Charley Lau

Charles Richard Lau April 12 1933 in Romulus Michigan March 18 1984 was an American catcher and hitting coach in Major League Baseball He was signed by the Detroit Tigers as an amateur free agent After spending three season with the organization 1956 19581959 he was traded with Don Lee to the Milwaukee Braves for Casey Wise Don Kaiser and Mike Roarke After the Baltimore Orioles purchased him from the Braves in 1962 he adopted a contact hitters batting stance feet wide apart bat held almost parallel to the ground That season he had a 294 batting average with six home runs and thirtyseven runs batted in After hitting 194 in 23 games he was sold by the Orioles to the Kansas City Athletics on July 1 1963 hitting 294 in Kansas City and having a batting average of 272 in 92 games On June 15 1964 he was traded back to the Orioles for Wes Stock On May 31 1967 he was purchased by the Braves now located in Atlanta and on November 27 1967 he was released by the Braves Lau attributed the end of his career as a catcher in the majors to steroid injections he received to treat an injury to his throwing arm These injections relieved the pain from the injury and he was counselled to return to the field before his injury fully healed The permanent damage that resulted impaired his ability to throw out baserunners Description above from the Wikipedia article Charley Lau licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia