A photo of Candy Maldonado.
Candido Maldonado Guadarrama (born September 5, 1960 in Humacao, Puerto Rico) is a former Major League Baseball outfielder from 1981 to 1995 for the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Brewers, Toronto Blue Jays, Chicago Cubs, and Texas Rangers.
Maldonado was noted as a good home run hitter who did not usually hit for a high batting average which was .254 during his career.
He played in eight different postseason series for three of his teams and won the World Series with the Blue Jays in 1992.
He most recently provided color commentary for ESPN Deportes' coverage of the World Baseball Classic and regular season games.
He was recently named general manager of the Gigantes del Cibao of the Dominican Baseball League.
San Francisco
Maldonado, also known as "The Candyman" and "The 4th Out", was a major part of the Giants success in the late 1980s as a part of the 1987 NL West Champions and the 1989 National League Champions.
Although Maldonado had statistically good seasons in San Francisco, he was involved in one of the most infamous plays in Giants history. In game 6 of the 1987 National League Championship Series, he lost Tony Peña's 2nd inning fly ball in the lights. This play resulted in a triple for Peña. Peña scored on a sacrifice fly for the only run of the game, which the Cardinals won to tie the series at 3 games each, before going on to win Game 7.
Career highlights
Maldonado at a free baseball clinic in Argentina in 2009.
Over his career, Maldonado was a better hitter on the road than at home, with a batting average that was 51 points higher in road games than in home games. On May 4, 1987, he became the only 16th player in San Francisco Giants franchise history to hit for the cycle. In 1992, as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays, Maldonado was close to finalizing a production deal with the Canadian production company called Rocco's Jobbers, to produce a television series based on his nickname "The Candy Man". The concept of the series was to be about a baseball player/vigilante, who fought crime while not on the field. He also loved to give candy to children. Teammate Kelly Gruber, a principal in the company, decided to cancel the project, due to possible confusion with the horror movie, The Candyman, which was released that same year. The concept was resurrected by Rocco's Jobbers in the form of "The Crime Dog" with Fred McGriff in 2000. In 1994, Candy scored the first ever run for the Cleveland Indians run at Jacobs Field.