Pat Meares

[Brock Beauchamp]

Pat Meares seemed like a capable player in the post-1991 World Series era. He came up and performed admirably with the Twins for six seasons, and when he became too expensive, he signed with…the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Patrick James Meares was born September 6, 1968, in Salina, Kansas. He grew up in Salina and graduated from Salina Sacred Heart High School, which did not have a baseball team. However, Meares was a three-sport high school athlete who played football, basketball, and golf. 

Meares’ strong play in American Legion ball was enough to get the attention of coach Gene Stephenson at Wichita State University, so after graduation, he made the short 90-mile trek to attend college and play baseball at Wichita State. The Wichita State Shockers were an absolute powerhouse in NCAA baseball from 1980-2009. In those 30 years, they failed to make the postseason only three times. In 15 years, from 1982-1996, Wichita State went to the College World Series seven times. Meares played on College World Series teams in 1988 and 1989. In 1989, he batted .429 and hit a home run in the championship game won by Wichita State. Meares was selected to the all-tournament team. 1989 is the only championship won by the Shockers to date. Pat Meares was selected to the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame for his distinguished college and pro careers in 2012.

The Minnesota Twins drafted the shortstop in the 12th round of the 1990 Major League Amateur Draft. In four years in the minor leagues, Meares played at each of the four minor league levels, showing an ability to play shortstop and hit for a decent average. In 1993, he started the season with AAA Portland and hit .296/.345/.389 in only 18 games.

In the previous offseason, Greg Gagne had vacated the shortstop position, leaving after 1992 to sign a three-year contract for $10 million with the Kansas City Royals. The Twins had prioritized resigning Kirby Puckett after the 1992 season, and as we all know, spending money has never been a forte of the Twins, and the 1990s were no exception. Therefore, there was no room in the budget for Gagne. The Twins’ answer to replacing Gagne was awarded the opening-day shortstop assignment to Scott Leius. Unfortunately, the 1991 World Series hero tore his rotator cuff and was done after only ten games. Utility man Jeff Reboulet started at shortstop for the next two weeks. Meares finally debuted on May 5, 1993, with his first start coming on May 9. From that point forward, Meares essentially replaced Gagne for the remainder of the season and became the primary shortstop for the following five seasons. That’s no small feat. How many shortstops have played that long for the Twins? Off the top of my head, my guesses are Zoilo, Smalley, Gagne, Meares, Guzman, and hopefully Correa. During his time with the Twins, Meares batted .265/.301/.386. He had 41 home runs and 303 RBI.

In his tenure, the Twins were the victims of Yankees’ pitcher David Wells throwing the 15th perfect game in Major League history. The lineup that day was not particularly inspiring, with only three batters, including Meares, with an OPS over .700. It was a Sunday afternoon game, so Tom Kelly emptied the bench as he tended to do. Brent Gates batted second. Jon Shave batted seventh. Both had batting averages of sub-.150. But it was Meares who, unfortunately, was the final out with a fly to right. 

The Twins have always been frugal, but the mid to late 1990s seemed especially so. In line with their thinking at the time, and with the newly acquired Cristian Guzman (from the Chuck Knoblauch trade) waiting in the wings, although not necessarily ready, the Twins declined to resign Meares after the 1998 season. He signed a one-year $1.5 million contract just before spring training in 1999. Then, in April of 1999, the Pirates hastily offered a 4-year contract extension for $15 million, to which Meares agreed. That contract did not age well. Meares injured his left hand in 2000 and rarely played after that. Meares also had a grievance against the Pirates, which he later dropped. After a settlement, he retired without playing out the full term of the contract. A few Pirates blogs rate his contract as terrible and one of the worst in Pirates' history.

I wish I could remember or cite an interesting Pat Meares anecdote. I just thought he was a talented player on bad teams, but I don’t remember and can’t find any interesting stories about him. If I had a word to describe his personality – and this is my judgment from extremely far away – I would say stoic. He just seemed like a good player without a lot of flash who was there to play baseball. 

Worse things can be said about a ballplayer. 

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