Thursday, September 9, 2010

On the Beat with Jamie Quirk

While on the field conducting interviews for my weekly online Global Traveler piece, I occasionally get to talk to my favorite players from my youth. Such was the case last year with Jose Cruz.
This time at Minute Maid Park, I really targeted Astros Coach Jamie Quirk. Quirk had an interesting 18 year major league career. Originally, he was an outfielder, but he started catching a bit several years into his career. At this point, he was converting into a solid utility player.
In 1984, Quirk joined the coaching staff of the St. Louis Cardinals, apparently ending his playing career. By the end of the season, he joined the White Sox as a player and then finished the season with the Cleveland Indians. He went on to play 8 more seasons, mostly as a backup catcher (and you all know how I love backup catchers).
Another bit of Quirky trivia (sorry) is that he is #2 on the all-time list of HR's by a player with a last name starting with 'Q' (having recently been passed by Mark Quinn). How odd is that, he isn't even the #1 Q in Royals history?
If all of that wasn't enough, I had to recoup my lost interview with Quirk in Wrigley Field earlier this year. Among the other problems that day, my videocam died right as I got Quirk. I told him I'd see him in Houston later and he became one of our main targets.
As always, it really is cool to talk to these men, whose images appeared on the baseball cards of my youth. I never would have imagined this.

3 comments:

Steve Gierman said...

Nice! I'm still on the lookout for an image or two of Quirk in a Sox uniform.

Johngy said...

Looking forward to that card. If I find a pic first, I'll send it over.

Steve Gierman said...

Thanks. With two of us looking, we're bound to run into one. :-)