adopted by the American League in 1973 and later by th ...

; in five at bats, he hit two home runs (one of them a grand slam) and had seven RBIs. A month later,

Ron Blomberg Ronald Mark Blomberg (born August 23, 1948), nicknamed "Boomer", is an American former professional baseball player and minor league manager. He played in Major League Baseball as a designated hitter, first baseman, and right fielder. He playe ...

of 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 o ...

would become the first DH in a regular-season game. That year, Hisle hit .272 with 15 home runs. He remained a reliable member of the Twins' lineup throughout the mid-1970s, and hit for the cycle on June 4, 1976. Hisle's best season with the Twins came in 1977, when he hit .302 with 28 home runs and an AL-leading 119 RBIs, as well as being named to his first

All-Star Game An all-star game is an exhibition game that purports to showcase the best players (the "stars") of a sports league. The exhibition is between two teams organized solely for the event, usually representing the league's teams based on region or d ...

. After the 1977 season, Hisle became a free agent and signed with the

. In 1978, Hisle turned in another productive year as he hit .290 and finished third in AL MVP voting. His 34 home runs, 115 RBIs and 96 runs scored placed second, third, and fifth in the American League respectively. A torn

rotator cuff The rotator cuff is a group of muscles and their tendons that act to stabilize the human shoulder and allow for its extensive range of motion. Of the seven scapulohumeral muscles, four make up the rotator cuff. The four muscles are the supraspi ...

suffered in 1979 limited Hisle's playing time for the remainder of his career, as he played in only 79 games over his final four seasons before retiring in 1982.

Post-playing career

Hisle was the hitting coach for the Toronto Blue Jays from 1992 through 1995, helping them to

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 World Series, 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The ...

titles in

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment building in Amsterdam after two of its engines ...

and

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

. Under his coaching in 1993, Toronto players

John Olerud John Garrett Olerud, Jr. (; born August 5, 1968), nicknamed "Johnny O", is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman from through , most notably as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays te ...

, former Brewer teammate

Paul Molitor Paul Leo Molitor (born August 22, 1956), nicknamed "Molly" and "the Ignitor", is an American former Major League Baseball (MLB) player and former manager of the Minnesota Twins, who is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. During his 21-year baseball car ...

, and

Roberto Alomar Roberto "Robbie" Alomar Velázquez (; ; born February 5, 1968) is a Puerto Rican former Major League Baseball player for the San Diego Padres, Toronto Blue Jays, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, New York Mets, Chicago White Sox, and Arizon ...

finished 1-2-3 in the

American League The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league ...

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average i ...

. As of 2019, Hisle is employed with the Milwaukee Brewers as Manager of Youth Outreach, and is the president of Major League Mentoring in Milwaukee.

References

External links

Larry Hisle
at SABR (Baseball BioProject) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hisle, Larry 1947 births Living people Baseball players from Ohio American expatriate baseball people in Canada American League All-Stars African-American baseball players African-American baseball coaches Milwaukee Brewers players Minnesota Twins players Philadelphia Phillies players Huron Phillies players Tidewater Tides players Florida Instructional League Phillies players Eugene Emeralds players San Diego Padres (minor league) players Albuquerque Dukes players American League RBI champions Major League Baseball outfielders Major League Baseball left fielders Major League Baseball center fielders Major League Baseball right fielders Major League Baseball coaches People from Portsmouth, Ohio 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American sportspeople

Playing career

Post-playing career

See also

References

Further reading

External links