Gregory De Wayne "Boomer" Wells (born April 25, 1954) also known as "Boomer" is an American former professional baseball player. Wells played Major League Baseball for the Toronto Blue Jays in 1981 and for the Minnesota Twins in 1982. Wells also played Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) for the Hankyu Braves/Orix Braves/Orix BlueWave and Fukuoka Daiei Hawks between 1983 and 1992.
| Greg Wells Boomer | |
|---|---|
| First baseman | |
| Born: April 25, 1954 McIntosh, Alabama, U.S. | |
Batted: Right Threw: Right | |
| Professional debut | |
| MLB: August 10, 1981, for the Toronto Blue Jays | |
| NPB: April 9, 1983, for the Hankyu Braves | |
| Last appearance | |
| MLB: October 3, 1982, for the Minnesota Twins | |
| NPB: October 11, 1992, for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks | |
| MLB statistics | |
| Batting average | .228 |
| Home runs | 0 |
| Runs batted in | 8 |
| NPB statistics | |
| Batting average | .317 |
| Home runs | 277 |
| Runs batted in | 901 |
| Stats at Baseball Reference | |
| Teams | |
| Career highlights and awards | |
He played 47 career Major League games in two seasons, batting .228, with 28 hits in 127 at-bats.
In more than ten NPB seasons he compiled a .317 batting average and a .555 slugging percentage, with 277 home runs and 901 RBI. In 1984, while playing for the Hankyu Braves, Wells won the NPB Triple Crown, with a batting average of .355, 37 home runs, and 130 runs batted in, also winning the Most Valuable Player award in the process. He was the first non-Japanese winner of the Triple Crown.[1]
However, he requested a trade to the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in 1992 because when Orix rebranded the team as the BlueWave, he hated the new name, new colors, and the new stadium. He hated it so much that it had been said[by whom?] that Wells conspired with some clubbies to take the field in an Orix Braves jersey, however, no media of him doing that has yet to surface to prove he actually did it. When he was traded to the Hawks, he told the media in Kansai that he still loved Braves fans who followed him in Nishinomiya, and the fact that he requested the trade was the fault of Shozo Doi and Orix, as Doi had essentially alienated him, as unlike Ueda, he wouldn't care if he was a foreign star who won a Triple Crown or was an eight year veteran, and saw him as just a regular foreign player.[2]
References
edit- ^ Whiting, Robert (1989). You Gotta Have Wa. New York: Vintage Books. pp. 287–88. ISBN 0-679-72947-X.
- ^ The Orix-Kintetsu Merger - The Story of the 2004 NPB Realignment, retrieved February 3, 2022
External links
edit- Career statistics from Baseball Reference, or Fangraphs, or Baseball Reference (Minors), or Retrosheet
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