RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We usually remember baseball players for the number of home runs they hit or how many World Series they won. Don Baylor is a little bit different.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
That is not to say that he did not get hits and home runs, but he probably will be most remembered for the ball hitting him. He was a master of getting plunked. By the time he retired from the major leagues in 1988, he'd established a modern-day record for being hit by pitches.
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UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #1: A record set by Don Baylor. For the 244th time, he was hit by a pitch in his major league career.
GREENE: Two hundred and forty-fourth time. That was the year before he retired, when Baylor was playing for the Boston Red Sox.
MARTIN: Later that season, Baylor was traded to the Minnesota Twins as they were beefing up for the World Series. His first home run for the Twins helped win the sixth game in that year's series.
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UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST #2: 5-3 Cards. Baylor the tying run at the plate with Gaetti at second. To deep left field, and that one is gone.
GREENE: All right. Don Baylor came from Austin, Texas. He was one of three black students to integrate O. Henry Junior High School in 1961. He was the first African-American to be offered a football scholarship to the University of Texas in Austin, but he quickly made the switch to baseball. And by the time Baylor graduated in 1967, he was drafted by the Orioles.
MARTIN: After his career playing in the major leagues, he managed the Colorado Rockies. Later, he became the first black manager of the Chicago Cubs. But he told member station WBUR back in 2000, he was barely conscious of breaking the race barrier.
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DON BAYLOR: When I stood before the press - and someone brought it up and it hit me right between the eyes that wow, you know, it was something that I really never thought about with the coach at all. And it was a pretty bold move on their part to partake in that. So it was a tremendous honor for me.
MARTIN: Baylor died in his hometown of Austin, Texas, yesterday at the age of 68.
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