Bill Haselman

William Joseph Haselman (born May 25, 1966, in Long Branch, New Jersey) is a former Major League Baseball catcher. He played from 1990-2003 with the Texas Rangers, Seattle Mariners, Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers. He also served as the bullpen coach and first base coach for the Boston Red Sox.

During his 13-year playing career, Haselman hit .259 with 47 HR and 210 RBI. His best season came in 1996, when he hit .274 with 8 HR and 34 RBI in a career-high 237 AB for the Red Sox. He hit .314 with 6 HR in 105 AB for Texas in 1998. The former catcher was a first-round draft pick of the Rangers in 1987.

Career

High School

He is an alumnus of Saratoga High School in Saratoga, California.

UCLA

Haselman played both baseball and American football at UCLA. He was the backup quarterback, behind Troy Aikman.

Texas Rangers

He was drafted in the 1st round of the 1987 MLB Draft by the Texas Rangers. He began his professional career that year for the Gastonia Rangers of the South Atlantic League. In 1988, he was promoted to the Port Charlotte Rangers of the High-A Florida State League, where he hit .245 in 122 games.

Haselman spent 1989 and 1990 with the AA Tulsa Drillers of the Texas League. He was a September call-up with the Rangers in 1990 and made his Major League debut as a pinch hitter on September 3, 1990, against the Cleveland Indians. He recorded his first hit, also as a pinch hitter, off Joe Klink of the Oakland Athletics on September 27. In 14 games, he had two hits in 13 at-bats.

He returned to the minors and spent 1991 and the first part of 1992 with the Oklahoma City 89ers of the AAA American Association.

Seattle Mariners

On May 29, 1992, he was selected off waivers by the Seattle Mariners, who assigned him to the Calgary Cannons of the Pacific Coast League, where he hit .255 in 88 games with 19 homers and 53 RBI. He also got into 8 games for the Mariners in September and had five hits in 19 at-bats.

He spent most of 1993 as the Mariners back-up catcher and hit his first home run on May 8 off of Jim Deshaies of the Minnesota Twins. On June 6, 1993, Haselman was hit by a pitch thrown by Baltimore Orioles pitcher Mike Mussina, leading to him charging the mound and igniting a bench-clearing brawl. In parts of three seasons with Seattle, he appeared in 104 games and hit .234 with 6 homers and 24 RBI.

Boston Red Sox

He signed as a free agent with the Boston Red Sox on November 7, 1994 and played with the Red Sox through the 1997 season as a backup catcher.

Haselman's most dramatic offensive performance came in a game at Fenway Park against the Toronto Blue Jays on June 27, 1995. With the bases empty and the score tied 5-5, he pinch hit for catcher Mike Macfarlane in the bottom of the 11th inning. Haselman shattered his bat, sending a Woody Williams' offering sailing over the Green Monster to give the Boston Red Sox their first walk-off win of their 1995 Eastern Division winning campaign.

In September of 1996, Haselman was the starting catcher when Roger Clemens recorded 20 strike outs in 9 innings against the Detroit Tigers.

Texas Rangers/Detroit Tigers

The Red Sox traded him (along with Mark Brandenburg and Aaron Sele) to the Texas Rangers for Damon Buford and Jim Leyritz. In 40 games, he hit .314.

He then signed as a free agent with the Detroit Tigers on December 14, 1998. In 48 games for the Tigers, he hit .273 in 48 games.

The Tigers traded him back to the Rangers on November 2, 1999 (along with Frank Catalanotto, Francisco Cordero, Gabe Kapler, Justin Thompson and a minor leaguer) in exchange for Juan González, Danny Patterson and Gregg Zaun. He remained with Texas through 2002. Overall, in parts of five seasons with the Rangers he played in 225 games and hit .273.

He rejoined the Tigers again on a free agent contract on January 20, 2003 but was released on March 27, before the season started.

Boston Red Sox/Baltimore Orioles

He was signed as a free agent by the Red Sox on April 11, 2003 and was hitless in three at-bats in 4 games for them that season. He also played in 79 games with the AAA Pawtucket Red Sox. He signed as a minor league free agent with the Baltimore Orioles on December 3, 2003, but retired before playing in any games.

Coaching

Haselman served as the Red Sox' interim first-base coach in 2004, bullpen coach in 2005 and full-time first-base coach in 2006. Boston then offered him a position managing in the minor leagues, and while he said he was tempted, he did not want to spend that much time away from his family.

Haselman then went into private business and worked as a post game host during Seattle Mariners' games. In 2010, he returned to baseball as manager of the Class A Bakersfield Blaze, California League affiliate of the Rangers.^[1]

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim named him as the manager of the club's Class A Inland Empire 66ers on Jan. 9, 2012.^[2] He led the 66ers to the 2013 California League championship, then joined the Los Angeles Dodgers organization as 2014 manager of the Great Lakes Loons of the Midwest League. He was promoted in 2015 to the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes of the California League and in 2016 he became the manager of the Oklahoma City Dodgers in the AAA Pacific Coast League.^[3]

References

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors), or Retrosheet, or Pelota Binaria (Venezuelan Winter League)