Jack Thomas Lazorko (born March 30, 1956) is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played five seasons at the major league level for the Milwaukee Brewers, Seattle Mariners, Detroit Tigers and California Angels of Major League Baseball (MLB).
Career
Born in Hoboken, Lazorko grew up in River Edge, New Jersey.[1] He attended Mississippi State University, and in 1976 he played collegiate summer baseball with the Cotuit Kettleers of the Cape Cod Baseball League.[2] He was selected by the Houston Astros in the 11th round of the 1978 MLB Draft. Lazorko played his first professional season with their Rookie league Gulf Coast Astros and Class A-Advanced Daytona Beach Astros in 1978, and his last with the New York Mets' Triple-A Norfolk Tides in 1993. He played 20 seasons in national and international baseball, including the 1991 Scudetto in Parma, Italy, two years in Milan, Italy, and in the Florida Senior League until 1995.
Lazorko, a former amateur hockey goalie, is probably best known for a highlight reel of his fielding which was featured on This Week in Baseball for many years. On the telecast of the New York Mets-Washington Nationals game of July 21, 2015, Ron Darling, himself a Gold Glove winner in the National League, called Lazorko "the best fielding pitcher" he had ever seen. (Darling played against Lazorko in the Texas League in 1981.)
References
- ^ Berkow, Ira. "BASEBALL'S KING OF THE ROAD; Jack Lazorko Doesn't Pitch Here Anymore", The New York Times, July 11, 1993. Accessed February 6, 2013. "Few baseball careers have been anything like Jack Lazorko's, who was born in Hoboken, N.J., and grew up in River Edge to the north, and who has called so many places home since then that, he says, he has single-handedly kept map makers in business."
- ^ "Major League Baseball Players From the Cape Cod League" (PDF). capecodbaseball.org. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
Sources
- "Jack Lazorko Statistics". The Baseball Cube. 24 January 2008.
- "Jack Lazorko Statistics". Baseball-Reference. 24 January 2008.