10 Former Minor League Baseball Players

America’s greatest pastime is still baseball, so a diverse group of men make the list of 10 former minor league baseball players. Will Ferrell, who was a fake player for the Round Rock Express, lasted one pitch, but some noted minor league baseball players didn’t stick around much longer. 

1. Michael Jordan.  Jordan's year-long stint with the minor league Birmingham Barons definitely bumped up the box office receipts for the team. Although Jordan only managed a .202 batting average, his teammates respected his humility and love of the game.
2. Ron Shelton. His name might not ring a bell, but you know the movie he wrote and directed: Bull Durham. Shelton played for the Rochester Red Wings and used his own experiences in the film, such as flooding the baseball field with the sprinkler system the night before a big game to try and get a rainout.
3. Charlie Pride. He didn’t sing and play his guitar in the dugout, but  Pride did make the baseball sing with several minor league teams, including the Negro league’s Louisville Clippers. He tried out for the Mets but soon began devoting his time to his music career. Still a baseball fan, Pride is part-owner of the Texas Rangers.
4. Quincy Carter. The former Dallas Cowboy quarterback had a rocky career in Texas and was let go from the Cowboys after a few years. His following stint with the New York Jets ended after only a year because of drug problems. Carter got his athletic start with some spotty success at various minor league baseball clubs, including the Daytona Cubs.
5. Matt McCarthy. Matt McCarthy did not distinguish himself in his baseball career with the Los Angeles Angels, but the memoir he wrote after it sure got some attention. In the book "Odd Man Out," McCarthy details his teammates’ and manager’s racist antics, drug use, and over-the-top behavior. While the details made for a New York Times best-selling book, the memoir has also been widely criticized for its lack of facts and its numerous outright lies.
6. Joseph Petcka. Though he was a pitcher in the New York Mets minor league system, Petcka will not be able to live down his most notorious role: cat-killer. In 2008, Petcka stomped his girlfriend’s cat to death in a fit of anger. He was convicted and served 500 hours of community service. At least the bit-part actor on Sex and the City and in commercials didn’t use a baseball bat on the poor tabby.
7. Doug Reinhardt. He starred in the 4^thseason of "The Hills" and dated Paris Hilton, but Reinhardt likes to advertise his past as a baseball player. He played a year each for the Los Angeles Angels and the Baltimore Orioles farm team. His RBI was .209, but since Paris thought the two of them would marry, he must have scored high in personal relationships. In fact, his newest girlfriend is a former Miss World.
8. Gil Carter. No doubt, his name is unrecognizable, yet Carter hit the longest home run in baseball history–without making it to the major leagues. When playing for the Carlsbad Potashers in 1959, he hit a 733-foot homer that landed two blocks away under a peach tree. Fans stuck money through the fence for home-runs, and Carter made $633 that day.
9.  William Bendix (Sort of). Bendix is best remembered for playing (badly) the title role in "The Babe Ruth Story." While Bendix is described as a former minor league baseball player, he was only a batboy for the New York Yankees. Still, he got to watch Ruth play in quite a few games. Too bad that experience didn’t help his acting, which caused Ruth to walk out of the film.
10. Morris Buttermaker (Not even sort of).  Baseball and beer go hand in hand-though usually not for the manager during the game. But Buttermaker, the former minor league baseball player in "The Bad News Bears," knew to get a kick-ass tomboy pitcher and a biker to make his little league team shape up. Both Walter Mattheu and Billy Bob Thornton did this character justice – and the sport as well.

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