J. T. Snow

J. T. Snow

Snow with the San Francisco Giants
First baseman
Born: (1968-02-26) February 26, 1968
Long Beach, California
Batted: Switch Threw: Left
MLB debut
September 20, 1992, for the New York Yankees
Last MLB appearance
September 27, 2008, for the San Francisco Giants
MLB statistics
Batting average .268
Home runs 189
Runs batted in 877
Teams
Career highlights and awards

Jack Thomas "J. T." Snow, Jr. (born February 26, 1968) is a former Major League Baseball player. He played all but two games in his career as a first baseman, and played nine of his 13½ seasons with the San Francisco Giants. He was known for his exceptional defense, even though he was a very poor defender according to most advanced defensive metrics.[1][2] After his retirement as a player, Snow worked in radio and television broadcasting. He is now a special assistant to the general manager for the Giants.[3]

Early life

Snow is the son of former NFL Los Angeles Rams Pro Bowl wide receiver Jack Snow and Merry Carole Shane, who died in 1998 from thyroid cancer. He has two sisters, Michelle and Stephanie.[4]

Los Alamitos High School

Snow attended Los Alamitos High School in Los Alamitos, California and played baseball and football and basketball with future teammate Robb Nen.

University of Arizona

After high school, Snow played three seasons at the University of Arizona, where his teammates included Scott Erickson, Trevor Hoffman and Kevin Long.[5]

Professional career

Snow was drafted by the New York Yankees in the fifth round of the 1989 baseball amateur draft.[6] He broke into the Majors with the Yankees at the end of the 1992 season.

California Angels (1993–96)

Traded to the California Angels that year as part of the Jim Abbott deal, Snow played for them from 1993 to 1996 where he won his first two of what would be six career Gold Gloves.

San Francisco Giants (1997–2005)

He was traded to the Giants after the 1996 season for left-handed pitcher Allen Watson and minor league pitcher Fausto Macey.[7]

While a switch-hitter earlier in his career, Snow batted exclusively left-handed after 1998. In 2000, he led the league in sacrifice flies with 14. After a two-year injury-riddled stretch from 2002 to 2003 where his batting average was .246, Snow rebounded in 2004 with a .327 average, hitting .387 after the All-Star break (which ranked second only to Ichiro Suzuki in the Major Leagues).

Three memorable moments with the Giants

In the 2002 World Series as Snow was scoring in Game 5 off a Kenny Lofton triple, he swooped up by the back of the jacket and carried off the batboy, 3-year-old Darren Baker. The young batboy and son of then Giants’ manager Dusty Baker was at home plate to collect Lofton's bat before the play was completed. This turned into a touching and memorable incident, but easily could have resulted in disaster with a small child wandering into the path of Snow and David Bell as they both barreled home to score. Following the incident with Darren Baker, Major League Baseball required batboys and girls to be at least 14 years of age.[8] A photograph of this incident now hangs in the Baseball Hall of Fame, in Cooperstown, New York.

In the 2000 National League Division Series against the New York Mets, with the Giants trailing 4–1 in the bottom of the ninth, Snow hit a three-run pinch-hit homer against Mets reliever Armando Benítez. However, the Giants failed to capitalize on their momentum, eventually falling in the 10th inning and going on to lose the series.

On June 26, 1999, Snow tagged out Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Carlos Pérez using the "hidden ball trick", the last successful execution of the play in the 20th century.[9]

Boston Red Sox (2006)

Snow's tenure with the Giants effectively ended when the team declined to offer him salary arbitration before the 2006 season. He signed a one-year, $2 million contract with the Boston Red Sox on January 6, 2006. After his father's death in 2006, Snow wore his father's number 84 in his honor.[10] He served primarily in a platoon with Kevin Youkilis at first base until he requested to be designated for assignment due to a lack of playing time. He was granted his designation June 19, and was officially released eight days later.

Retirement

At the end of the 2006 season, Snow retired from baseball and began working as a color commentator on Giants radio broadcasts alongside play-by-play announcer Dave Flemming. He also serves as an advisor to the Giants' general manager, Brian Sabean, and as a roving minor league instructor for the Giants.

When he returned for a visit to AT&T Park at the end of the 2006 season, Snow received a standing ovation when he was featured on the Jumbotron.

2008

On September 24, 2008, the Giants signed Snow to a one-day contract to allow him to retire as a Giant. However, rather than immediately retiring after signing the symbolic contract and receiving no actual pay as is usually done, Snow was penciled into the starting lineup and took the field on September 27 against the Dodgers, but was replaced before the first pitch. It was a move that allowed Snow to officially take the field as a Giants player one last time. Eugenio Vélez, Omar Vizquel, and Rich Aurilia threw balls in the dirt to mess with Snow during fielding practice prior to the first pitch, but Snow still made the plays. For his brief official appearance, he received the prorated league minimum salary of $2100.[11]

References

  1. ↑ "J. T. Snow Statistics and History". baseball-reference.com. Archived from the original on 2014-10-17. Retrieved 2014-10-17.
  2. ↑ "J.T. Snow - Statistics - Batting". fangraphs.com. Archived from the original on 2014-10-17. Retrieved 2014-10-17.
  3. ↑ "San Francisco Giants: Front Office". sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com. Archived from the original on 2014-10-17. Retrieved 2014-10-17.
  4. ↑ http://thesnowfoundation.org/our-story/the-snowmen/
  5. ↑ Shpigel, Ben (October 7, 2010). "As Yankees’ Most Valuable Repairman, Long Revives Struggling Hitters". The New York Times. p. B17. Archived from the original on March 1, 2011.
  6. ↑ http://thesnowfoundation.org/our-story/the-snowmen/
  7. ↑ http://articles.latimes.com/1996-11-28/sports/sp-4143_1_jack-snow
  8. ↑ "MLB sets minimum age of 14 for batboys". Sports Illustrated. January 16, 2003. Retrieved 2012-07-28.
  9. ↑ http://keene-equinox.com/2012/04/the-rare-sightings-of-the-infamous-hidden-ball-trick/
  10. ↑ http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/al/redsox/2006-03-07-jt-snow-no-84_x.htm
  11. ↑ http://www.mercurynews.com/sports/ci_10550760?nclick_check=1

External links

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