Wally Joyner

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Wallace Keith "Wally" Joyner (born June 16, 1962 in Atlanta, Georgia) is the hitting coach for the San Diego Padres professional baseball club. He is a former first baseman in Major League Baseball. He attended high school at Redan High in Stone Mountain (suburb of Atlanta) and college at Brigham Young University and played for five different major league teams in his career: the California Angels, Kansas City Royals, San Diego Padres, Atlanta Braves and Anaheim Angels. He now resides in Mapleton, Utah. Joyner has invested and appeared in movies marketed to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon church), including playing "Brother Jensen" in the 2003 movie, The R.M. [1]

[edit] Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League

He credited a stint in the Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League [1st baseman for the Mayagüez Indians] as fundamental in his improvement as a slugger^{[citation needed]}. Then-batting coach José Manuel Morales forced him to do power weight training and modify his posture at the batting cage as to develop upper body strength. He was consequently the top hitter on Puerto Rico's winter league on the 1985-1986 season.

[edit] California Angels

During his rookie season in MLB with the California Angels, Joyner became a fan favorite and briefly inspired a craze called Wallyworld, a term describing the Angels' home stadium, drawn from references to Disneyland and the film National Lampoon's Vacation. Competing with the likes of José Canseco, Joyner became the first rookie starter to be fan-voted in the All-Star Game. Joyner tied Darryl Strawberry for first place in that year's Home Run Derby.

When the Angels met the New York Yankees in a game in August 1986, a fan threw a knife at Joyner. Joyner was grazed on the left arm by the butt end of the weapon, escaping injury. Said Joyner: "I picked it up and gave it to [Angels' manager] Gene Mauch."

[edit] Steroid use

In a November 2005 interview with ESPN The Magazine, Joyner admitted to briefly having used steroids. He was given information on how to obtain them by Ken Caminiti while they were both with the 1998 Padres [2].

Joyner was listed in the 2007 Mitchell Report (baseball), which was released to the public on December 13, 2007. However, he had already admitted to using steroids once during his career and according to the Mitchell Report his use was very minimal.

[edit] San Diego Padres

On July 31, 2007, Joyner was hired by the San Diego Padres to be their hitting coach, replacing Merv Rettenmund.[3] Previously, Joyner had served as a special assistant to Padres' General Manager Kevin Towers. Between 2003 and 2007, he also acted as a roving minor league instructor and spring training instructor for the Padres.

[edit] See also

• Top 500 home run hitters of all time
• List of major league players with 2,000 hits
• List of Major League Baseball players with 400 doubles
• List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 RBI
• Major League Baseball hitters with three home runs in one game

[edit] External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube
• BaseballLibrary - biography and career highlights
• Joyner admits brief steroid use
• Joyner and the fan