Shane Victorino

Shane Victorino
Victorino running the bases for the Phillies
Philadelphia Phillies – No. 8
Outfielder
Born: November 30, 1980 (1980-11-30) Wailuku, Hawaii
Bats: Switch	Throws: Right
MLB debut
April 2, 2003 for the San Diego Padres
Career statistics (through 2011)
Batting average	.279
Home runs	79
Runs batted in	354
Stolen bases	162
Teams
San Diego Padres (2003) Philadelphia Phillies (2005–present)
Career highlights and awards
World Series champion (2008) 3× Gold Glove Award winner (2008, 2009, 2010) 2× All-Star (2009, 2011)

Shane Patrick Victorino (born November 30, 1980 in Wailuku, Hawaii) is an outfielder in Major League Baseball who plays for the Philadelphia Phillies. He is a switch-hitter and throws right-handed.

Career

Victorino is a former Hawaii state high school track and field champ (Spring, 1999) for St. Anthony High School in the 100 m, 200 m, and 400 m dashes. His 100 m time (10.80) was a state meet record. He has been consistently clocked at 3.7–3.8 sec. from home to first right-handed. He also has a strong arm, with 24 career outfield assists.

Minor leagues

Victorino was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1999 in the sixth round of the 1999 amateur draft out of St. Anthony High School in Wailuku, Hawaii. He spent most of the 1999 through 2005 seasons in the minor leagues.

San Diego Padres

Victorino was selected as a Rule 5 draft pick in 2002 by the San Diego Padres, played 36 games for the Padres, but was eventually returned to the Dodgers. Victorino was again selected in the 2005 Rule 5 Draft by the Philadelphia Phillies. He again failed to stay with the major league club, and was offered back to the Dodgers. The Dodgers declined, so the Phillies retained his contract and assigned him to their minor league club in Scranton-Wilkes Barre.

Philadelphia Phillies

Victorino earned the nicknames "The Flyin' Hawaiian" and "The Pineapple Express" with his island heritage and great speed.

Victorino became a starting player when he replaced Bobby Abreu, who was traded to the New York Yankees midway through the 2006 season, in right field. He then replaced Aaron Rowand who left by free agency to the San Francisco Giants, in center field.

On June 3, 2007 the Phillies celebrated "Shane Victorino Day" with Victorino hula figurines, and flew his father in from Maui for the game. Victorino ended the day's game with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth against the Giants.

2008 playoffs

Shane Victorino during the 2008 World Series parade, giving the shaka sign

Victorino at first base

Victorino in right field at Bright House Field

In the 2008 NLDS Game 2 against the Milwaukee Brewers, Victorino hit a grand slam (his first ever in the major leagues, and the Phillies first post-season grand slam) off of CC Sabathia in the bottom of the 2nd inning. Victorino also became the first player in post-season history to have a home run, a double, and two steals in a single game.

Victorino's success carried over into the 2008 NLCS, as he continued to make crucial hits and defensive plays for the Phillies. In Game 2 he was 2 for 5 with 4 RBIs. After the game, Victorino was informed that his grandmother had died. Game 3 saw Victorino in the midst of controversy. After being brushed back by Hiroki Kuroda, Victorino began to gesture towards the non-English-speaking pitcher that it was alright that he throw inside, just as long as he did not do so at his head. After grounding out to second, he continued to gesture at Kuroda and benches from both teams cleared. Victorino quickly became the villain for Dodger fans and was booed each time he came up to bat. After the game, Victorino was fined $2,500 by the league for his part in the incident. Victorino was quick to silence the crowd during Game 4 when he hit a game-tying two run home run. In their first trip to the fall classic since 1993, the Phillies went on to win the World Series by defeating the Tampa Bay Rays.

2009 season

On July 9, 2009 Victorino won the All-Star Game Final Vote with a record breaking 15.6 million votes, and was named the 33rd member of the National League's 2009 All-Star team. He was the first Hawaiian-born positional player to be named to an All-Star team. On August 12, in a game against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field, Victorino was hit with a full cup of beer while making a catch. A complaint was filed with the Chicago police by Victorino and the Cubs, and the fan was charged with two misdemeanor counts. On November 4, 2009, Victorino grounded out against Mariano Rivera to finish the World Series. The Yankees won 7–3. For the 2009 season, Victorino's 13 triples led the majors, and he won his second consecutive Rawlings Gold Glove Award in the outfield. After the season, the Phillies and Victorino agreed to a three-year contract extension, avoiding salary arbitration and buying out his first year of free agency.

2010 playoffs

In the first inning of the clinching Game 3 of the NL division series against Cincinnati, Victorino made a superb running-and-reaching catch of a line drive in the alley. Without that catch, the game would have been tied, 1–1, with the hitter now on second and a possible big inning for the Reds. Instead, the catch preserved a 1–0 lead.

2011 season

In 2011, he had the lowest range factor of all major league center fielders, at 2.32.

Honors and awards

In 2008, Victorino received the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award. In 2010, he received the Tug McGraw "Good Guy Award" from the Philadelphia chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America. In September 2011, he was named the winner of the Branch Rickey Award by the Rotary Club of Denver.

• Rawlings Gold Glove Award – 2008, 2009, 2010

Personal

Victorino is the son of a Maui County councilman and is an Eagle Scout. Victorino is married to the former Melissa Smith. Victorino and Smith wed in November 2009. On March 30, 2007, Smith gave birth to their first child, a daughter, named Kali'a Makenna Victorino. On October 1, 2010, Smith gave birth to their son Kingston Shane. During the off-seasons they live together in Las Vegas.

Victorino is of Portuguese, Hawaiian, Japanese, and Chinese descent. His last name is Portuguese and was originally spelled with an 'e' at the end. In an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2011, he explained "My name is really Victorine, which is Portuguese. My great-, great-grandpa, when he was in the war, they spelled his name with an O at the end instead of an E, and it became Victorino." His cousin is a Cincinnati Reds pitcher Kanekoa Texeira.

See also

• List of Major League Baseball triples champions

External links

• Career statistics and player information from MLB, or ESPN, or Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)

Preceded by Mike Timlin

Lou Gehrig Memorial Award 2008

Succeeded by Albert Pujols