Thursday, August 27, 2009

Pre-Fame...Pre-Johngy

Erik Pappas was a year behind me at Mt. Carmel High School in Chicago. Pappas was a very good athlete and I wasn't, but our paths crossed a few times during intramural sporting events.
Pappas was selected as a catcher by the California Angels in the 1984 amateur draft, but made his major league debut with his hometown Chicago Cubs in 1991. Pappas only played in 7 games for the Cubs who released him after the season. He signed with the Kansas City Royals, who later traded him to the Chicago White Sox.After spending the 1992 season in the minors, he signed with the St. Louis Cardinals and made it back to the majors in 1993, playing in 82 games and hitting .276 for the Cardinals. Pappas slumped in 1994, batting only .091 in 58 plate appearances. In 1995, Pappas played in AAA for the Florida Marlins. In 1996, he played in AAA for the Texas Rangers. Pappas retired with a career average of .242 with 1 HR and 35 RBI's.
In 2004, he represented Greece at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
Currently Pappas is a coach at Cangelosi Baseball.
Erik Pappas from the Mt. Carmel yearbook.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Surfing for info on Erik today and came across this. I was a big fan of his during that terrific year he had for the Cardinals in '93. I bought my only Cardinals jersey that same year. An authentic one that I had lettered and numbered authentically with Erik's name and number. I still have it to this day...LOVE him.

Johngy said...

Pretty cool. After that year, we all thought he might have a decent career as a utility guy. Somehow it didn't work out.
Thanks for stopping by.