Goodwin Had Trouble Catching On

Danny Goodwin came to Anaheim Stadium in 1975 with advance billing and promise galore.

Here was a player so good he’d been the No. 1 draft pick twice . And he was to be the Angels’ catcher--superstar catcher--of the future.

Eleven years and two major league teams later, Goodwin was playing in Japan for the Nankai Hawks. It was Goodwin’s last stop before ending a career that never took off the way many figured it would.

But this is no sad story of lost dreams and unfulfilled promise.

These days, Goodwin, 35, is an investment broker living in Stone Mountain, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, and his new life suits him fine. He has phased baseball out of his life, slipping quietly into the style of a successful single guy living in a prosperous Sun Belt city.

He is not bitter. He knows he couldn’t keep playing forever. He didn’t want to anyway. And to that end he kept an eye on the future.

The past was past. Baseball was over for Goodwin and it was time to get a real job.

“I still treasure the sport,” Goodwin said recently. “Going from athletics to outside life is difficult. You lead a sheltered life. You’re protected. You always have the illusion that baseball takes care of you. (Then) you find yourself in a new world.

“It (a post-baseball career) was always in the picture for me. It was how I was brought up--to seek my position in society. Baseball came along as a plus.”

Looking back, Goodwin said he feels lucky to have played in the majors.

So many factors had to be working together to keep his quest alive while at Central High School in Peoria, Ill., and later at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La. Who is to say he was automatically assured of a spot in Cooperstown, anyway? Even if he was so highly thought of during his high school, college and early pro careers.

So what if he didn’t become a superstar. So what if he didn’t bat .400 or hit 60 home runs in a season. Those weren’t the reasons Goodwin wanted to play major league baseball in the first place.

“Mainly, I’ll remember all the different players I’ve played with,” Goodwin said. “(Bobby) Bonds, (Nolan) Ryan, (Frank) Tanana. It’s rare that you can associate with that many bona fide major league stars. I wasn’t there (in Anaheim) very long, but I’ll always reflect on those days.”

“Danny has devasting power. He can catch and throw as well as Johnny Bench and he can run better. He has as much ability as a Bench, a Campanella, a Sanguillen.”

--Emery Hines, Southern University baseball coach in 1975

Johnny Bench played 17 seasons for the Cincinnati Reds, hitting .267 with 389 homers.

Roy Campanella, a Hall of Fame catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1948-57, hit .276 and played in five World Series.

Manny Sanguillen had a career average of .296 over 13 seasons with Pittsburgh and Oakland.

Danny Goodwin spent 10 seasons in professional ball--1975-78 with the Angel organization, then three seasons each with the Minnesota Twins and the Oakland Athletics before spending his 11th season in Japan in 1986.

He had a career batting average of .230. Primarily because of a sore arm, he was primarily a designated hitter, but also spent time at first base and in the outfield.

He did not catch one game as in the major leagues.

His best season was 1979 when he batted .289, hit 5 homers and had 27 RBIs in 58 games with the Twins.

All in all, it was not a bad career. Certainly something to tell the grandchildren about. In the end, though, he wasn’t the second-coming of Bench or Campanella. Or, for that matter, Andy Etchebarren, the Angels’ catcher in 1976 and ’77.

The expectations of Goodwin were so high that, looking back, it seems he was doomed to fail. Perhaps it was too big a burden for a 22-year-old rookie to bear.

After his graduation from Central High, the Chicago White Sox felt strongly enough about Goodwin’s talents that they made him the first selection in the June, 1971 draft.

The White Sox offered Goodwin between $50,000 to $80,000 to sign, but he spurned their offer.

“All I ever wanted was a college education,” Goodwin said. “That was the most important thing to me as a 17-year-old kid.

“Some things might have been different if I had signed out of high school, but I didn’t.”

He attended Southern, graduated with a degree in zoology. He had a .394 career batting average in college.

When the 1975 draft rolled around, the Angels, who had been the perennial punching bag in the American League West, took a keen interest in Goodwin.

When they made him the first pick in the ’75 draft, he became the only player selected No. 1 twice.

Goodwin and the Angels came to terms quickly. He signed for $100,000 and was sent to El Paso for, it was hoped, a short stay.

All was bliss on June 29, 1975--the day the Angels introduced Goodwin at an Anaheim Stadium news conference.

“The equipment is there. Whether it will take 25 or 50 or 150 games at the professional level to prepare him for the majors is difficult to say. None of us believes it will take long.”

--Angel General Manager Harry Dalton, June 29, 1975

The Angels had great hopes pinned on their new future superstar.

But trouble started not long after Goodwin reached El Paso.

In his book “The California Angels,” Times staffer Ross Newhan described the conflict this way:

“The young catcher had not thrown in a competitive situation for several months and was attempting to bring his arm along slowly. (Instructor Vern) Hoscheit, a regimental assistant to (Angel Manager) Dick Williams, thought Goodwin was malingering and demanded he throw hard for nearly 20 minutes. Goodwin’s arm was never the same and neither was the Angels’ investment, though as a down payment on (Danny) Ford he brought a dividend of another type.”

After three seasons, Goodwin was gone, along with first baseman Ron Jackson, to Minnesota for outfielder Danny Ford.

In 1978, his final season in Anaheim, Goodwin played 24 games, hitting .276 with 2 home runs and 10 RBIs.

The Angels gave him little opportunity to show his abilities. His stay was short and not so sweet.

In 1975, Goodwin played in only four games with the big club. He spent the ’76 season in the minors. In 1977, he played 35 games with a .209 average.

Once in Minnesota, the Twins offered him only token action and he found his way to Oakland in 1982. He stayed in the A’s organization until ‘85, then headed to Japan.

It was about this time that he decided he’d had enough.

Goodwin had friends throughout his career who told him, “When it’s time to get out, try the business world.”

Living half-way around the world in a country where he understood little of the language or the customs, brought his future into focus. He decided to return to the United States and make some changes in his life.

So, he made a career change. Pulled up his stakes in baseball and moved to a new job in a new city.

He thought briefly of going back to zoology, but remembered his friends’ advice and decided to become an investment broker.

He settled on Atlanta because it was one region of the country he had not lived in.

Goodwin was born in St. Louis, but lived in Oakland and Peoria before he graduated from high school. The family had moved often because of his father’s work. James Goodwin was a chemist who worked for the government.

“The thing I like most about it is the weather,” Goodwin said. “I didn’t know very much about (Atlanta). When I left Japan I wanted to find some place out of the mainstream.”

So far everything is going fine, though he’d like to get back into baseball on the management level.

“My parents always tried to get me to see the other sides, too, not just sports,” Goodwin said. “I can find one thing that I like and stick to it. I won’t stick with anything I don’t like.”

Goodwin said he’s glad he stuck with baseball.

“I like being able to say I saw it through,” he said. “So many people didn’t make it because of one person, a coach or one circumstance. I’m not saying I was the best athlete in the world. Probably there are some who got missed because they met a crossroad in life that changed them. I continued on and I feel good about that.”