Candy Maldonado
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Cándido Maldonado Guadarrama (born September 5, 1960) is a Puerto Rican former
Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...
outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to catch ...
who played from to for the
Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...
,
San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...
,
Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. Since , the team ...
,
Milwaukee Brewers The Milwaukee Brewers are an American professional baseball team based in Milwaukee. The Brewers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central Di ...
,
Toronto Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. Since 1989, the team has p ...
,
Chicago Cubs The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League Central, Central Division. Th ...
, and Texas Rangers. Chris Berman, a fellow
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analyst,
nickname A nickname, in some circumstances also known as a sobriquet, or informally a "moniker", is an informal substitute for the proper name of a person, place, or thing, used to express affection, playfulness, contempt, or a particular character trait ...
d him the "Candyman". Maldonado holds the distinction of having struck the first game-winning hit outside the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
in
World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...
play, and was the only Giant to hit a triple in the
1989 World Series The 1989 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1989 season. The 86th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff played between the American League (AL) champion Oakland Athletics and the ...
.


San Francisco

Maldonado, also known as "The Candyman", was a major part of the Giants success in the late 1980s as a part of the 1987 NL West Champions and the 1989 National League Champions. Although Maldonado had statistically good seasons in San Francisco, he was involved in one of the most infamous plays in Giants history. In game 6 of the 1987 National League Championship Series, he lost Tony Peña's 2nd inning fly ball in the lights. This play resulted in a triple for Peña. Peña scored on a sacrifice fly for the only run of the game, which the St. Louis Cardinals won to tie the series at 3 games each, before going on to win Game 7.


Career highlights

Maldonado was a better hitter on the road than at home, with a batting average which was 51 points higher in road games than in home games. On May 4, 1987, he became only the 16th player in
San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...
franchise history to
hit for the cycle Hit means to strike someone or something. Hit or HIT may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Hit, a fictional character from '' Dragon Ball Super'' * Homicide International Trust or HIT, a fictional organization ...
. Then in 1994, Candy scored the first-ever run for the
Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central Division. Since , the team ...
at
Jacobs Field Progressive Field is a baseball stadium in the downtown Cleveland, downtown area of Cleveland, Ohio. It is the ballpark of the Cleveland Guardians of Major League Baseball and, together with Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, Rocket Arena, is part of ...
. In Game 3 of the 1992 World Series, playing for the Toronto Blue Jays, he hit a walk-off hit off Atlanta Braves closer Jeff Reardon and also hit a solo
home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the Baseball (ball), ball is hit in such a way that the batting (baseball), batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safe (baseball), safely in one play without any error ( ...
in Game 6 of the series. Maldonado was noted as a good home run hitter who did not usually hit for a high
batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...
, finishing at .254 for his MLB career. He played in eight different postseason series for three of his teams and won the World Series with the Blue Jays in .


Recent career

Maldonado provided color commentary for
ESPN Deportes ESPN Deportes (, ) is an American multinational Spanish-language pay television sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the ...
' coverage of the
World Baseball Classic The World Baseball Classic (WBC), also referred to as the Classic, is an international baseball tournament sanctioned by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), the sport's global governing body, and organized in World Baseball Clas ...
and regular season games. He was named general manager of the Gigantes del Cibao of the Dominican Baseball League. Maldonado contributed a video to "La Esquina de Candy" (or "Candy's Corner"). Also, in 2011, Maldonado was inducted into the Caribbean Baseball Hall of Fame with former teammate and
National Baseball Hall of Fame The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by a private foundation. It serves as the central collection and gathering space for the history of baseball in the United St ...
inductee
Roberto Alomar Roberto Alomar Velázquez (; ; born February 5, 1968) is a Puerto Ricans, Puerto Rican former second baseman who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for seventeen seasons. He is regarded as one of the greatest second basemen and all-around pla ...
, Carlos Baerga and Luis "Mambo" DeLeón for the 2011 Caribbean Series. He was also inducted into his native Puerto Rico Baseball Hall of Fame.


See also

* List of Major League Baseball players from Puerto Rico *
List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle In baseball, completing hitting for the cycle, the cycle is the accomplishment of hit (baseball), hitting a single (baseball), single, a double (baseball), double, a triple (baseball), triple, and a home run in the same game. In terms of freque ...


References


External links

, o
Retrosheet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Maldonado, Candy 1960 births Living people Albuquerque Dukes players Chicago Cubs players Cleveland Indians players Clinton Dodgers players Lethbridge Dodgers players Lodi Dodgers players Los Angeles Dodgers players Major League Baseball broadcasters Major League Baseball outfielders Major League Baseball players from Puerto Rico Milwaukee Brewers players Puerto Rican expatriate baseball players in Canada San Francisco Giants players Sportspeople from Humacao, Puerto Rico Texas Rangers players Toronto Blue Jays players