[Terry D]

Mike Patterson, a Santa Monica native, spent six years in the minors before finally breaking in with the A's in 1981. Patterson's minor league numbers were consistently good, with OPS in the 700-800 range; he showed good speed and good SB percentage in his first three years but slowed down after than (injury?). His HR output wasn't super, but he hit quite a few doubles and drew some walks in his best years. I can't find minor league fielding stats for him and his MLB fielding doesn't appear to have been very good, but he still looked like a player who could have done the job if given the chance. He opened '81 with the A's, subbing for the fabulous Henderson-Murphy-Armas outfield. Mike hit well in twelve games (25 PA) for the A's, posting a .348 average and .878 OPS, but when May came Billy Martin chose to swap Mike to the Yankees as part of a deal for a couple of pinstripers, pitcher Tom Underwood and 1B Jim Spencer. Mike got only 9 PA for the Yankees, but he hit well for them and did the same in 18 PA in 1982. He should have made it, and I don't know why he didn't. But this was the Steinbrenner era, when rationality was in short supply in Yankees Stadium. Somebody (Merkle?) posted a good color shot of Mike as a Yankee here, but there have been no images of him as an A. Until now, that is. I found several of him in California newspapers, of which these two are much the best.