Athletes - Bobby Kielty

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Bobby Kielty

	Athletes - Bobby Kielty

Robert Michael ("Bobby") Kielty (born August 5, 1976) is an American born outfielder for the Oakland Athletics.

Kielty was born in Fontana, California. He graduated from Canyon Springs High School (Moreno Valley, California) in 1994. After high school, he attended the University of Southern California from 1994 to 1995, Riverside Junior College from 1996 to 1997, and the University of Mississippi from 1997 to 1998. Kielty was named MVP of the Cape Cod League after leading the league in batting average (.384) and RBI (45). Kielty was also named 1998 Summer Player of the Year by Baseball America. In 1999, he was signed by the Minnesota Twins as an amateur free agent.

In 1999, Kielty began his minor league career with the Quad City River Bandits of the Midwest League. An eye problem forced him to miss more than a month of action (May 21-June 24), and he was disabled with a strained right hamstring (August 25-September 3). In only 69 games, Kielty batted .294 with 13 HR and 43 RBI and 12 SB. He homered in 3 consecutive games from August 14-16.

Kielty was promoted to the New Britain Rock Cats of the Eastern League in 2000. He hit a grand slam against Portland on April 8, and another against Erie on May 26. He played in the Eastern League all-star game held in Bowie, Maryland. Bobby led the team in home runs (14), was 2nd in RBI (65) and 3rd in hits (118). His 98 walks led the league. He also had a .262 batting average for the season. On August 26th, Kielty was promoted to the Salt Lake Stingers of the Pacific Coast League, where he played in only 9 games, and hit .242 with 2 RBI. He was rated the Twins 8th best prospect, and the 9th best prospect in the Eastern League.

Kielty then began the 2001 season with the Twins newly relocated Pacific Coast League team in Edmonton with the Edmonton Trappers. Then in early April, the Minnesota Twins selected his contract and Kielty made his major league debut on April 10th against the Detroit Tigers. On April 13th, he got his first major league hit off of Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox. The Twins optioned Kielty back down to Edmonton on April 21st, but was recalled by the team on July 31st. He hit his first career home run off of Chris Carpenter of the Toronto Blue Jays on August 2nd. Bobby then found himself in Edmonton again on August 17th, but then returned to the Twins on September 3rd when he was recalled by the team again and played in 28 of the Twins last 37 games. Overall with Edmonton, he finished with a .287 average, 12 HR and 50 RBI, while with Minnesota he hit .250 with 2 HR and 14 RBI.

Kielty once again started the 2002 season in Edmonton, but only appeared in 2 games (.429, 0 HR, 0 RBI) before the Twins called him up. On April 14th, he hit a 2 run pinch homer against Detroit. On May 17th against the New York Yankees, Kielty recorded his first career 4 hit game, and on June 26th against the White Sox, he had his first ever 4 RBI game. Kielty made his post-season debut against the Oakland Athletics in the ALDS, going 0 for 4 in the series. He then went 0 for 3 with a walk and RBI in the ALCS against the Anaheim Angels. After the season, he won the Bill Boni Award as the Twins most outstanding rookie, and he finished 4th in the American League for AL Rookie of the Year. Kielty finished the year with a .291 average, 12 HR and 46 RBI in 112 games.

Kielty began the 2003 season with a 12 game hitting streak with the Twins, and had his first career 2 homer game on April 17th against Detroit. On May 16th against the White Sox, Kielty had a career high 5 RBI game, and on May 27th against Oakland, he hit a game winning pinch hit 3 run homer in the 8th inning off of Barry Zito. On July 16th, Minnesota traded Kielty to the Toronto Blue Jays for LF Shannon Stewart. Bobby made his Blue Jays debut the next day against the Boston Red Sox, going 3 for 4 with a home run and 3 RBI. On September 21st against the Baltimore Orioles, he had his first career 2 stolen base game. Kielty's final Twins stats were a .252 average, 9 HR and 32 RBI, then in Toronto he hit .233 with 4 HR and 25 RBI. His combined stats were .244, 13 HR and 57 RBI. In the off-season, the Blue Jays traded Kielty to Oakland for starting pitcher Ted Lilly.

Bobby was the Athletics opening day left fielder in 2004, and through May 19th, he was hitting .250 with 4 HR and 14 RBI. After then, he hit .190 with 3 HR and 17 RBI for the rest of the season, ending up with a .214 average, 7 HR and 31 RBI. All 7 of his home runs gave the A's the lead. Kielty hit his first career walk off home run on June 1st against the White Sox.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Bobby Kielty ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Bobby Kielty; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay