Brent Mayne

Brent Danem Mayne

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 6' 1", Weight 190 lb.
• School Orange Coast Junior College, California State University, Fullerton
• High School Costa Mesa High School
• Debut September 18, 1990
• Final Game October 2, 2004
• Born April 19, 1968 in Loma Linda, CA USA

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Biographical Information

Catcher Brent Mayne was signed as a first-round draft choice by the Kansas City Royals and scout Floyd Chandler in 1989 and was in the majors by the end of 1990. He claimed a full-time job in 1991 and split time behind the plate with Mike Macfarlane between 1991 and 1995. Mayne was the defensive half of the duo, showing good defense behind the dish but never hitting higher than .257 or more than 3 homers during that period. Macfarlane was not as good a catcher, but was a much stronger hitter. The Royals resolved the issue by trading Mayne to the New York Mets before the 1996 season for failed former top prospect Al Shirley. Mayne went to bat only 99 times in his lone season as a Met, became a free agent and signed with the Seattle Mariners. He was released in spring training, and with his career in crisis, he landed with the Oakland Athletics and got back on track with his best season to date, hitting .289 with 6 home runs in 1997, beating George Williams out of the regular catching job.

Mayne then signed a contract as a free agent with the San Francisco Giants in 1998 and was the team's most-used catcher over the next two seasons, making a solid contribution at the bat in 1999 when he hit .301 with 32 doubles in 117 games (.301/.389/.419). He then signed with the Colorado Rockies to be their starting catcher in 2000 and posted a nearly identical batting line (.301/.381/.418). It was that season that he made his most famous appearance, when he was called to pitch in an emergency on August 22nd; the Rockies had run out of available pitchers in an extra-inning game against the Atlanta Braves, and Mayne had been kept out of the starting line-up by an injury to his left (non-throwing) shoulder. He pitched a scoreless 12th inning, then was lifted for a pinch hitter in the bottom of the frame - the injury prevented him from swinging a bat correctly - and the Rockies scored a run for a 7-6 win. He thus became the first position player to to win a game since Rocky Colavito in 1968. It would not be as long until the next time the event happened as it was only 11 years after Mayne until Wilson Valdez got a win.

Midway through the 2001 season, Mayne was traded to the Royals for pitcher Mac Suzuki and catcher Sal Fasano after the emergence of young Ben Petrick as the Rockies' catcher of the future. He played regularly for the Royals over the remainder of 2001 and all of 2002 and 2003, but his average dipped below .250 all three years. That second stint in a Royals uniform gave him the third most games caught in team history, behind Macfarlane and John Wathan. He played one more season, performing back-up duties for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers in 2004 and retired after that, but not before seeing the only postseason action of his career, going 2 for 6 in four games against the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLDS. For his career, he batted .263/.332/.348 in 1,279 games over 15 seasons.

Mayne played for his father, Mike Mayne [1], in junior college.

He is the author of a self-published book on catching techniques entitled The Art of Catching, published in 2008.

Related Sites

• Brent Mayne at the SABR Bio Project
• Brent Mayne's official web site and information on his book