Dusty Napoleon

Michael Dusty Napoleon

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 6' 2", Weight 210 lb.

• School University of Iowa
• High School New Trier High School

• Born May 21, 1986 in Park Ridge, IL USA

BR minors page

Biographical Information

Dusty Napoleon peaked at AAA in a four-season professional career.

Napoleon was the 2004 Chicago Sun-Times Athlete of the Year after setting school records for career passing touchdowns and passing yards in football (he was All-State in football) and also starring in baseball. His father was his high school coach. At Iowa, he hit .290/.348/.410 as a freshman, .248/.339/.333 as a sophomore and .354/.491/.506 as a junior, with 44 runs and 56 RBI in 53 games. He was second in the Big 10 Conference in OBP (behind Ryne White), tied for third in RBI (with Lars Davis) and first in walks (50, 9 more than runner-up Nate Recknagel). He was taken by the Oakland A's in the 19th round of the 2007 amateur draft; Kevin Mello was the scout.

Dusty hit .235/.360/.294 for the 2007 Vancouver Canadians, backing up at first base and catcher. In 2008, he was with Vancouver (.244/.372/.340, 41 BB in 61 G) and the Kane County Cougars (.205/.345/.227 in 16 G). He was the main first baseman for Vancouver and was third in the Northwest League in walks behind David Cooper and Thomas Field. He lost the Moniker Madness finale to Will Startup. With the 2009 Cougars, he struggled to make contact but drew walks as a backup C-1B (.218/.367/.271, 51 BB in 79 G). He easily won Moniker Madness in 2009, beating out Beamer Weems 80% to 20% in the final round. An organizational backup in 2010, he got into 22 games between the Cougars (2 for 5, 4 BB, 2B), the Stockton Ports (4 for 28, 12 BB), Midland Rockhounds (2 for 10, 3 BB, 2B) and Sacramento RiverCats (3 for 13, 2B, HR, 5 BB) for a .444 OBP and .196 average in 81 plate appearances. The walking man produced at a .227/.337/.297 clip in 848 plate appearances over 220 minor league games, with 76 runs, 33 doubles, 65 RBI and 144 walks. He fielded .984 in 98 games at 1B and .988 in 62 at C (with 10 passed balls and 18 caught stealing in 72 tries).

He returned to Iowa as volunteer assistant coach in 2011 then was hitting coach for Western Illinois University in 2012-2013, and Concordia University Chicago in 2014-2015. He then moved to Northwestern University in 2016.

Sources

• Western Illinois bio
• MILB.com
• The Baseball Cube