Joe Charboneau

Joe Charboneau
Left fielder / Designated hitter
Born: June 17, 1955 (1955-06-17) Belvidere, Illinois
Batted: Right	Threw: Right
MLB debut
April 11, 1980 for the Cleveland Indians
Last MLB appearance
June 1, 1982 for the Cleveland Indians
Career statistics
Batting average	.266
Home runs	29
Runs batted in	114
Teams
Cleveland Indians (1980–1982)
Career highlights and awards
1980 AL Rookie of the Year

Joseph Charboneau (born June 17, 1955 in Belvidere, Illinois) was a Major League Baseball player for the Cleveland Indians and is one of the most often-cited examples of a flash in the pan or of baseball's fabled sophomore jinx.

"Super Joe" Charboneau made his debut with the Indians in 1980, splitting time between left field and designated hitter. His 23 home runs led the team and he captured the city's imagination with his hard hitting and his eccentricities. While not as wild as Dennis Rodman, his tendency to dye his hair unnatural colors, open beer bottles with his eye socket, and drink beer with a straw through his nose, and other stories that emerged about how he did his own dental work and fixed a broken nose with a pair of pliers and a few shots of Jack Daniel's whiskey, stood out in 1980. By mid-season, Charboneau was the subject of a song--"Go Joe Charboneau"--that reached #3 on the local charts.

He finished the season with 87 runs batted in and a .289 batting average while winning the American League Rookie of the Year award--all in spite of being stabbed with a ball-point pen by a crazed fan as he waited for the team bus on March 8. The pen penetrated an inch and hit a rib, but Charboneau played his first regular-season game just over a month later, on April 11. He missed the final six weeks of the season with a pelvis injury.

Charboneau injured his back in a headfirst slide in spring training the following year, and he never hit higher than .214 in the major leagues again. He was sent to the minors halfway through the 1981 season after hitting only .210—becoming the first Rookie of the Year to find himself back in the minors the following season—and only appeared in 22 games in 1982. He underwent back surgery twice but never fully recovered, and the Indians released him in 1983.

Charboneau now works as a minor-league hitting coach, gives hitting lessons at Fielder's Choice Baseball and regularly does autograph signings in the greater Cleveland area. He started the 2009 season as the hitting coach for the Victoria (TX) Generals, in the Texas Collegiate League. For the 2010 baseball season, he will be the hitting coach for Notre Dame College (OH), located in Cleveland.

By 2011 he was no longer for the College and became the head of the baseball program at the Parks and Recreation Department for the city of North Ridgeville, Ohio. He was involved in a bar incident on January 7, 2011.*

Charboneau was an extra in the 1984 film The Natural.

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)
• Pluto, Terry (2009-02-26). "Every rookie has a shot to make it -- just ask Super Joe Charboneau". The Plain Dealer. http://www.cleveland.com/pluto/blog/index.ssf/2009/02/every_rookie_has_a_shot_to_mak.html. Retrieved 2009-03-10. 
• Template:Http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2010/01/15/details-begin-to-emerge-in-the-joe-charboneau-investigation/accessdate=2012-02-15

Preceded by Alfredo Griffin John Castino

American League Rookie of the Year 1980

Succeeded by Dave Righetti