"There were a few holes in the otherwise strong Yankee team last year, holes that had to be filled for the club to win in 1988. One of those trouble spots was remedied when an off-season trade with the Rangers brought six-year veteran catcher Don Slaught to New York.
Coming off a devastating injury in 1986, Slaught suffered through a bad start with Texas last year. The club felt it was due to his injury and therefore limited his playing time. Don finished with his worst season in the big leagues.
Many still remember the incident in May 1986 when Slaught was drilled in the face with an Oil Can Boyd fastball, breaking his nose and left cheekbone. At the time the catcher was having an excellent season and went on to set a career high in RBI with 46, as well as setting a Texas record for catchers with 13 home runs.
When the Rangers gave up on him the Yankees were only too happy to take him, hoping that he will return to his 1986 form. Despite his poor showing last year Slaught is still a career .270 hitter.
'I'm very happy about coming to the Yankees,' he says. 'It's a good opportunity for me, and I'm looking forward to getting more playing time.'"
-The New York Yankees Official 1988 Yearbook
"Slaught was acquired from the Texas Rangers on November 2, 1987 in exchange for a player to be named later. Pitcher Brad Arnsberg was sent to Texas on November 10 to complete the trade. In his third and final season with the Rangers in '87 Slaught batted .224 (53-for-237) in 95 games with 15 doubles, two triples, eight home runs and 16 runs batted in.
He was batting .268 (15-for-56) through 19 games in April including a six-game hitting streak from April 23-29, his longest of the season, hitting .400 (6-for-15) in that streak with a double and a home run. Don was thrown out at the plate twice on April 26 against Boston, on an attempted squeeze in the 10th inning and on an attempted sacrifice fly in the 12th. He hit just .185 (12-for-65) in May to lower his average to .223, including a season low of .205 on May 6. Don had his only game-winning RBI of the year on May 13 against the Yankees at New York. He tied a Texas team record with four strikeouts at Kansas City on May 31.
Don abandoned the face guard on his helmet on July 24 for the first time in 1987. He sprained his left knee running the bases during batting practice on August 2 and did not make a plate appearance after that until August 9. On September 15 against the Oakland A's in Arlington he hit two solo home runs off Curt Young, the first two-home run game of his career and the first ever by a Ranger catcher. Don batted .286 (12-for-42) in September to raise his average from .212 at the beginning of the month to .226 at the end of the month.
He had 11 multi-hit games and batted .237 (32-for-135) against left-handed pitching and .206 (21-for-102) against right-handed pitching. He tied a Texas Ranger club record with four passed balls on May 6; for the season he had 20 passed balls (of which 17 occurred when Charlie Hough was pitching) and was part of the Texas Rangers catching staff that set a single season major league record of 73 passed balls, mainly due to Hough. Slaught threw out 16 of 80 runners attempting to steal (20%) and had a fielding percentage of .985 (seven errors in 475 total chances).
Slaught began his professional career by batting .261 with Ft. Myers in 1980. He started the 1981 season at Jacksonville before earning a promotion to Omaha in July. He was lost for the season with a broken leg on August 15. He started the 1982 season in Omaha and was disabled from April 21 until May 15 with a strained left knee. Don joined Kansas City on July 6 after John Wathan broke his ankle, and started the next 11 and 28 of the next 31 before Wathan returned. He recorded singles in his first two major league at-bats off Boston's John Tudor. He was sidelined for the season on September 21 after tearing a tendon in his left thumb in a home plate collision with California's Ricky Adams.
In 1983 Don split the Royals' catching chores with Wathan. He was disabled from May 15-30 after he split the skin under the middle finger of his right hand, and also missed nine games from June 28-July 12 with a deep right thigh bruise. Don hit .342 (26-for-76) in 22 games in September, including a career high 12-game hitting streak. He was Kansas City's regular catcher in 1984 and led the club with 27 doubles. He hit .346 in a two-month stretch from June 18-August 18, and in the ALCS against Detroit led Kansas City regulars with a .364 (4-for-11) average.
Don was acquired by Texas from Kansas City in January of 1985 in a four-team trade with the Mets and Milwaukee. His .280 batting average was third best among all AL catchers who appeared in 100 games. He appeared in just one game from July 6 through August 25 because of a pulled hamstring muscle; upon his return he batted .322 in his last 34 games.
Despite being plagued by injuries much of 1986, he set a Ranger club record for homers by a catcher with 13 (the previous club mark was 10 by Jim Sundberg in 1980 and 1982). His 13 homers were also a career high, as were his 46 RBIs. Don had a .996 fielding percentage in 91 games, the third best percentage of any AL catcher who appeared in 90 games.
He had a .368 average (21-for-57) in his first 18 games with six homers and 18 RBIs and drove in a career high five runs on May 15 at Detroit. Don sustained a broken nose and left cheekbone when he was hit by Boston's Oil Can Boyd in the fourth inning on May 17 at Fenway Park. At that point, he was hitting .293 (27-for-92) with seven homers and 23 RBIs in 30 games.
Don did not experience any vision problems. He underwent reconstructive surgery to fix the fractures on May 26 at Arlington Memorial Hospital. After nearly a month of therapy, he was assigned to Oklahoma City on medical rehabilitation on July 1; he played in three games for the 89ers, going 4-for-12 with a RBI. After missing a total of 44 games, Don was reactivated by Texas on July 4th and caught that night.
Upon his return, he wore a plexiglass facemask while batting and continued to wear the mask through games of August 26 before discarding it. He hit .252 (56-for-222) with six homers and 23 RBIs in 65 games after his return to the lineup, including a .280 mark (26-for-93) in his first 25 games back.
Slaught was selected by Kansas City in the seventh round of the June 1980 free agent draft after an outstanding four-year career at UCLA. He was UCLA's captain and an All-PAC 10 selection in both his junior and senior years. He was selected to the second team All-America squad by the Sporting News in 1980 and was an Academic All-American in 1979. Don graduated from UCLA with a B.S. degree in economics. His teammates at UCLA included Dave Schmidt, Matt Young, Tim Leary and Mike Gallego.
He lettered three times in baseball and twice as a quarterback in football at Rolling Hills High School in Palos Verdes, California where he graduated in 1976. Don's hobbies are golf and tennis and his favorite spectator sport is football. His favorite team growing up was the Los Angeles Dodgers, his favorite player was Johnny Bench and his favorite ballpark is Royals Stadium."
-1988 New York Yankees Information Guide
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