Friday, July 22, 2016

Player Profile: Chris Brown

I have 29 cards of Chris Brown. This one is from 1985 Fleer Update.

Playing career: Chris Brown was a highly touted rookie in 1985 as the third baseman hit .271 with 16 HR and 61 RBI for the Giants. He followed that up with a solid 1986 (.317, 7 HR, 49 RBI) but never again came close to fulfilling the promise of his rookie year. After brief stints with the Padres and Tigers he was out of the major leagues after the 1989 season.

Post-baseball career: After his playing career Brown worked in various construction jobs in Houston before joining Halliburton and serving three tours driving fuel trucks in Iraq, occasionally operating under fire, including being in a convoy that was attacked and six of his fellow drivers as well as one soldier were killed. After his third tour in Iraq Brown lost his job, and shortly after his wife and daughter moved out of his house. Facing severe financial difficulties, Brown apparently tried to burn down his house for insurance money. Brown was gravely injured in the fire and died of his injuries a few weeks later.

My memories: I remember him as a highly touted rookie and so always thought of him as a kind of a minor star, but with 38 home runs in 449 games he really didn’t have much of a significant career. There are no entries for the first page of Google results; all of which refer to a singer.

Google Autocomplete results: He is seventh when you type Ch, between Christina Grimmie, a singer who was killed recently in Orlando, and Chrome, a Google browser. There are no entries for the first page of Google results; most refer to a singer.

Coming up next: The next profile will be Dana Brown.

2 comments:

  1. I remember him as a flop acquisition by the Padres. Hadn't heard about the sad ending to his story. Bummer.

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  2. Once he broke his wrist he comes up with injury excuse after another

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