Doug Glanville

From Wiki Gonzalez

Doug Glanville (born 1970) was a major league outfielder for various teams. Though one of the worst hitters in baseball for many years, he managed to find plenty of playing time every year due to his speed, defense, and all-around good-natured personality.

Glanville is frequently described by Jayson Stark as a jokester, quipster, or wordsmith. Off the field, Glanville is one of the most intelligent and well-rounded players in baseball, if a bit of a geek. His hobbies include astronomy, travel, Everquest (which he has played with Curt Schilling), and Strat-O-Matic baseball.

Glanville broke into the big leagues in 1996 as an outfielder, and had two very acceptable seasons at the plate: 1997, when he hit .300/.333/.392 for the Cubs; and 1999, when he hit .325/.376/.457 for the Phillies. Since then, he has broken the Bowa Barrier and almost reached the Mendoza Line. Because he ate up so many outs over the past few years, he became a bête noire for Phillies fans.

In 2005, with no immediate prospects of joining a major league roster, Glanville signed a one-day minor league contract with the Phils, then retired, having collected exactly 1100 career hits. He stated he wanted to leave baseball wearing the uniform of the team that he grew up a fan of, and to which he gave most of his playing career.

Glanville is an Ivy League graduate (Penn '93, BA in Science and Systems Engineering) and by all accounts is more than prepared for a post-baseball career. In 2007, he joined The Baseball Factory as a special consultant, answering high school baseball players' questions on the college recruitment process.

In 2008, Glanville began writing periodic guest op-eds for the New York Times on baseball, as seen through the prism of his own experiences in the game. As you would expect, these columns were extremely well written and insightful, and threads were posted to Baseball Think Factory shortly after the pieces appeared in the Times.

Also see

• List of ballplayers

References

• Doug Glanville's BB-Ref page (http://www.baseball-reference.com/g/glanvdo01.shtml)
• Jayson Stark's first article (http://espn.go.com/mlb/columns/stark_jayson/1201283.html) on Glanville's Everquest habit and his ensuing rivalry with Schilling
• Strat-O-Matic World article (http://www.somworld.com/2003/sample7.htm) on Glanville's SOM habit
• IvyLeagueSports.com report (http://www.ivyleaguesports.com/article.asp?intID=4370) on Glanville's retirement
• Baseball Factory: Doug Glanville (http://www.baseballfactory.com/aboutus/askdoug.asp) - archive of Glanville's "Ask Doug" and NY Times columns