Page 142 - 1975 BoSox

ALIFETIME .500 HITTER IN the major leagues, awless in the eld, Kim Darrell Andrew had a
couple of sips of co ee early in the season with the pennant-winning 1975 Red Sox but two years later found himself playing professional baseball in Italy.
Andrew was a Californian, born to Elbert L. Andrew and Frances Schandel Andrew in Glendale on November 14, 1953. His mother was a homemaker, raising Kim and his three sisters, one older and two younger. Early on, Kim’s father had his own business, Andrew Signs, but he sold the company and went to work for the County of Los Angeles as a sign painter. After 15 years or so with the county, he went to work as an artist with one of the motion picture studios, working on sets and doing location work. One of his specialties was gold leaf sign work.
With his father busy working to provide for the family, Kim’s mother was more active encouraging her son in athletic pursuits. His father was more of an artist and his mother more the athlete in the family. She played a little softball and she tells Kim that from the time he was old enough to walk on both feet, he’d started picking up objects and throwing them. It was as an in elder, not a pitcher, though, that Kim made his mark. Even into the 21st century, Kim will spend more time watching a ballgame with his mother than even with his own two sons, Matt and Jason.
Andrew dates his own beginnings in baseball to Mission Hills Little League at age 9. “I still remember my batting average my rst year was .538,” Andrew recalls. “From that point on, I excelled in each classi cation.” He started out as a shortstop and played short right up through high school. It was only when the Dodgers drafted him in 1971 that they asked him to move to play second base.
It was indeed the Dodgers who rst showed interest in signing Andrew as a pro. He played shortstop for James Monroe High School in North Hills. e same team produced two other major leaguers, Craig Cacek and John Flinn. Cacek was a rst baseman who ap- peared in seven games for Houston in 1977, collecting one hit in 20 trips for a .050 batting average. Flinn was a pitcher, who appeared only brie y in three seasons with Baltimore and one with Milwaukee, nishing his career with a 5-2 mark and a 4.17 ERA. ough the Dodgers drafted him, Andrew did not sign with them and they elected not to redraft him in the winter draft. Kim played no ball that sum- mertime, but entered Valley Junior College in the fall. He played ball there and ended up with ve hitting records, hitting over .470 by year’s end. is attracted a visit from Orioles scout Ray Poitevint, who visited Kim’s parents in the stands right after he’d hit a grand slam home run and asked, “Why is it Kim doesn’t want to play professional baseball?” ey looked at him in surprise and asked what he was talking about. Poitevint said Kim hadn’t seemed interested in the Dodgers and the word was that he didn’t want to play pro ball. e Dodgers had o ered him only $5,000 to sign, and it hadn’t been enough to secure him.
In truth, Andrew was a bit ambivalent. “I wasn’t com- pletely serious in signing with the scout when he came to the house here,” Andrew explains. “In fact, I was interested in going into wildlife management so I
continued my education. Once I tried combining the scholastic side at the college level with pursuing my baseball endeavors after school, I found it was quite a challenge.” Poitevint made a sub- stantial enough o er and Andrew signed with the Orioles in 1972 as an amateur free agent just two or three weeks before
Kim Andrew
By Bill Nowlin
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