I couldn't find a lot about Mike. I know he was a starter early on with the Royals, and was pretty good. What would you say now about a guy that was 15-8 with a 2.71 ERA? However, his BB/K ratio wasn't very good (76/72) and that kind of foretold a down year in 1972. It looks like he just fell off the map after that.
The photo looks like another in a long line of Royals' photos taken at the old spring training site at Terry Park in Fort Myers. The more I see these the more I'm thinking about detouring into that part of town the next time I'm there (and hoping my wife doesn't get scared out of her wits).
Most of what I found about Mike Hedlund came from this great blog post. For those of you that read 100 blogs a day and don't have the time or inclination to spend 3-4 minutes learning about Mike Hedlund, it basically says that his nickname was "Booger Red" (after his hair color) and that he just couldn't make it back in the big leagues after being sent down following the 1972 season and the emergence of Steve Busby in the Royals' rotation. He also missed time recovering from Hong Kong flu contracted playing winter ball in Venezuela after the 1969 season. The thing that impressed me about that post was that supposedly Mike himself read it, created a blogger profile and left a comment indicating it was accurate.
After his career, he spent 35 years as a VP of Human Resources for Texas Trust Credit Union and now lives in Arlington.
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Haha this is my grandpa I know sooo muchabout him!!! His daughter Gina is my mom!
ReplyDeleteHe and my dad were friends when we lived in Grand Prairie, TX oh so many years ago. Super nice guy! Great family! I was young and I would have guessed him to be 6'4", guess that's 'cause I was so young back then. He seemed like a giant of a man! LOL
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