Bill Hance

William E. Hance

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 6' 1", Weight 190 lb.
• School University of Missouri

• Born December 31, 1960 in Rolla, MO USA

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Cather Bill Hance played in the minor leagues from 1983 to 1985. In spite of a relatively short career, he was involved in one very memorable trade.

He was drafted by the Texas Rangers in the 6th round of the 1983 amateur draft out of the University of Missouri, where he had hit .368 and .344 in his final two seasons. In his first professional season in 1983, he played 45 games for the Tri-Cities Triplets of the Northwest League and another 7 with the Tulsa Drillers of the Texas League. Combined, his batting line was .333/.443/.517 with 7 homers and 32 RBIs. In 1984, he started the year by hitting a scorching .348 in 39 games for the Burlington Rangers of the Midwest League before earning another promotion to Tulsa. However, his bat went cold after the move, as he hit .210 in 70 games the rest of the way. Still, thanks to his great start, his final numbers were still good: a batting line of .262/.363/.393 in 109 games, with 10 homers and 62 RBIs.

On January 18, 1985, he was involved in one of a handful of four-team trades in baseball history. In addition to the Rangers, the teams involved were the Milwaukee Brewers, Kansas City Royals and New York Mets, and the deal involved a number of prominent names: Cs Jim Sundberg and Don Slaught and Ps Danny Darwin, Tim Leary and Frank Wills. Hance was the only minor leaguer and the player to be named later in the big trade, going to the Brewers on January 30th. In his one season in the Brewers' system, he again hit quite well, finishing at .306/.439/.464 in 102 games with the Stockton Ports of the California League. He was returning to Class A ball after spending the majority of the previous season in AA, and the California League was known for high offensive numbers, so the numbers have to be taken with a few caveats. Still, it looked like he had a future in baseball, but he never played professionally after that, for reasons that are not clear.