Mitch Meluskey

Mitchell Wade Meluskey (born September 18, 1973) is a retired professional baseball player. He played all or part of five seasons in Major League Baseball, between 1998 and 2003, for the Houston Astros and Detroit Tigers, primarily as a catcher.

Meluskey played his entire career in the National League with the Astros except for 8 games with Detroit in 2002. He is best remembered by Astros fans for punching fellow Astro Matt Mieske in the eye during batting practice in on June 11, 2000. Meluskey was late for his turn to hit and then attempted to cut in front of Mieske. Heated words were exchanged and Meluskey proceeded to punch Mieske in the eye. Immediately afterwards Meluskey was hustled from the field while Mieske was treated on the ground for his injury. Astros star player Craig Biggio was upset over the incident and said, "To me, it has everything to do with respect. You know, some people have it and some people don't. I'm going to leave it at that. There's no way in the world something like that should happen." [1]

On April 20, 1999, Meluskey hit his first major league home run off of Chicago Cubs pitcher Matt Karchner.

In 2000, he finished fifth in balloting for the National League Rookie of the Year award after hitting .300 with 14 home runs and 69 runs batted in. That same year, Mike Piazza had to drop out of the All-Star game after being hit in the head by a Roger Clemens fastball on July 8, 3 days before the All-Star game. NL Manager Bobby Cox wanted Meluskey to be Piazza's replacement, but was unable to contact Meluskey due to Mitch being on a trip to South Padre Island, Texas. Chicago Cub Joe Girardi was selected instead. [2] Meluskey retired in 2004, never making an All-Star team.

He lives in Yakima, Washington.