Brooks Kieschnick

Michael Brooks Kieschnick was born in Robstown, Texas, a western suburb of Corpus Christi. Kieschnick was a two-way star at Mary Carroll High School, playing first base while not pitching. Batting left and throwing right, Kieschnick was named the All-South Texas Player of the Year, going 12-0 on the mound with an ERA of 0.62. He also batted .466 and hit nine home runs.

After verbally committing to Mississippi State University, he instead elected to attend the University of Texas. There, he won the Dick Howser Award for best collegiate baseball player two consecutive seasons, the only player to ever accomplish that feat. In three years in Texas, Kieschnick went 34-8 on the mound with a 3.05 ERA and hit 43 homers while batting .360. Kieschnick was picked tenth overall in the first round of the 1993 MLB Amateur Draft by the Chicago Cubs.

Kieschnick spent four years in the minors for the Cubs, playing mostly at first or in the outfield. He began the 1996 season in Chicago, but after appearing only as a pinch-hitter the first two weeks, was sent down to Triple-A Iowa to make room on the Cubs roster for Dave Magadan. Kieschnick returned to Chicago later that summer and performed well in limited action, slashing .345/.406/.517 across 29 at-bats, including his first major league home run.

In 1997, Kieschnick once again broke camp with Chicago and had a couple big games, including a pair of two-hit games and one monster game against the Montreal Expos, going 3-for-4 with two HRs and six RBIs in late April. After going 1-for-26 in May, he was demoted once again to Iowa, where he hit 21 HRs in 360 at-bats before a September call-up. After the season, he was selected in the 1997 Expansion Draft by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

The next four seasons, Kieschnick bounced around, playing mostly in the minors for Tampa Bay, Cincinnati, and Colorado. He did play in the bigs for the Reds (2000) and Rockies (2001) but only appeared in a combined 49 games. After playing in the White Sox organization in 2002, he was signed by the Brewers as a free agent.

Kieschnick spent two years in Milwaukee, playing three games in the outfield while appearing in 74 games on the mound, pitching to an ERA+ of 95 and a FIP of 4.13, which wasn’t bad, considering he had only amassed a total of 48 professional innings prior to his arrival in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee released Kieschnick in early 2005. He hooked up with the Houston Astros and played in the minors for them but then decided to retire prior to the 2006 season.

• Was named Baseball America's College Player of the Year in 1993
• In a College World Series game win over Oklahoma State on June 5, 1993, Kieschnick threw 172 pitches
• In 2009, his number 23 jersey was retired by the University of Texas