1980 Cleveland Indians season
| 1980 Cleveland Indians | |
|---|---|
| Major League affiliations | |
|
|
|
|
| Location | |
|
|
| Other information | |
| Owner(s) | Steve O'Neill |
| General manager(s) | Phil Seghi |
| Manager(s) | Jeff Torborg, Dave Garcia |
| Local television | WUAB |
| Local radio | WWWE |
| < Previous season Next season > | |
"Super Joe" Charboneau made his debut with the Indians in 1980, splitting time between left field and designated hitter. His 23 home runs led the team and he captured the city's imagination with his hard hitting and his eccentricities. His tendency to dye his hair unnatural colors, open beer bottles with his eye socket, and drink beer with a straw through his nose, and other stories that emerged about how he did his own dental work and fixed a broken nose with a pair of pliers and a few shots of Jack Daniel's whiskey, stood out in 1980. By mid-season, Charboneau was the subject of a song--"Go Joe Charboneau"—that reached #3 on the local charts.
He finished the season with 87 runs batted in and a .289 batting average while winning the American League Rookie of the Year award—all in spite of being stabbed with a ball-point pen by a crazed fan as he waited for the team bus on March 8. The pen penetrated an inch and hit a rib, but Charboneau played his first regular-season game just over a month later, on April 11. He missed the final six weeks of the season with a pelvis injury. He would never play another full season in the majors after 1980.
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]
...
Wikipedia