Dave Winfield

Did You Know?

• On Thanksgiving Day 1981, Winfield sang 'I'll Take Manhattan' atop the Big Apple Float at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
• In 1985, the video game Dave Winfield's Batter Up! was released on computers by Avant-Garde, featuring a 55-page manual co-authored by Winfield.
• Winfield and a handful of other striking players appeared as themselves in a November 27, 1994, episode of Married... with Children during the 1994–95 MLB strike.

College career

Dave Winfield went to the University of Minnesota on a full baseball scholarship in 1969 and played both baseball and basketball for the Golden Gophers. His basketball team won the Big Ten Conference championship in 1971–72, the school’s first outright title in 53 years. During the 1972–73 season, he was in a brawl when Ohio State visited Minnesota. He also played summer college baseball for the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks in 1971 and 1972, earning MVP honors in 1972. In 1973, he was named an All-American and was the College World Series MVP as a pitcher. After college, four teams in three sports drafted him in 1973: the San Diego Padres (MLB), Atlanta Hawks (NBA), Utah Stars (ABA), and Minnesota Vikings (NFL). He is one of only five players ever drafted by three professional sports and one of three drafted by four leagues.

Professional career

The San Diego Padres selected Winfield with the fourth overall pick of the 1973 MLB draft. He signed and was promoted directly to the majors, playing right field to use his powerful arm. He batted .277 in 56 games his first season. By 1977 he became an All-Star, batting .275 with 25 home runs, and was an All-Star every year through 1988.

In 1978 he was named team captain, finished 10th in MVP voting, and had his first .300 season. In 1979 he led the league with 118 RBIs, won a Gold Glove, and finished third in MVP voting. In his final Padres season (1980) he played all 162 games, batting .276 with 20 home runs and a Gold Glove. In December 1980, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner signed Winfield to a ten-year, $23 million contract, making him the highest-paid player in baseball.

The $2.3 million annual average set a record, more than doubling the previous mark. Steinbrenner mistakenly thought the contract was for $16 million, misunderstanding a cost-of-living clause, which led to a public feud.

Post-playing career and appearances

In 1996, Dave Winfield became a studio analyst for the new MLB on Fox Saturday broadcasts. He spent over a decade with the San Diego Padres, serving as executive vice president and senior advisor from 2001 to 2013. In 2006, he worked with conductor Bob Thompson to launch The Baseball Music Project, a concert series celebrating baseball history where he hosted and narrated. Winfield took part in the final Old Timers' Day and the last game ceremony at Yankee Stadium in 2008.

He came up with the idea for a special MLB draft of surviving Negro league players, held on June 5, to address their exclusion from the majors. He joined ESPN's Baseball Tonight as an analyst in 2009. In 2013, he became a special assistant to the MLB Players Association's executive director. During President Obama's 2016 trip to Cuba, Winfield represented MLB, giving a press conference in Havana and attending the exhibition game. In 2022, he delivered Bud Fowler's Hall of Fame induction speech.

Activism

Winfield was the first active athlete to create a philanthropic foundation, the David M. Winfield Foundation. He began giving back in 1973 by buying blocks of tickets to Padres games for families who could not afford them, in a program called 'pavilions.' He added health clinics by partnering with San Diego's Scripps Clinic, which brought a mobile clinic to the stadium parking lot. In his hometown of St. Paul, he started a scholarship program that continues today.

In 1977, he organized his efforts into an official 501(c)(3) charitable organization. As his salary increased, foundation programs expanded to include holiday dinner giveaways and national scholarships. In 1978, San Diego hosted the All-Star game; Winfield bought his usual block of pavilion tickets and inadvertently invited 'all the kids of San Diego' on a radio station. To accommodate the crowd, the foundation brought the kids into batting practice, and the All-Star open-practice has since been adopted by MLB.

When he joined the Yankees, he set aside $3 million of his salary for the foundation, which partnered with Hackensack University Medical Center to found the Dave Winfield Nutrition Center and with Merck Pharmaceuticals to create a bilingual substance abuse prevention program called 'Turn it Around.' The foundation became a point of contention in Steinbrenner's feud with Winfield; Steinbrenner alleged mishandling of funds and held back payments, leading to court battles, but the foundation ultimately received all its funding and the alleged improprieties proved unfounded.