Alan Wiggins
Alan Anthony Wiggins was an American professional baseball player. He was a second baseman and outfielder in Major League Baseball for the San Diego Padres and Baltimore Orioles between 1981 and 1987. A speedy leadoff hitter, Wiggins had his best season with the pennant-winning Padres in 1984. He batted one slot ahead of Tony Gwynn in the lineup that year, and the pair's offensive production helped the Padres win the National League Championship Series and advance to the World Series.
Wiggins grew up in California and attended Pasadena City College before being drafted by the California Angels in 1977. He played in the minor league systems of the Angels and the Los Angeles Dodgers, setting a professional baseball single-season record with 120 stolen bases in 1980. He made his major league debut with the San Diego Padres in 1981, and he became a regular player within two years. In 1983 he set the Padres' single-season stolen base record, a mark that he extended the following season. His 1984 stolen base total is still a team record.
During his major league career, Wiggins struggled with drug addiction, which resulted in several arrests and suspensions from baseball. His drug problems prompted a 1985 trade from San Diego to Baltimore, where Wiggins spent three seasons. After leaving baseball, he was diagnosed with AIDS, and he was the first MLB player known to die of the disease. Long after his death, two of his children, Candice and Alan Jr., became professional basketball players.
Early life
Wiggins was born in Los Angeles, California, and his mother, Karla Wiggins, raised him as a single mother.As a child, he played baseball with his friends at a park across from the Rose Bowl, and he was a fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers and their base-stealing shortstop, Maury Wills. Wiggins graduated from John Muir High School in Pasadena, California, which was also the alma mater of Dodgers star Jackie Robinson. Gib Bodet, a scout for the Montreal Expos, noticed Wiggins in high school. Wiggins was tall, which was taller than a typical infielder. He was only an average hitter and fielder, but his speed stood out to Bodet.
The California Angels selected Wiggins as the eighth overall pick of the January 1977 MLB amateur draft. In 1977 Wiggins played junior college baseball at Pasadena City College, where he was a teammate of future major leaguers Matt Young and Rod Booker. Bodet, who had moved to the Angels scouting staff just before the draft, joined other Angels staff members and worked out with Wiggins after the team selected him. Angels coach Bob Clear told Wiggins that his excellent speed would help him to a high batting average even if his hitting skills were not that strong: "If you can hit.200, you can run the other eighty points. And if you can hit.280, you can lead off for anybody." Wiggins signed with the Angels in May for $2,500 after what Bodet described as "a tough negotiation". According to Bodet, Wiggins's mother "did not trust easily".
Baseball career
Early career
Wiggins played minor league baseball in 1977 for the Angels rookie-league affiliate in Idaho Falls, where he hit.271 and had 25 stolen bases in 63 games. In 1978, with the ClassA Quad Cities Angels, Wiggins stole 26 bases in 49 games, but his batting average fell to.201. Following a mid-season fight with one of his coaches, he was released by the Angels organization in June 1978. Wiggins feared that his career was near its end, but he reached out to Los Angeles Dodgers scout Gail Henley. After a workout in front of the Dodgers and manager Tommy Lasorda, Wiggins signed with the team before the 1979 season, receiving an invitation to spring training and then being assigned to the team's ClassA affiliate, the Clinton Dodgers.In 95 games for Clinton, Wiggins hit.257, stole 43 bases, and converted to a shortstop after spending the previous two seasons as a second baseman. He also appeared in the outfield and at all three of the other infield positions for Clinton. Playing with the ClassA Lodi Dodgers of the California League in 1980, Wiggins batted.288 and scored 108 runs while stealing 120 bases in just 135 games. He established a professional baseball single-season steals record, surpassing the previous minor league mark of 116 set by Allan Lewis in 1966, as well as Lou Brock's major league record of 118 in 1974.
After the 1980 season, Wiggins's fourth year in the minor leagues, he was eligible to be selected by other teams in that year's Rule 5 draft. The Rule 5 draft is a procedure that stops teams from hoarding young players in the minor leagues when those players might be able to make it to the major leagues with other organizations. A team can protect a player from the Rule 5 draft by adding him to its major league roster. The Dodgers decided not to protect Wiggins, and since he had once caught the eye of San Diego Padres general manager Jack McKeon, the Padres selected him in the draft. Padres officials later said that they knew Wiggins had been arrested for possession of marijuana while with the Dodgers. "It was known in our organization that he had a problem in the Dodger organization. They didn't want a part of it," Padres manager Dick Williams said.
San Diego Padres
After having spent most of his minor league career as an infielder, he was used almost exclusively as an outfielder with the Hawaii Islanders of the Pacific Coast League in 1981. He batted.302 with 73 steals, and received a September call-up to the major leagues as an outfielder. In his first stint with the Padres, he got five hits in 14 at bats. Wiggins began the following season with the Islanders, but he was called up again by the Padres in early May to replace injured outfielder Gene Richards. Wiggins was leading San Diego with 29 stolen bases in 59 games when he was arrested for possession of cocaine in July. He was issued a 30-day suspension from baseball, and spent a month in a substance abuse treatment facility. The Padres, who were one of the first sports teams to offer an employee assistance program to players, paid for all of his treatment, and he returned to the team in September. By 1983 Wiggins had become a regular in the Padres lineup, batting in the leadoff spot and playing in the outfield for most of the season. He was exceptional on defense in left field, hit.276 and stole 66 bases. He was moved to first base for the last 45 games of the year after Steve Garvey suffered a broken thumb. Wiggins's stolen base total broke the single-season team record of 61 set by Richards in 1980. Wiggins was named the team's most valuable player that season.Wiggins was moved to second base in 1984, making room for rookie Carmelo Martínez in the outfield. Until that season, Martínez had been a first baseman, but the Padres already had a strong player there with Garvey, and they wanted to get Martínez into the lineup to improve their outfield's home run production. Wiggins retained the leadoff spot in the lineup, hitting ahead of Tony Gwynn. On May 17, Wiggins became the fifth 20th-century MLB player to steal five bases in one game, tying a National League record. During an August game, Wiggins unwittingly became a party to a series of fights between the Padres and Atlanta Braves when he was hit with the game's first pitch by Braves pitcher Pascual Pérez. The teams retaliated against each other throughout the game with brushback pitches and beanballs, and the resulting brawls led to thirteen ejections and even the arrests of five fans who became involved in the fighting.
On the season, Wiggins scored 106 runs, stole 70 bases and led the league with 391 putouts. His stolen bases total stands as a Padres single-season record. Benefitting from the higher number of fastballs opposing pitchers threw in response to Wiggins's speed, Gwynn batted above.400 when his speedy teammate was on base, and hit.351 overall for the first of his eight career batting titles. The duo was one of the biggest reasons behind San Diego's success. The team could score quickly with Wiggins getting on first, stealing second, and scoring on a hit by Gwynn. Wiggins batted.316 in the 1984 NLCS against the Chicago Cubs, going two-for-three with two runs scored in the fifth and deciding game. In the 1984 World Series against the Detroit Tigers, which the Padres lost in five games, Wiggins batted.364 and scored twice. His eight hits were the most of any Padres player in the series. According to manager Dick Williams, Wiggins was "absolutely the most valuable player in the National League in 1984". "Alan Wiggins' role in bringing San Diego the 1984 National League championship wasn't put into proper perspective until the Padres tried to defend their title without him," sportswriter Phil Collier later wrote.
Before the 1985 season, the Padres signed Wiggins to a four-year contract extension worth nearly $3million. His agent described him as one of the highest-paid NL second basemen. Wiggins missed the last two weeks of spring training after injuring his knee during a double-play attempt on defense when a baserunner slid into him. He was unavailable for the start of the season, but returned to the lineup after being out for five games. Wiggins was batting.054 and was without a stolen base two weeks into the season when he was suspended by the Padres following a relapse into cocaine dependency. After Wiggins completed a drug rehabilitation program, the Padres did not want to reactivate him, but baseball's joint review board cleared him to return to play. In June, Donald Fehr of the Major League Baseball Players Association announced that he intended to file a grievance against the Padres if they did not promptly activate Wiggins. The Padres sought to trade Wiggins and the Baltimore Orioles showed interest, but as the trade deadline approached, the Orioles were reportedly only offering two minor league players in exchange for him.
On June 27, 1985, Wiggins was traded to the Orioles for pitchers Roy Lee Jackson and Richard Caldwell. Padres owner Joan Kroc said that the team had warned Wiggins that he would not remain with the team if he had further problems with drugs. She stated that it would have been self-serving to keep Wiggins after his relapse when he could instead pursue a fresh start with another team. Nonetheless, Gwynn felt that Wiggins had been shortchanged by the Padres.