Player profile: Erick Almonte

Forgot to mention the latest installment of This Week in Baseball Cards went up a couple of days ago. Don't know when I'll be posting again after this as the hurricane is supposed to land squarely on top of my house. (Those of you who have my address, go map it, then check out the hurricane's projected path.)

I have six cards of Erick Almonte. This one is from 2001 Bowman Heritage.

Playing career: Erick Almonte was the fill-in shortstop when Blue Jays catcher Ken Huckaby decided to sit on Derek Jeter’s shoulder on Opening Day 2003, knocking him out for a month. In exactly 100 at bats that year, Almonte hit .260 with 1 HR and 11 RBI. In the field, he made 12 errors in 31 games, for an Eduardo Nunez-like .906 fielding percentage. That was his last major league service until this year, when he resurfaced with the Milwaukee Brewers, going 3 for 29, including a home run, in sixteen games.

Interesting facts: Brother of former major leaguer Hector Almonte. In April became the first player ever to go on the seven-day disabled list for concussions.

Where he is now: Since coming off the disabled list he has been playing at AAA Nashville, where he is hitting .300 with 6 HR and 39 RBI. Earlier today he hit a double against Memphis.

My memories: I remember the Jeter injury more than Almonte’s filling in for him. The Yankees actually did just fine with Almonte in the lineup instead of Jeter, more of a testament to how deep those Yankee teams were than any complement to Almonte.

Google Autocomplete results: He is sixth when you type Erick, between Erick Sermon, a rapper, and Erick Aybar, the Angels shortstop. There do not appear to be any other prominent Erick Almontes.

Coming up next: The next profile will be Hector Almonte.