{"id":1714,"date":"2015-07-20T12:06:00","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T16:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/?p=1714"},"modified":"2025-01-28T09:18:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T14:18:53","slug":"never-bigger-than-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/2015\/07\/never-bigger-than-the-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Never Bigger Than the Game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rather than create a cult of personality around himself, former Pirate baseball player Craig Biggio played hard and respected the game. He ended his pro career in elite historical company.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"BiggioSheadugout\"<\/a>The painful act of being hit by a pitched baseball is called, in the parlance of the sport, \u201ctaking one for the team.\u201d Get a purple bruise on your arm, but reach base, maybe score a run and help your team win. How fitting then that Craig Biggio, the former Seton Hall All-American, would finish his magical 20-year major league baseball career in September 2007 as the modern era\u2019s all-time leader in being hit by pitches. It\u2019s fitting because Biggio \u2014 who spent his entire career with the Houston Astros \u2014 was, according to those who were associated with him, the ultimate team player.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a guy thought he was bigger than the team, he was in trouble with me,\u201d said Mike Sheppard, Biggio\u2019s baseball coach at Seton Hall, now head coach emeritus. \u201cCraig was never that way. Craig was a team player. He was a kid with drive. He had a great hustler\u2019s heart, and a lot of speed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biggio hustled all the way to the end of his career. In a game against the Colorado Rockies on June 28, 2007 in Houston, Biggio hit a single off Aaron Cook, then was thrown out at second base trying to hustle it into a double. No worry. The Minute Maid Park crowd erupted in applause, and Biggio\u2019s Astros teammates mobbed him on the field, for with that hit Biggio had become just the 27th player in the 131-year history of the major leagues to collect 3,000 base hits in a career. He ended his career with 3,060 hits, 20th-most in a career.<\/p>\n

Biggio also ended his career with 668 doubles, fifth most in history, and his 146 runs scored in the 1997 season were the most a player had scored in a year for the previous 65 seasons. But to Biggio, his career was about much more than just the numbers. He wasn\u2019t the most gifted member of the 3,000-hit club; in fact, just two of the 27 members had a lower lifetime batting average than his rather modest .281, so the fact that he reached such a lofty plateau was a testimony to his drive, his work ethic and his willingness to play through injuries throughout the years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be remembered as a guy who respected the game, who played the game the right way,\u201d said Biggio as he sat in the visitor\u2019s dugout before a September game at Shea Stadium in New York. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to be bigger than the game, and I wanted to be a good role model for the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Biggio comes across as an All-American type of guy, well, that\u2019s just the way he is. What you see is what you get.<\/p>\n

\"Sept.<\/a>
Sept. 7, 2007; Greg Biggio and the Astros at Shea Stadium with former SHU coach Mike Sheppard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\u201cYou simply couldn\u2019t ask for a greater representative of Seton Hall University than Craig Biggio has been through the years,\u201d said Joe Quinlan, Seton Hall\u2019s athletic director, who was among a busload of more than 50 Seton Hall alumni and boosters who attended that September game at Shea Stadium.<\/p>\n

Seton Hall was crucial to Biggio\u2019s career, he says. \u201cI never would have made it if I had gone pro when I was drafted out of high school,\u201d he said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t mature enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biggio did much more with his fame as a ball-player, however, than wax eloquent about being a guy who respected the game. In a manner similar to the ethos of the University he attended, Biggio has devoted a great deal of time to helping his fellow man. In 1990, when teammate Larry Andersen was traded away from the Astros, Biggio decided to take Andersen\u2019s place as a fundraising representative for the Sunshine Kids, a Houston-area support organization for children with cancer and their families.<\/p>\n

Seventeen years and more than $2.5 million in fundraising later, Biggio is synonymous with the Sunshine Kids. In 1997, he was given the Branch Rickey Award for community service. Last year, Biggio won the Hutch Award, given annually by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, presented to the major league player who \u201cbest exemplifies Hutch\u2019s fighting spirit and competitive desire.\u201d As the magazine goes to press, Biggio is among the finalists for major league baseball\u2019s Roberto Clemente Award, its highest honor for community service.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to treat people how you want to be treated yourself,\u201d Biggio said in encapsulating his philosophy of giving. \u201cI enjoy giving back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even in smaller ways, Biggio has always given of himself. Jim Duffy, currently an assistant baseball coach at Seton Hall, was drafted by the Houston organization after his college career ended in 1996. He introduced himself to Biggio in spring training the next year as a fellow former Pirate. The next few days, things started showing up in Duffy\u2019s locker, like extra baseball bats and batting gloves. The clubhouse attendant told Duffy they\u2019d come from Biggio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just the kind of guy he is,\u201d Duffy said. \u201cThere are hundreds of stories like that.\u201d <\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in the Fall 2007 Seton Hall magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rather than create a cult of personality around himself, former Pirate baseball player Craig Biggio played hard and respected the game. He ended his pro career in elite historical company.<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingNever Bigger Than the Game<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":1715,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,10],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-1714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-sports","tag-baseball","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1714"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4825,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1714\/revisions\/4825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}