Sandy Nava - Career

Career

Born as Vincent Irwin in San Francisco, California, Sandy made his Major League debut for the 1882 Providence Grays as a catcher. He was brought in to be fellow San Francisco native Charlie Sweeney's catcher. Nava's history in professional baseball showed two sides; when he was growing up in San Francisco, he apparently tried to hide his Mexican heritage and went by names like Irwin Sandy or Vincent Irwin, but when he came to the East Coast, he returned to his name of Nava and the Providence team tried to promote his "Spanish" heritage.

He played in 28 games his rookie season, and batted .206, while scoring 15 runs. He returned to the Grays for two more seasons, continuing to be the back-up catcher to Barney Gilligan, having his best year in 1883 when he batted .240 and scored 18 runs in 29 games. Even though he didn't hit well, he stayed on as Sweeney's personal catcher, until Sweeney was expelled from the team by refusing to leave a game in favor of Cyclone Miller. The team decided to leave Nava and Miller behind on a road trip and later loaned them to a military team in Fort Monroe, Virginia.

For the 1884 and 1885 seasons, Nava played for the Baltimore Orioles of the American Association, and played in just 10 games in those two years before leaving the Majors.

Read more about this topic:  Sandy Nava

Famous quotes containing the word career:

    Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty. Goodbye.
    Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964)

    “Never hug and kiss your children! Mother love may make your children’s infancy unhappy and prevent them from pursuing a career or getting married!” That’s total hogwash, of course. But it shows on extreme example of what state-of-the-art “scientific” parenting was supposed to be in early twentieth-century America. After all, that was the heyday of efficiency experts, time-and-motion studies, and the like.
    Lawrence Kutner (20th century)

    My ambition in life: to become successful enough to resume my career as a neurasthenic.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)