Jack Rowe (1856)
Jimmy Austin (1879)
Sam Zoldak (1918)
Jim Pagliaroni (1937)
Brant Alyea (1940)
Ed Brinkman (1941)
Alan Foster (1946)
Tim Foli (1950)
Mike Mussina (1968)
Vernon Wells (1978)
Outfielder Garrabrant Ryerson Alyea had the best season of his career with the Minnesota Twins. Born in Passaic, New Jersey, he attended Rutherford High School in Rutherford, New Jersey. He then went to Hofstra, and was signed by Cincinnati as a free agent in 1962. He had a tremendous year for Class D Geneva, hitting .319 with 32 home runs. After the 1962 season, Alyea was drafted by Washington in the first-year draft. He jumped to Class A in 1963, and advanced a level per season after that. He reached AAA in 1965, hitting 27 homers for Hawaii, earning a September callup. In 1966, however, he fell to .218 with 21 homers for Hawaii, and the next year, 1967, he found himself back in AA. Alyea rebounded in 1968, hitting .253 with 31 home runs for AAA Buffalo, and was back in the big-leagues by late July, this time to stay a while. He had a mediocre season in 1969 as a part-time outfielder for the Senators, and was traded to Minnesota in March of 1970 for Joe Grzenda and Charlie Walters. He went on to have his best season in 1970, setting career highs in batting average (.291), home runs (16), doubles (12), and RBIs (61), and at-bats (258). The next year, however, he fell on his face, hitting only .177 with two homers. Left unprotected, he was chosen by Oakland in that winter's rule 5 draft. He did little for Oakland, was traded to St. Louis in May, did little there, and was returned to the Athletics in July. He was traded to Texas in the off-season, didn't make the team, went to AAA Pawtucket in the Boston organization, and then retired. After baseball, Alyea went into bartending, the insurance business, and then went to work for a casino in Atlantic City. There is a Brant Alyea who is currently the sales manager of a Toyota Scion dealership in Goldsboro, North Carolina; while there is no way to know this is the same one, the name is unusual enough to make it seem at least possible.
I stumbled across a couple of old articles about Brant Alyea and his family that you might find interesting. This article, written in 1986 by Peter Gammons, is about Alyea and his relationship with his son, who played in the minor leagues. Link.
And this is a sad story from 1998 about Brant Alyea's brother Bobby.
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I remember Brant Alyea with the Twins (AL-yay if I remember right), but I didn't realize his '70 season was that good.
HPR (2005)
I thought I got him an indoor/outdoor foam baseball set with tee for his birthday, but after assessing the presents last night and available wrapping paper, we decided that it's a Christmas present instead. I'm looking forward to watching him his the ball out of the air... he's done it with slightly bigger balls but much smaller "bats" (wrapping paper cores) so I think he should be able to do it.
Happy birthday, H!
Happy birthday, H, from the Walt fam.
He was traded for Shooter!