Larry Kent Sheets (born December 6, 1959) is an American 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), ...

(MLB)

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 ...

and

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 ...

who played for the

Baltimore Orioles The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. As one of the American League's eight charter ...

, Detroit Tigers, and

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 ...

from 1984 to 1990 and 1993. He also played one season in Japan for the

Yokohama Taiyo Whales The are a professional baseball team in the Japanese Central League. Their home field is Yokohama Stadium, located in central Yokohama. The team has been known by several names since becoming a professional team in 1950. It adopted its curren ...

in 1992. Sheets attended

Eastern Mennonite University Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) is a private Mennonite university in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The university also operates a satellite campus in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which primarily caters to working adults. EMU's bachelor-degree holde ...

, where he played basketball. He was named to the

Old Dominion Athletic Conference The Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) is an NCAA Division III athletic conference. Of its 15 member schools, all but one are located in Virginia; the other full member is in North Carolina. The conference also has an associate member in Nort ...

's all-conference second team in 1980 and to the first team in 1982. He graduated from Eastern Mennonite in 1984. He was named to Eastern Mennonite's athletic hall of fame in 1988. Sheets was selected as the first of the Orioles' four picks in the second round (29th overall) of the 1978 MLB draft, nineteen slots ahead of

Cal Ripken Jr. Calvin Edwin Ripken Jr. (born August 24, 1960), nicknamed " The Iron Man", is an American former baseball shortstop and third baseman who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Baltimore Orioles (1981–2001). One of his posit ...

His lack of enthusiasm and commitment to the sport while in the minors frustrated Orioles scouts and officials and was chronicled in an article written by

Alexander Wolff Alexander Wolff is a writer for ''Sports Illustrated'' and former owner of the Vermont Frost Heaves of the Premier Basketball League (PBL). He has written several books about basketball, among them ''Big Game, Small World'' (), a look at basketb ...

in the June 15, 1981 issue of ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...

''. In a 13–11 loss to the Texas Rangers at Memorial Stadium on August 6, 1986 which was the first-ever game in MLB history that featured three

grand slam Grand Slam most often refers to: * Grand Slam (tennis), one player or pair winning all four major annual tournaments, or the tournaments themselves Grand Slam or Grand slam may also refer to: Games and sports * Grand slam, winning category te ...

s, Sheets and Jim Dwyer each hit one in the fourth inning off

Bobby Witt Robert Andrew Witt Sr. (born May 11, 1964) is a former professional baseball pitcher, who played all or parts of 16 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Texas Rangers, Oakland Athletics, Florida Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay ...

and

Jeff Russell Jeffrey Lee Russell (born September 2, 1961) is a former Major League Baseball pitcher who played 14 years from 1983 to 1996. Russell played for the Cincinnati Reds of the National League and the Texas Rangers, Oakland A's, Boston Red Sox and ...

respectively.

Toby Harrah Colbert Dale (Toby) Harrah (born October 26, 1948) is an American former professional baseball player. He played as a shortstop and third baseman in Major League Baseball from to . Harrah played the majority of his career for the Texas Rangers f ...

had hit the first one of the contest off

Ken Dixon Kenneth John Dixon (born October 17, 1960), is a former professional baseball player who pitched in Major League Baseball from 1984 to 1987. He was drafted in 1980 by the Baltimore Orioles in the third round out of Amherst County High School. D ...

two innings earlier in the second. After six seasons in Baltimore, Sheets was dealt to the Tigers for Mike Brumley on January 10, 1990 in a transaction where the Orioles sacrificed a much-needed power hitter for a younger, less expensive player.Justice, Richard. "Orioles Trade Sheets for Brumley," ''The Washington Post'', Thursday, January 11, 1990.
Retrieved June 30, 2021 Sheets had career highs in batting average (.316), home runs (31) and RBIs (94) in 1987. Sheets used to operate a youth sports facility in

Westminster, Maryland Westminster is a city in northern Maryland, United States. It is the seat of Carroll County. The city's population was 18,590 at the 2010 census. Westminster is an outlying community within the Baltimore-Towson, MD MSA, which is part of a great ...

, and serves as

Gilman School Gilman School is an all-boys independent school located in the Roland Park neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. There are three school divisions: Lower School, grades pre-kindergarten through five; Middle School, grades six through eight; and Up ...

's head Varsity Baseball coach. He has a son named

Gavin Gavin is a male given name originating from Scotland. It is a variation on the medieval name Gawain, meaning "God send" or "white hawk" (or falcon). Sir Gawain was a knight of King Arthur's Round Table. '' Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'' is an e ...

who plays for the

Chicago White Sox The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and ...

(MLB)

References

External links

1959 births Living people Major League Baseball left fielders Major League Baseball right fielders Baseball players from Virginia Baltimore Orioles players Detroit Tigers players Seattle Mariners players Hagerstown Suns players American expatriate baseball players in Japan Yokohama Taiyō Whales players People from Staunton, Virginia College men's basketball players in the United States Bluefield Orioles players Charlotte O's players New Orleans Zephyrs players Rochester Red Wings players {{Baseball-left-fielder-stub