Mitchell, Kevin D.
Baseball
b. Jan. 3, 1962, San Diego, CA
A tremendously powerful right-handed hitter, the 5-foot-11, 210-pound Mitchell was named the National League's most valuable player in 1989, when he batted .291 and led the league with 47 home runs, 125 RBI, and a .635 slugging percentage.
He helped take the San Francisco Giants to the Western Division title that year and hit .353 with 2 home runs, 7 RBI, and 5 runs scored in their five-game victory over the Chicago Cubs in the league championship series. The Giants lost the World Series in four games to the Oakland Athletics, although Mitchell hit .294 with 1 home run.
Mitchell entered the major leagues with the New York Mets late in the 1984 season and spent all of 1985 with the Mets, playing the outfield, shortstop, third base, and first base. The Mets traded him to the San Diego Padres in 1986 and the Padres traded him to San Francisco in mid-season.
After splitting his time between the outfield and third base, Mitchell became a full-time outfielder in 1990, when he hit .290 with 35 home runs and 93 RBI. An injury limited him to 113 games in 1991, but he still hit 27 home runs and drove in 69 runs.
He missed much of the 1992 season with an injury after being traded to the AL's Seattle Mariners. Mitchell joined the Cincinnati Reds in 1993 and had two fine seasons with them, despite injuries that limited his playing time.
Mitchell became the highest paid player in the history of Japanese baseball in 1995, when he signed a $4.5 million contract with the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks. He hit a grand slam home run in his first at-bat, but played in only 37 games because of recurrent knee problems, which eventually brought him back to the U. S. for treatment.
He then signed with the Boston Red Sox as a free agent, and they traded him back to the Reds in mid-season. He appeared in a total of only 64 games that season, many of them as a pinch-hitter, but had a combined batting average of .316. Mitchell joined the Cleveland Indians as a free agent in 1997 but was cut in June. The following year, he signed with the Oakland As but was again released before the season ended.
That ended his major league career, but after two years out of baseball, he put in a brief stint in the minor leagues in 2000.