Baseball Player Profiles: Dave Winfield

Although in his 22 seasons of Major League Baseball experience Dave Winfield only led the league in an offensive category once (he led the N.L. in RBI's with 118 in 1979) he was still widely considered one of the most prolific offensive baseball players of his time. The eye-popping statistics compiled by other baseball players escaped the grasp of Winfield's talent, but in the area of consistency season after season Winfield was always a force to be reckoned with by opponents.

As a student at the University of Minnesota Dave Winfield was a star athlete, both as a baseball and basketball player. After graduation he was drafted in professional basketball by the Atlanta Hawks of the NBA and the Utah Stars of the ABA, by the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL, and by the San Diego Padres of baseball in the first round. Winfield was the type of athlete every professional sports team desired, and after signing with the San Diego Padres went directly to the major leagues and never played a game in the minors. In his rookie season of 1973, Winfield hit for a respectable .277 average with three home runs in 56 games.

Dave Winfield played with San Diego, the New York Yankees, California Angels, Toronto Blue Jays, Minnesota Twins and Cleveland Indians, with most of his career spent in Sand Diego and New York. In his career, Winfield batted over .300 four times, had 8 seasons of over 100 runs batted in, 15 seasons of over 20 home runs, and scored over 100 runs three times. Dave Winfield was named an all-star 12 times, won 7 gold gloves, and won 6 Silver Slugger Awards. Winfield retired with career totals of 3,110 hits, 540 doubles, 465 home runs, 1,833 runs batted in and 1,669 runs scored.

In 2001 the San Diego Padres retired Winfield's number 31 jersey, and he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

For over 30 years Dave Winfield has given back to the community by founding the Dave Winfield Foundation, which serves the needs of disadvantaged youth and their families. Winfield has always been generous with his time and money, and possesses an extremely strong social conscious.

Dave Winfield currently serves as an Executive Vice President/Senior Adviser for the San Diego Padres, and does broadcasting work as an analyst for ESPN on television.