Darren White

Darren White

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 200 lb.

• Born May 19, 1975 in Adelaide, South Australia Australia

BR register page

Biographical Information

Darren White played in Australia and the US and for the Australian national team.

He debuted in the 1992-1993 Australian Baseball League; the teenager hit .172/.226/.172 as a backup for the Adelaide Giants. In 1993-1994, he batted .274/.349/.363. The next season, his batting line was .294/.326/.417. He continued to develop in 1995-1996, hitting .325/.392/.675 with 38 runs, 42 RBI and 15 homers in 46 games for Adelaide. He was 4th in the league in slugging (between Craig Watts and Kevin Curtis), 3rd in homers (2 behind Watts and Gary White), tied for 5th in runs and tied with Watts and Andrew Scott for 2nd in extra-base hits (27, 7 behind Gary White). He joined Stoney Briggs and Aaron Harvey as the second-team All-Star outfielders; Grant McDonald, David Hynes and Michael Dunn were the first-team.

White hit .305/.375/.603 with 40 RBI in 47 games for the 1996-1997 Giants. He moved to the Melbourne Reds in 1997-1998 but slumped to .220/.338/.432 and was benched, though he got to play on the champion squad when Derek Shumpert got hurt. He rebounded to .304/.374/.580 with 11 homers and 31 RBI in 43 games in the 1998-1999 ABL. He finished 5th in slugging and 3rd in home runs (behind Adam Burton and Brandon Pollard). He again was a second-team All-Star outfielder, this time alongside Vernon Wells and Clayton Byrne and behind Pollard, Matt Quatraro and Chip Sell. In the ABL's initial ten-year run, his 48 home runs were tied for 18th with MLB All-Star Dave Nilsson. For Adelaide's All-Decade team, he was picked as one of the starting outfielders along with Dunn and Barrie Bahnert.

He made his US debut with the 1999 Cook County Cheetahs, posting a batting line of .294/.370/.433 with 36 RBI in 64 games. He had five outfield assists to one error. The ABL was replaced by the International Baseball League of Australia in 1999-2000 and White hit only .226/.354/.283 for the Victoria Aces. In 2000, he was at .262/.321/.394 for Cook County, with 11 assists but also 11 errors. He stole 18 bases in 21 tries and missed the Frontier League top-ten in steals by two. He did not play the next year. The IBLA folded and was replaced by the revived Claxton Shield. He went 5 for 20 with a double, three walks, six runs and four RBI for South Australia. He tied for 4th in the event in runs. He was 1 for 15 with two walks the next year, his last.

Playing for Australia in the 2003 Oceania Championship, he was 3 for 11 with a triple, five walks, four runs and three RBI as the team won a spot in the 2004 Olympics (where they would take Silver for the only time, through 2020). Only Brendan Kingman scored more runs in the event and he tied Kingman for the most walks and Ben Wigmore and Jimmy Reyes for the only triples.

Darren batted .277/.345/.412 in the US and .280 with a .485 slugging in Australia.

Sources

• Flintoff & Dunn Australian Baseball Almanac
• Baseball Oceania history PDF