Playing career: Kurt Bevacqua spent fifteen years as a backup infielder and pinch hitter for six different clubs. A .236 hitter with 20 lifetime home runs; he hit .412 with 2 home runs in his only World Series, with the 1984 Padres. His Game 2 home run won what is still the only World Series game victory in Padres history. A fuller account of his career can be found at the 1974 Topps blog.
nteresting facts: Bevacqua was one of baseball’s most unusual personalities in the 1970s and 1980s. Baseball card fans remember his bubble-gum-blowing contest win, but he did a lot of unusual stunts and pranks during his career. You can read about them in this Sports Illustrated profile from 1985, where the writer details many of Bevacqua’s antics as well as clearly harbors a secret crush on Bevacqua’s then-wife, a former Playboy bunny.
here he is now: He owns a company in the San Diego area called Major League Systems that does car audio/video and security installations. He holds four patents in the area of security and monitoring services.
My memories: He is from before my time. Only know him from his card and his reputation as one of baseball’s biggest flakes. When I was a kid in the 1980’s you would always hear about wacky baseball personalities and they were called flakes. You don’t really hear that term anymore, and there seem to be less really flaky players out there these days.
Google Autocomplete results: He is third when you type Kurt Be, between Kurt Benz, a marketing host in Las Vegas, and Kurt Beers, a painter in London. There do not appear to be any other prominent Kurt Bevacquas.
Coming up next: The next profile will be Jason Beverlin.
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