Alan Cockrell was named the New York Yankees assistant
hitting coach prior to the 2015 season and the team responded with the second
best offense in all of Major League Baseball. Jeff Pentland, the head hitting
coach from 2015, was fired after the season and Cockrell has accepted a
position as the team’s main hitting coach and will work side-by-side with former
Triple-A hitting coach and current Yankees assistant hitting coach Marcus
Thames. Not many players and fans knew much about Cockrell before the 2015
season and not many know him today, until now.
Atlee Alan Cockrell was born on December 5, 1962 into a Christian
household. Cockrell spent his High School days at Joplin, Missouri’s Parkwood
High School where he represented the Parkwood High School Bears. The Bears were
the team’s football team, not the school’s baseball team as you would expect,
and Cockrell was the team’s starting quarterback. During his tenure there,
three seasons as the starting QB, Cockrell led the team to a 31-3 record with
3,499 yards, 44 touchdown passes, 1,541 rushing yards and 36 rushing touchdowns
and even kicked 154 PAT’s with eight field goals. Cockrell did it all including
the year when he led the Bears to a perfect 14-0 season outscoring their
opponents 653-33 and a Missouri State Class 4A High School Championship in
1980. Cockrell’s efforts there led him to take a scholarship at the University
of Tennessee to be the team’s starting quarterback.
Cockrell was the first ever true freshman to start for the
Volunteers when he did so in 1981 but five games into his Tennessee football
career he suffered a major knee injury that threatened his college and
professional career. Cockrell led the Vols to a 6-5-1 record in 1982 and a 9-3
season in 1983 including a Florida Citrus Bowl win over Boomer Esiason and the
Maryland Terrapins in his final game with the school. The San Francisco Giants
drafted Cockrell in the first round of the 1984 Draft, 9th overall,
and his love for baseball drowned out any aspirations to be a starting
quarterback in the National Football League.
Cockrell played nine seasons in the minor leagues for five
different organizations before finally making his Major League debut in 1996
with the Colorado Rockies. Cockrell had a strikeout against Billy Wagner and a
double off future Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Glavine in Atlanta before playing in
his final MLB game on September 29, 1996. Cockrell bounced around various minor
league affiliates inside the Rockies organization as a manager and hitting
coach before returning to the Majors as the Rockies hitting coach in 2007.
Under Cockrell the Rockies slugged their way to a National League Championship
and a trip to the World Series before running into the red hot Boston Red Sox.
Under Cockrell the Rockies led the league in on-base percentage, batting
average and total hits although it was not enough to keep Cockrell in a job after
the team fired him before the 2009 season.
Cockrell was named the Seattle Mariners hitting coach in
2010 replacing Alonzo Powell but unfortunately for him he was the first out
four coaches who were relieved of their duties alongside then manager Don Wakamatsu.
Cockrell was out of the game completely until the New York Yankees came calling
in January of 2015.
Cockrell and his SwingPath Coach training device he invented
will now bring his talents to New York to be their hitting coach. How will the
Yankees offense respond? I guess you’ll just have to stay tuned, either way
congrats to Cockrell. After the career, the setbacks and the life in the game
that you’ve had you have definitely earned your stay here in the Bronx.
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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)