Tim Stoddard joined the North Central baseball coaching staff as an assistant coach prior to the 2016 season, primarily working with the pitching staff.
Stoddard is one of only two men to have played in a World Series and NCAA Division I men’s basketball championship, joining fellow East Chicago Washington High School (Indiana) alum Kenny Lofton, but is the only one to have won both.
He was the starting forward on the 1974 North Carolina State University basketball team that ended University of California, Los Angeles’ run of seven-straight NCAA Division I men’s basketball titles, but chose to pursue his baseball career after college and was selected in the second round of the winter draft by the Chicago White Sox, making his MLB debut in September of 1975.
Stoddard went on to play with five other MLB teams over his career, appearing in the 1979 World Series with the Baltimore Orioles. He was the winning pitcher in game four against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Stoddard also drove in a run with an eighth-inning single, becoming the first player in World Series history to drive in a run in his first at-bat. He went on to win a Division Championship with the Cubs in 1984, played with the San Diego Padres from 1985-1986, the New York Yankees from 1986-1988, and finished his career with the Cleveland Indians in 1989.
He also served as a Technical Consultant and appeared in the 1993 film Rookie of the Year.
Since retiring from Major League Baseball, Stoddard has been actively coaching, including a 22-year stint as the pitching coach at Division I Northwestern University.
Stoddard has had 25 MLB draft picks under his tutelage, including three currently playing in MLB in Toronto Blue Jays left-hander J.A. Happ and right-hander Bo Schultz, as well as San Francisco Giants right-hander George Kontos.
Stoddard will primarily be working with the pitching staff, but his vast knowledge and experience will be greatly beneficial to the team as a whole, learning from the best at baseball’s highest level.
He and his wife Jane have five children together, Laura, Anne, Ellen, Katie and Dan.
