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John David Wathan (; born October 4, 1949) is a former Major League Baseball catcher and manager for the Kansas City Royals. In 1982, he stole 36 bases,〔(A catcher with the soul of a thief )〕 breaking the single-season record for catchers set by Ray Schalk in 1916 despite his suffering a fractured ankle earlier in the season.〔(Royals' Wathan out with ankle injury )〕 Wathan, nicknamed "The Duke" for his dead-on impersonations of John Wayne, was drafted in the first round, fourth overall in the 1971 MLB Draft from the University of San Diego, where he played college baseball for the Toreros in 1968–70. Wathan played ten seasons with the Royals from to where he played in 860 games, averaging a career .261 batting average with 21 home runs and 261 RBIs. Wathan has his best season in in which he played in 126 games, and had a .305 batting average. After he retired, Wathan coached for the Royals in 1986 before becoming the manager of Kansas City's AAA Omaha Royals farm club and he was promoted manager for the big-league Royals on August 28, . He managed five seasons in Kansas City, having two winning seasons in and and finishing second in the American League West both times. He was fired early in the season after a 15–22 start.〔(Royals fire John Wathan )〕 In , Wathan began the season as the third-base coach of the California Angels, but he was named acting manager midway through the campaign when Buck Rodgers was badly hurt in a bus accident and took a medical leave of absence. Wathan led the Angels to a 39–50 record until Rodgers was well enough to return. He spent as a Boston Red Sox coach, worked as a color analyst on Royals telecasts in and , and has worked as a scout and minor league instructor for a number of organizations since. In -07, Wathan was a roving baserunning and bunting instructor in Kansas City's farm system, and in 2008 he served the Royals as a special assistant to the director of player development. Two of John's sons, Derek and Dusty, played professional baseball. Derek played minor league baseball from 1998 to 2008, while Dusty played briefly for the Royals in 2002 and currently the manager of the Reading Phillies, an affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies. ==See also== *List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Wathan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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