RIP to Alex Cole, a speedy outfielder who played for five teams in the 1990s. One of them, the Cleveland Guardians, announced that he died on August 18, just a day after his 58th birthday. Cole played for the Cleveland Indians (1990-92), Pittsburgh Pirates (1992), Colorado Rockies (1993), Minnesota Twins (1994-95) and Boston Red Sox (1996).
Alexander Cole Jr. was born on August 17, 1965, in Fayetteville, N.C. He was blessed with great speed right from the start, but sometimes in baseball, it’s an unappreciated talent. Cole didn’t receive too much notice while playing ball for Jefferson-Huguenot-Wythe High School, a merged city school in Richmond, Va. For one, he was a very good player but was on a poor high school team that didn’t attract many scouts. Two, Cole was a .400 hitter but got many hits from beating out drag bunts. It was an effective strategy, given his speed. But drag bunts don’t attract attention from scouts like home runs. Cole was a surprise pick for the Virginia High School Coaches’ Association All-Star Game in 1983, but he scored 2 runs and did well in the outfield. “I feel like I did what I came up here to do,” he said. “I wanted to impress some people. I wanted to prove I belonged with these guys.”
Manatee Junior College in Bradenton, Fla., recruited Cole to play for their team after he graduated from J-H-W in 1983. He made the team as a walkon but was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 11th Round of the 1984 January Amateur Draft. He elected to stay in college, and in his first season with Manatee, he batted .322 and stole 38 bases, one shy of the school record. The St. Louis Cardinals drafted Cole in the Second Round of the 1985 draft, and he signed with scout Marty Maier. If any major-league club could appreciate the value of speed, it was the Cardinals. After all, the team featured Vince Coleman, Willie McGee and Ozzie Smith as a part of manager Whitey Herzog’s high-flying offense.
Cole had an up-and-down time with the Cardinals organization. He debuted with Johnson City of the Rookie-Level Appalachian League in 1985 and led the league with 46 stolen bases in 66 games. He was also tops in the league with 60 runs scored. When he continued to do well at Class-A St. Petersburg in 1986, he was promoted directly to Triple-A Louisville. He hit .250 for Louisville after batting .343 for St. Petersburg, but he stole a combined 80 bases between the teams. Cole was very much in the mold of Coleman and McGee, which became a problem. Herzog in 1986 said that he didn’t think Cole would be ready for the majors in a year’s time. Furthermore, an outfield with Coleman, Cole and McGee would steal a ton of bases but hit very few home runs. Herzog wanted a power hitter in the outfield, which made Cole potential trade bait.
Cole was sent back to Double-A Arkansas in 1987 so that the Cardinals could promote another speedy outfielder — Lance Johnson. Cole’s hitting fell off badly for a couple of seasons, though his base-stealing abilities never slumped. He hit .256 for Arkansas in ’87 but dropped to .232 back in Louisville in 1988. Ted Simmons was named the new St. Louis director of player development in 1989. He disregarded the negative reports on Cole and hired a special coach to work with the Cardinal base-stealing threats. Simmons gave Cole a new approach — treat on-base percentage as your most important statistic, not batting average. Cole boosted his OBP to .379 while playing for Louisville in 1989, while batting .281 with 47 stolen bases. After all his hard work and development, Cole and pitcher Steve Peters was traded to San Diego on February 27, 1990, for pitcher Omar Olivares. San Diego started him in Triple-A Las Vegas in 1990 before trading him to Cleveland on July 11 for catcher Tom Lampkin. Cleveland brought him to the majors a couple of weeks later.
Cole’s major-league debut on July 27, 1990, against the Yankees wasn’t special — he was 0-for-4 with a strikeout in the first game of a doubleheader. But in the second game, he led off the bottom of the first inning with a bunt single off Yankees starter Jeff Robinson — one of 3 hits he’d get on the day. He also stole his first career base. Cole officially reached “phenomenon” stage on August 1, when he set a Cleveland record by stealing 5 bases in a game against Kansas City. It wasn’t long after that that Cleveland mayor Michael White issued a proclamation praising the rookie “for bringing excitement to the city of Cleveland.” Cole became the team’s center fielder and one of the most recognizable Indians, thanks to the goggle-style glasses he wore on the field. He also began stealing bases at a pace that, taken over the course of a full season, would have broken Rickey Henderson’s single-season stolen-base record. He couldn’t keep up that pace, but he was, as the proclamation noted, creating excitement for a fanbase that didn’t have many reasons to cheer at that point.
“Getting Alex has really filled a void for us,” Cleveland manager Mike Hargrove said, “because now we have a legitimate leadoff hitter… Having guy like Alex at the top of the lineup means a lot to the hitters behind him. It opens holes for them and takes a lot of pressure off them because Alex can create offense with his speed.”
Cole appeared in just 63 Cleveland games but still earned enough votes to finish 9th in the Rookie of the Year voting, He stole 40 bases, which would translate to about 103 steals in a 162-game season. He also slashed .300/.379/.357 with 43 runs scored. The success Cole enjoyed with Cleveland prompted some baseball people to wonder how Cleveland got the most out of Cole when St. Louis couldn’t. “I always felt that if I got a shot, I could perform at the major-league level. Here, I got a shot. There, I didn’t,” Cole said. “I think I listened to some wrong information. But that’s a part of the past. I can’t worry about that.”
Cleveland literally reconfigured its ballpark to suit its new star. The outfield fences were pushed back about 10 feet because of Cole’s speed, both offensively and defensively. The team also flew him to California over the winter to get bunting lessons from Hall of Famer Rod Carew. Given a chance to start regularly in 1991, Cole hit well, with a .295 batting average in 122 games. However, he stole just 27 bases and was caught 17 times. Part of the problem was that he separated his shoulder early in the season. When he returned from the disabled list, he was reluctant to take long leads that would require him to dive back to first base and potentially re-injure the shoulder. The regular play also exposed a weakness in Cole’s game — his defense. He led all AL center fielders with 7 errors. In one series against Toronto, he misplayed three fly balls, each of which led to runs but were not scored as errors. Hargrove tried moving Cole to left field, but the experiment was short-lived. Cleveland’s outfield fences were restored to their original dimensions after the season.
Cleveland made a trade with the Houston Astros in December of 1991, getting outfielder Kenny Lofton. It was a great deal, as Lofton embarked on a near-Hall of Fame career. He could hit for a little more power than Cole did, he stole bases, and he played an excellent center field. Cole was relegated to the role of backup outfielder and pinch-hitter, and he struggled in a reserve role. After hitting .206 for Cleveland, he was sent to the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 4 for a pair of minor leaguers. Pittsburgh had tried to get by in right field with the likes of Cecil Espy and Lloyd McClendon. When Cole arrived, he was handed the job and performed well, with a .278 batting average in 64 games. In that short span, he hit a career-high 7 triples. He also played well defensively but stole just 7 bases in 11 attempts, leaving him with 16 thefts on the year between Cleveland and the Pirates. Pittsburgh won the NL East Division but lost to the Atlanta Braves in the NL Championship Series. Cole appeared in 4 of the 7 games and had 2 hits, an RBI and 2 runs scored.
After the postseason had ended, Cole was selected by the Colorado Rockies in the 1992 expansion draft. He spent most of 1993 as the Rockies starting center fielder and was part of the starting lineup in Colorado’s first game, played in New York on April 5, 1993. Cole was a bit of an oddity, as he didn’t hit a single home run in the thin atmosphere of Mile High Stadium. He was second on the team with 30 steals (behind Eric Young) and drove in a career-best 24 runs while batting .256. After the season, the Rockies opted to not extend his contract, so Cole left via free agency.
Cole signed with the Minnesota Twins in February of 1994, and he rejuvenated his career back in the American League. He was meant to be a backup, but outfielder Shane Mack missed the first month of games due to injury. During the time Mack was out, Cole was on fire. He slashed .296/.375/.403 on the year and stole 29 bases. He also ended a string of 1,316 at-bats without a home run when he went deep against Toronto’s Juan Guzman to lead off the game on April 24, 1994. It was the longest home run drought in the major leagues, and Cole said he didn’t think it was a homer when he hit it. “I looked at [outfielder] Joe [Carter] and saw him running back, and I said I might have a chance for three. Then I was at second base and I didn’t see the ball come down.” Cole hit 4 home runs for the Twins in 1994, including a tenth-inning walkoff homer against the Chicago White Sox on June 10.
Cole looked ready to have the best season of his career in 1995. He started slowly in April but heated up in May with 6 hits in a 3-game series against Kansas City. A 9-game hitting streak toward the end of the month left him with a .386 batting average. Then on May 30, he was brought into the game in the eighth inning in Milwaukee as a pinch-hitter. He remained in the game in center field, and the first batter of the inning, Fernando Vina, blooped a ball in his direction. Cole ran in, but as he tried to stop short, his spikes got caught in the grass, and he collapsed into the field in obvious pain. Vina ended up with a triple, and Cole had to be loaded onto a stretcher and carted off the field. He broke his right fibula and dislocated his ankle, which needed surgery. Amazingly, he returned to the team for a couple of pinch-hitting appearances in September. He finished the year hitting .342 in 28 games. A free agent again in the offseason, Cole signed with the Boston Red Sox. He did not make the team out of spring training and began 1996 with Triple-A Pawtucket. He was promoted to the majors at the end of April when rookie Dwayne Hosey failed to hit. Cole had a few good games but batted just .222 in 24 games. After about a month with the Sox, Cole was returned to Pawtucket when Boston acquired outfielder Lee Tinsley from Philadelphia. Cole never returned to the major leagues.
In 7 seasons in the major leagues, Cole had a slash line of .280/.360/.351, for an OPS of .711 and an OPS+ of 92. He had 493 hits, including 58 doubles, 26 triples and 5 home runs. He stole 148 bases and was caught 59 times, and he scored 286 runs. Cole had a career fielding percentage of .971 in the outfield, with most of his time spent in center field.
Cole, who lived in Clearwater, Fla., signed with the Florida Marlins in 1997 in the hopes that he could land a job with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays when the franchise played its initial season in 1998. He struggled in the minors, was released, and signed with the independent Madison Black Wolf of the Northern League. He batted .339 in 27 games and spent the next year playing in the Mexican League. He returned to independent ball with the Bridgeport Bluefish of the Atlantic League in 1999. For parts of three seasons, he was a steady hitter and finished in the Top 10 of the Atlantic League in 1999 with a .323 batting average and 27 stolen bases.
Cole’s career came to an abrupt end in 2001, while in the middle of his third season with the Bluefish. The 35-year-old and four other men were arrested on August 9 on charges of conspiracy to distribute heroin. They had been negotiating with an undercover officer to sell a kilogram of the drug. Cole was arrested at Harbor Yard Stadium as he prepared for an upcoming game. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Four years later, per Bleacher Report, he was found to have run up charges on a friend’s credit card and subject to a $30,000 judgement against him.
I could find no other news updates on Cole nor any further information on his death. Hopefully he had found some peace after his post-career legal troubles.
Follow me on Instagram: @rip_mlb
Follow me on Facebook: ripbaseball
Follow me on Bluesky: @ripmlb
Follow me on Threads: @rip_mlb
Follow me on X: @rip_mlb
Support RIP Baseball
RIP Baseball 
He NEVER played for the Cleveland “Guardians”. You know that so why’d you write it?!?!
LikeLike
His death was announced by the Cleveland Guardians because the Cleveland Indians no longer exist. But it’s still a team he used to play for. It was the best way to acknowledge the team’s present and past nicknames.
LikeLike