Todd Alan Pratt (born February 9, 1967 in Bellevue, Nebraska) is a former Major League Baseball catcher from 1992 to 2006. He has primarily served as a back-up catcher for most of his career.
Pratt was drafted during the 6th round of the 1985 amateur draft. In 1987, the Cleveland Indians drafted Pratt from the Red Sox in the Rule 5 draft, but he would eventually be returned to the Red Sox. After spending time in the Baltimore Orioles organization, Pratt made his big league debut in 1992, as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies. He played with Philadelphia through the 1994 season, before signing with the Chicago Cubs for 1995. Pratt was signed by the Seattle Mariners in January 1996 but spent the entire season away from organized baseball working at Bucky Dent's baseball school after the Mariners released him. He would sign with the New York Mets on December 23, 1996.
The biggest moment of Pratt's career came when he was with the Mets. In game 4 of the 1999 NLDS, he hit a tenth-inning walk-off home run off Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Matt Mantei, winning the Mets the series, 3 games to 1. In another memorable moment, during that year's NLCS, Pratt (who was supposed to be running the bases) was the first Met to embrace teammate Robin Ventura after Ventura hit a grand-slam to win Game 5 for New York. Since Ventura only touched first base, he was officially credited with a single, referred to jokingly as a "Grand Slam Single".
The Mets traded Pratt back to the Phillies in July 2001 for fellow catcher Gary Bennett. He stayed with the Phillies as Mike Lieberthal's back-up through the 2005 season. During this stint, Pratt hit the longest home run of his career, a 441-foot blast off Scott Olsen of the Florida Marlins during the 2005 season. The ball landed in the upper deck in left field at Citizens Bank Park.
Pratt signed as a free agent with the Braves in December, 2005. On January 12, 2007 he signed with the Yankees for a minor league deal, but was beat out for the club's backup catcher spot by Wil Nieves and retired.
Pratt was also a notable player of the online video game Ultima Online, and even appeared on the box of Ultima Online: Renaissance for marketing purposes.
Famous quotes containing the words todd and/or pratt:
“My evil genius Procrastination has whispered me to tarry ‘til a more convenient season.”
—Mary Todd Lincoln (1818–1882)
“So motionless, she seemed stone dead—just seemed:
She was too old for death, too old for life,
For as if jealous of all living forms
She had lain there before bivalves began
To catacomb their shells on western mountains.”
—Edwin John Pratt (1882–1964)