What he did: Ryan Klesko is one of the many Braves players in Atlanta this weekend to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the world championship team from 1995. In his second full season in the majors that year, he played a significant role in the World Series, hitting home runs in three consecutive games in Cleveland, the first major league player ever to do so on the road in the Fall Classic.
But one has to wonder just how good Klesko could have been if he had not been platooned against left-handed pitching. Early in his career, Klesko rarely played against left-handers but in that title season, he still hit 23 home runs in just 381 at-bats.
Manager Bobby Cox liked to match up his young right-handed hitters against lefties, which did not sit well with Klesko, who said, “Bobby and I were always good but I wanted to play every day and he wanted use some of his young hitters against left-handers. I think he would want any player to want to be out there every day. What it came down to is, I played for two of the best managers in the game in Bobby Cox and Bruce Bochy. I did get to hit a lot more against lefties under Bruce but the Braves gave me my chance and we won big there.’’
Klesko’s career in Atlanta lasted until 1999, filled with big hits and some towering home runs. He was nicknamed “Thumper’’ but he wasn’t supposed to be a power hitter. Instead, he was a Steve Avery-type pitcher who threw a nasty fastball.
Playing high school baseball in Orange County, Calif., scouts fought for positions behind the plate when Klesko pitched as just a sophomore. It had all started with his mother, who cleaned houses on the weekends to pay for his pitching lessons. She even built a mound in his backyard and would put on the catching equipment and catch her son. Sometimes that didn’t work out very well. She took a couple of wild pitches off the shins which kept her out of work for a few days.
In 1988, Klesko made the U.S. Junior Olympic team and threw nine scoreless innings against a team that had three future first-round picks. But soon after, he developed elbow problems and scouts stopped showing up. Always a good hitter and first baseman, Klesko drew attention from the Braves, who hoped his elbow problems would abate and took a chance on him in the 1989 draft, picking him in the fifth round. They talked him out of going to Arizona State after he displayed his hitting prowess in a batting practice that summer when the Braves were at Dodger Stadium.
Klesko signed, was sent to the rookie league at Bradenton, Fla., and he hated it. He wasn’t there long though. After just 17 games, he was promoted to Single-A Sumter and the next season hit 37 homers between Sumter and Durham, the latter considered high Single-A.
While the Braves were going from worst to first in 1991, Klesko tore up the Southern League at Double-A Greenville, hitting 14 homers and driving in 67 runs and winning the league MVP. Baseball America named him the No. 3 prospect in baseball and the following season, he was promoted to Triple-A Richmond and made a brief appearance in Atlanta as a September call-up, going hitless in 14 at-bats.
While his batting average dropped to .252 in Richmond the next year, his power numbers stayed strong and he made another September appearance in Atlanta, this time getting six hits in 17 at-bats and hitting his first two major league homers.
Continuing to work in the winter leagues as well as getting help from minor league hitting instructor Willie Stargell, Klesko came to West Palm Beach in the spring of 1994 hoping to make the big-league team. The Braves didn’t need a first baseman but with Ron Gant out after a dirt bike accident, Klesko was thrown into the competition in left field with Chipper Jones and Tony Tarasco. All three were having a good spring when Jones tore his ACL in his left knee and was lost for the season while Tarasco injured his hamstring.
That allowed Klesko to opened the season in left and in a 92 games in a strike-shortened season, he hit 17 homers and collected 47 RBIs. In 1995 with Jones healthy and moving to third base, Klesko hit .310 and accumulated 12 hits in the postseason. His best year in a Braves uniform came in 1996, when he hit a career-high 34 homers, 93 RBIs and hit .282.
In the World Series against Cleveland in ’95, one of his three homers almost fell into the hands of his mother who was sitting in the left-field seats at Jacobs Field. Klesko, however, found the person that caught the ball and his mother still has it today.
While he was playing, Klesko always loved adventure off the field, his biggest hobby being hunting and fishing. During one spring in West Palm, he talked a local SWAT team into letting him go with them on a drug raid. He was made an honorary deputy sheriff for Palm Beach County and, at the time, was considering that kind of work after he retired.
In 1999, Klesko was making $4.75 million and was traded to San Diego. Back near home, he played for the Padres for seven seasons, including making his only All-Star Game appearance in 2001, when he smashed 31 homers and had a career-high 113 RBIs. In San Diego, Bochy played him against left-handers and he continued to deliver strong power numbers every season.
He then followed Bochy to San Francisco in 2007 and after one season with the Giants he retired. Klesko finished with 278 homers, a .279 batting average and played in 62 postseason games. He hit at least 21 home runs in eight of his 13 major league seasons.
Klesko continued to go on hunting and fishing trips with former teammates after retiring. Interestingly, on the day Barry Bonds was indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in 2007, the all-time home run king with an asterisk by his name was hunting with Klesko in Colorado.
Where he lives: Klesko, now 44, lives outside Macon. He has been married to wife Kelly for seven years and has one son, Hunter.
What he does now: Klesko owns more than 7,000 acres of land from Georgia to California. He continues to invest in real estate, owning 17 rental homes, and helps raise money for a group of investors that he participates in. He also has an outdoor show on Camp Fire Stories TV.com and at one time co-hosted Hardcore Hunting TV on the Pursuit Channel on Direct TV. He dabbled in doing baseball on TV and makes an appearance from time to time at Braves spring training to help younger hitters.
On pitching in high school: "A lot of teams came to see me when I was in high school. They thought only of me as a pitcher. It had everything to do with how hard I threw. That is what they wanted. I was a good hitter in high school but they weren't focused on anything else and I played in an awful big park so it was hard to hit it out. It all worked out after hitting with the Braves at Dodger Stadium. I think they really realized then just how good I could hit and the power I had.''
On his seasons in the minors: "I remember getting to Bradenton and it was hot as crap and hot and rainy at the same time. I had never experienced that in California. There were also these big mosquitoes. I went in and told the coach I hated it, was depressed and wanted to go home. I said how do I get out of here? He said hit. So I did and I was gone very quickly.''
On learning to hit to both fields: "I was at Class AAA and I was struggling. So Willie Stargell got a hold of me for two days and showed me how I could drive the ball the other way. He spent two days with me working off the tee and from there, I had it. Being around guys like Willie and Hank Aaron really helped with my hitting.''
On his first call to Atlanta: "I think we were in Houston and it was real exciting. But at the time, my mother was having some health problems and I didn't get a hit in 14 at-bats. I didn't make the playoff roster which was disappointing but I understood. I then went to winter ball and that is where I really got better. The next year they called me up and things were different.''
On the move to left field: "When it first happened, I think I had played just three games in the minors in left. But Ron Gant had gotten hurt and they needed me to make the change. It wasn't very hard.''
On his feelings about Bobby Cox: "I always wondered early on when I was leading the team in homers and getting 30 percent less at-bats. Then when I did get to face a left-hander, I would overdo it because I felt like I needed to show Bobby I could hit them. But I understood and Bobby is one of the greatest managers ever. I think he always respected the fact that I wanted to always be out there. What manager wouldn't?''
On going to San Diego: "I was upset at first because the Braves were so good. But Bruce brought me in and said I was going to be an every-day player. I remember when (Braves general manager) John (Schuerholz) told me about the trade (a six-player deal with Bret Boone and Jason Shiel for Reggie Sanders, Wally Joyner and Quilvio Veras). He said, 'Ryan, I think you are going to be happy.' I knew then that I was going to San Diego, Anaheim or Los Angeles. It was fun going back home and I had good seasons there. I cut down on my swing and stride and things worked out.''
On his love for hunting: "I have always loved it and first started with guys like Charlie O'Brien and Chipper. I used to take Bochy turkey and dove hunting. After Bruce won his first World Series in San Francisco beating the Rangers, I took him on his first bow hunt in Texas. Like (John) Smoltz has a black book of golf courses, I have a black book of places to hunt and fish.''
On being with Bonds the day he was indicted: "His phone kept ringing and his agent's phone kept ringing. We were on the side of a mountain looking at elk when he picked up the phone finally and was told he was being indicted. The media portrayed it like he had just jumped on a plane and gotten away. But we had been at the mountains already for two days.''
On his relationship with his mother: "She is in town with me for the celebration this weekend. She has always been there for me, working two jobs and such when I was young. She was so into it when I was with the Braves. I remember after a game I would be on the phone and we lost and (Greg) Maddux had been pitching and she is yelling, 'Tell him he is over-striding.'''
On facing Maddux after he left the Braves: "One time Greg threw me a cutter in and I hit it out and when I was going around the bases, he was yelling at me that he was going to break my bat. Sure enough the next time I was up, he broke my bat.''
On this weekend's reunion: "John (Schuerholz) told (Braves alumni director and former teammate) Greg McMichael he wanted to have the strongest alumni group in the game and they have opened their arms to all of us. It has been great to be welcomed back.''
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