Michael Jay Andrews
(born July 9, 1943 in Los Angeles, California) is a retired American Major League Baseball (MLB) infielder who played for the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox and Oakland Athletics. He is currently the chairman of The Jimmy Fund, an event fundraising organization affiliated with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. [1] He is also the older brother of Rob Andrews, who played five seasons in MLB from 1975 until 1979. [2]
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Early life
Andrews grew up in
Torrance, California and attended the city's
South High School, starring in
baseball,
football and
basketball. After he accepted a full football
scholarship to the
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) that required a one-year enrollment at a
junior college to complete foreign language courses, he matriculated at
El Camino College, earning Junior College
All-American honors as a
wide receiver.
[3]
Baseball career
It was his baseball skills that got him noticed by the Boston Red Sox, who signed him as an amateur free agent with a $12,000
signing bonus on December 1, 1961.
He spent the next five years working his way up the Red Sox
farm system, the first four as a
shortstop. He excelled at the plate in his first three seasons, batting .299 with the Class D
Olean (NY) Red Sox of the
New York-Penn League in
1962, .298 combined between the
Waterloo Hawks and
Winston-Salem Red Sox in
1963 and .295 with the
Reading Red Sox in
1964. On the other hand, he struggled with his defense, committing 74, 36 and 42 errors respectively in those same campaigns.
[4] He spent his last two years in the
minors with the
Toronto Maple Leafs, back-to-back
Governors' Cup Champions
managed by
Dick Williams. After his
batting average fell to .246 in
1965, Andrews was shifted over to
second base and responded by hitting .267, with 14
homers and an
International League-leading 97
runs scored in
1966.
He was called up in September 1966 to a Boston team that would avoid the
American League cellar by only ½ game.
[5] Playing in five contests, all as a starter. he made his major league debut on September 18 against the
California Angels at
Fenway Park, going hitless in four
at bats with a run scored. He got his first
hit in the majors six days later at
Yankee Stadium, a
single off of
New York's
Fritz Peterson. Andrews picked up two more hits in the season finale versus the
Chicago White Sox at
Comiskey Park.
Even though he was reunited with the newly promoted Williams in
1967, Andrews started his
rookie season on the bench in favor of
Reggie Smith, who had been shifted from
center field. By late-April, Andrews became the regular second baseman for the majority of the campaign, with Smith, struggling defensively, returning to his original position.
1973 World Series
In the second game of the
1973 World Series between the
Oakland A's and the
New York Mets, Andrews committed two errors in the four-run twelfth
inning, leading to a Mets' victory. Eccentric Oakland team owner
Charlie Finley forced him to sign a false affidavit saying he was disabled, thus making him ineligible to play for the rest of the Series. Andrews' teammates, manager
Dick Williams and virtually the entire viewing public rallied to Andrews's defense. Finally,
commissioner Bowie Kuhn forced Finley to reinstate Andrews for Game 4. He entered Game 4 in the eighth inning as a pinch-hitter to a standing ovation from sympathetic Mets fans. He promptly grounded out, and Finley ordered him benched for the remainder of the Series. Andrews never played another Major League game, playing baseball in Japan in
1975 before retiring. Williams was so disgusted by the affair that he announced his
resignation after the A's won the Series.
The Jimmy Fund
Andrews' first contact with The Jimmy Fund was in his rookie season with the Red Sox in 1967 when Bill Koster, then the
charity's chairman, asked him if he could meet with a 12-year-old
cancer patient. He agreed to do so, spending ½ hour with the youth who was excited about being released from the
hospital. After the meeting, he talked about the boy's
optimism with Koster, who then informed him that the youngster was being released because his condition was terminal and the
doctors had no cure for the
disease.
In 1979, Andrews received an offer from
Ken Coleman, The Jimmy Fund's
executive director at the time, to become its assistant director. He accepted under the condition that the job be part-time because he was still working for the
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, which he had joined after his professional baseball career ended. He would eventually leave the
insurance business and serve full-time with the fund, becoming its chairman in 1984.
References
- Bollinger, Rhett. "Andrews devotes life to Jimmy Fund," MLB.com, Saturday, June 27, 2009.
- Mike Andrews (statistics & history) – Baseball-Reference.com.
- Wisnia, Saul. "Mike Andrews," Society for American Baseball Research (The Baseball Biography Project).
- Mike Andrews (minor league statistics & history) – Baseball-Reference.com.
- The 1966 Major League Baseball Season – Retrosheet.