KEVIN SEITZER!

So, you're probably wondering who the heck this Kevin Seitzer person is anyway. I mean, what does he have to do with anything!? And the answer is, nothing really, except that he's my current favorite guy? That's better. Now I've never met Kevin or anything, although I did try VERY HARD to get his autograph (in person) at the end of the 1997 season, and I was around where he lives (like within 30 miles!) around the beginning of March. You know that things are bad (like, that you're totally obsessed) when you get autographs from very cool dudes like Charles Nagy, David Justice, Jose Mesa, and Omar Vizquel on a Kevin Seitzer ball and yet you just can't seem to get the autograph of the man whose ball you're carrying around and you're totally dissatisfied! But I do have Kevin's autograph on a baseball card, which he sent to me after I wrote him a fan letter, and I'm hoping that someday I'll actually get to meet him! That would be the greatest...like the highlight of my life. Although I must say that getting to touch the hands of Dave Justice and Charles Nagy was pretty darn awesome.

So here's some biographical information about Kevin. His birthday was March 26, 1962 which is pretty cool 'cause it's sort of a palindrome (3/26/62). Kevin earned a degree (imagine that!) from Eastern Illinois University in Industrial Electronics (he claims that he was too dumb to be an engineer) back in like 1983 or something. He was an eleventh-round draft pick of the Kansas City Royals, also in 1983...that's not so hot. But at least no one can say "Kevin was the lowest draft pick to ever make the majors" - I actually saw that posted on the scoreboard for one of the Minnesota Twins, which I thought was pretty mean. ANYWAY Kevin made his debut at the end of the 1986 season. He came in second in Rookie-of-the-Year balloting to some dude named Mark McGwire (who could he be?) in 1987. He started playing for the Milwaukee Brewers in 1992, played briefly for the Oakland Athletics in 1993, and then headed back for Milwaukee. Then he got traded to the Indians last year for Jeromy Burnitz, and presto! - that's where he is today! This is his last year in the big leagues as he wants to go and do something silly like spend time with his family. Imagine that. Seriously that is way cool and just another on the long list of things that is cool about Kevin. What else can I tell you about him. Well, he's a born-again Christian. He was an alcoholic way back at the end of the 80's and sort of decided he needed to get a grip on life and so he turned to Jesus and the rest is history! Almost anytime he gets interviewed he'll talk about his faith and how it's helped him out and stuff. What else. He has a wife, Lisa, and two sons, Brandon and Cameron. Those are some funky names there. His family lives somewhere outside Kansas City - I think it's Leawood, but I'm not positive. He has a brother, Brad, who's trying to get in the majors and was (last time I checked) playing for the Memphis Chicks. Why would you name a team the "Chicks"? That's just crazy.

So Kevin had a rough year this year...he was sort of relegated to a bench role so he didn't get to play much. Then when he would've gotten a chance to play (the Indians had like 5 doubleheaders in two weeks) he had appendicitis and had to be rushed to Christ Hospital in Chicago. So he sat out - only for 10 days! - and then rejoined the team! But just when I thought I'd get to seem him play in person he sprained his ankle stepping on a ball in batting practice! I couldn't believe it! He only got to hit once in the World Series, grounding out to third. But he did start a game against the Yankees in the Division Series. One last thing is that when Kevin hits at the Jake they usually play the song C'MON & RIDE IT (THE TRAIN) by the Quad City DJs. I am so crazy about Kevin I bought JOCK JAMS vol. 3 just to get my hands on this song.

Okay, so here's picture #1. Thanks to CNN/SI for this picture. Doesn't Kevin look thrilled to be taking this picture? I guess if I were him I wouldn't be too thrilled either. I mean, it seems like there are about a hundred pictures of him sitting around in an Indians' uniform.

Kevin really looks dazed now - he's the dude falling into the dugout, with the Brewers' uniform on. No idea who the catcher is there - it can't be Pudge Rodriguez, can it? Actually this doesn't look like him at all, but MLB claims it's him on their page! This was from either last year or the year before, when he was with the Brewers, and playing third base (I think).

Here's a picture of Kevin's face up close and personal from the back of his 1997 Pinnacle card. The front of his Pinnacle card can be found below. Not the greatest picture in the world, I'm afraid. He looks really intense though...sort of as if he's looking at this page and trying to figure out where the hell I got all these pictures from! Notice the face mask thing on the side of his batting helmet. In 1995 Kevin got bonked in the head with a pitch and ended up with a concussion. A little while before that he got hit in the face by a pitch that caused multiple fractures...but he only missed one game because of that injury! The face mask appears to have shrunken recently, but that could just be me. Or maybe it's a new helmet.

Okay, so these aren't the best pictures in the world, at least as far as flattery goes. The better ones are farther down the page, if you have the patience and if your browser can handle them! So anyway, here's Kevin booting a ground ball sometime at the end of '96. I think he was playing first base at the time. I think but I'm not sure that he wears a black glove when he's at third and a brown glove when he's at first. Just a theory though.

It just gets worse, doesn't it? Here Kevin looks like he's going to snap his bat in half after a nasty strikeout. Actually Kevin is the ONLY player on the Indians with more career walks than strikeouts (besides Brian Giles, who hasn't been around anywhere near as long as Kevin). That's a really good thing in case you're unfamiliar with baseball.

Okay, so here's an improvement. Kevin looks like he's squinting into the camera. Again this is from his time with the Brewers.

So here's Kevin on base. This picture used to be the same one that's on the index page, but I changed it. I mean, if I'm going to be image-intensive here, I might as well overload your browser with different pictures. This is from GAME FACE magazine, the official magazine of the Cleveland Indians. There's a really cool article on Kevin in the August issue.

So here's Kevin from ESPNET. They used to have a smaller version of the Milwaukee picture, but now they seem to have updated it so he looks like he's an Indian. Good for them.

Here's Kevin's 1997 Pinnacle card. Pretty cool gold trim on the bottom. I don't know what else to say about it, except that if you're bored compare this picture to the one on the Score card below - do you think both pictures were taken the same day?

And Here's Kevin's 1997 Score card. I like the picture on here better than the one on the Pinnacle card. Kevin doesn't look quite as...haggard or something. No offense, Kevin!

So here's Kevin from the Indians' web site. I don't know what else to say about this picture. At first I didn't think that it looked much like him but the more I look at it the more I think it does. Does that make any sense? Do you CARE?!

Here's a picture of Kevin swinging the bat, which is really what he does best. This picture looks sort of weird to me because he doesn't seem to have any legs, or should I say he doesn't have complete legs. WHATEVER!

So here's a picture of Kevin (with a bat) that I bought from the Indians' team shop. Must I mention once again that this photo is copyrighted by MLB? I guess so so I don't get sued. Not that I have any money to fork over ANYWAY since I'm stuck in college!

Here's Kevin from the 1997 yearbook, sort of swinging his bat. He has this ritual where he goes up to the plate and spins his bat over his head sort of like a hammer-thrower in the Olympics. Don't ask me why.

Here's Kevin from the Indians' 1997 yearbook again (but bigger). He's swinging the bat again, which is good, because that's what he rules at. But he's also a really good fielder too. He had a really high fielding percentage (that means not many errors like the picture near the top) until his knees sort of started to fizzle out on him.

Speaking of fielding, here's Kevin in the field. Notice the black glove, which means that he's over at third base. He has cool shades, which I'm not sure you can see since there's a huge shadow over his face.

And here's another thing that Kevin does a lot of - congratulating people. He's usually at the front of the line waiting to high- five whoever comes in after doing something cool. Here Kevin's got those cool shades on again and is patting Marquis Grissom on the back. GO KEVIN!

Okay, so this picture here is from Photo File and was copyrighted by Major League Baseball. It's actually part of a bigger picture of 16 of the Indians...or should I say 15 since Julio Franco is now a BREWER. So I guess we traded Julio for Kevin in a really twisted sort of way.

And here's the highlight of my summer - a card autographed by Kevin! It's got a really motivational message on the back but I'm not going to copy that here. If you want to know what it says WRITE TO HIM YOURSELF!!!! Then you can have your own signed picture of Kevin! No, really, it talks about how he became a Christian and how it's really helped him out in life.

Now it's time to play "Where's Waldo?" except I'll call it "Where's Kevin?" See if you can find Kevin in this picture. It's not really that hard but I don't know how this is going to quite look on the page. Let's just say that Kevin looks more like himself in this picture than a lot of other people do (like Matt Williams and Mike Jackson). That is, more like himself and themselves rather than them looking like him, which they don't. I'm really bored so humor me. By the way, this photo is copyrighted by Mort Tucker Photography.

So there's all I have on Kevin for now. Actually that's probably all I'll have unless I meet him because his career is over!

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