Thursday, April 19, 2012

Oriole #722- Kerry Ligtenberg

We have firmly entered an era of Orioles baseball that was largely ignored by yours truly. While I still enjoyed attended Orioles games and tuning in on TV, I didn't follow the teams moves much. So I don't have many memories of many of the players who played for the team only in the early/mid 2000's. 


Turns out that Kerry's single season in Baltimore was rather successful, as he pitched in 68 games for the 2003 O's and went 4-2 with a 3.34 ERA. That's very respectable for an Orioles reliever since the team hasn't had much success in recent years. He made his Baltimore debut on March 31, 2003, which was Opening Day that season, and became the 722nd player to appear in a game for the Birds.

Kerry pitched eight MLB seasons between 1997-2005 mostly with the Braves from 97-02 but later bounced from Baltimore to Toronto and onto Arizona. He pitched in various Independent Leagues before and after his time in the Majors and officially retired during the 2009 season.

In Spring Training 1995, he briefly played as a replacement player with the Mariners during the infamous  baseball strike, so he was never able to become a member of the player's association.

2 comments:

Paul Hadsall said...

I remember him with the Braves, but I didn't realize Kerry Ligtenberg also pitched for the Orioles.

Orioles Magic said...

Paul-I'm happy to share the info. Don't feel bad though, I'm an O's fan and barely knew he pitched for us.