Danny Cater

Danny Cater
First baseman
Born: February 25, 1940 (1940-02-25) (age 71) Austin, Texas
Batted: Right	Threw: Right
MLB debut
April 14, 1964 for the Philadelphia Phillies
Last MLB appearance
June 11, 1975 for the St. Louis Cardinals
Career statistics
Batting average	.276
Home runs	66
Runs batted in	519
Teams
Philadelphia Phillies (1964) Chicago White Sox (1965–1966) Kansas City Athletics (1966–1967) Oakland Athletics (1968–1969) New York Yankees (1970–1971) Boston Red Sox (1972–1974) St. Louis Cardinals (1975)

Danny Anderson Cater (born February 25, 1940 in Austin, Texas) is a former Major League Baseball first baseman, third baseman, and outfielder. He was signed by the Philadelphia Phillies at the age of 18 on June 8, 1958. He played for the Phillies (1964), Chicago White Sox (1965–1966), Kansas City Athletics (1966–1967), Oakland Athletics (1968–1969), New York Yankees (1970–1971), Boston Red Sox (1972–1974), and St. Louis Cardinals (1975).

Cater played twelve seasons in the major leagues, mostly as a regular. For the eight-year period from 1965 to 1972, he averaged over 500 plate appearances per season. He was a good hitter who was tough to strike out; however, he was slow afoot, so had a knack for grounding into double plays, finishing in the top ten in the league in that category six times in those eight years, including second in both 1968 and 1969.

He finished second for the American League batting title in 1968 with a batting average of .290. It was "The Year of the Pitcher," and Carl Yastrzemski won the title with an average of .301, the lowest ever for a batting champion.

Career highlights included:

• a pair of 5-hit games...five singles vs. the Cleveland Indians (August 30, 1967) and a double and four singles vs. the Boston Red Sox (June 21, 1970)
• eighteen 4-hit games, with the most impressive being two singles, a double, and a home run good for 4 RBI and 4 runs scored vs. the California Angels (August 12, 1973)

Cater's career totals include 1,289 games played, 1,229 hits, 66 home runs, 519 RBI, and a lifetime batting average of .276.

After retiring from baseball Danny worked at the headquarters office of the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts in Austin, Texas. He now lives in Plano, Texas.

Quotes

• "Cater, by the way, has the reputation of being able to figure out his batting average to four decimal places on his way down to first base." -- Jim Bouton in Ball Four (June 30, 1969)

• " But anyone who has stood behind a batting cage knows that getting wood on good pitching as consistently as Cater does is a feat. Asked what he expects Cater to do, Manager Hank Bauer says, "Hit." Move runners along, get on base, anything special? "Nope. Hit." That is what he does. He does everything batting instructors tell people to do, and it works." [[ Roy Blount, Jr. in Sports Illustrated, May 19, 1969, "The Name is Carter--er, Cater" .. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1082419/2/index.htm

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference
• Baseball Almanac
• Retrosheet

Persondata
Name	Cater, Danny
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	February 25, 1940
Place of birth	Austin, Texas
Date of death
Place of death