Brian James Anderson (born April 26, 1972 in Portsmouth, Virginia) is a former Major League Baseball pitcher. He played for the California Angels, Cleveland Indians, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Kansas City Royals, posting a career ERA of 4.74. He is also noted for having a great pickoff move. Anderson attended Wright State University. He was also the second pick in the 1997 MLB Expansion Draft.

At Geneva High School in Geneva, Ohio, Brian Anderson was a four-year letterman in baseball, a three-year letterman in golf, and a two-year letterman in basketball.

Anderson's 2005 season ended prematurely when he tore an elbow ligament, necessitating Tommy John surgery. Anderson attempted a comeback in 2006 with the Texas Rangers, but while rehabbing his surgically repaired elbow, he re-injured it, requiring him to undergo a second surgery if he was to resume his pitching career.

In 2007, Anderson occasionally filled in as a broadcaster for the Cleveland Indians on SportsTime Ohio, as well as doing several spring training games and a weekly highlight show.^[1]

On February 1, 2008, the Tampa Bay Rays signed Anderson to a minor league contract with an invitation to spring training. During spring training however, Anderson left the mound in the middle of a game, and followed that with an MRI. The MRI revealed he had a torn ulnar collateral ligament, as well as a torn flexor mass muscle, both in his left elbow. Rays manager Joe Maddon commented by saying, "It can't be repaired; he's done. It's really a big disappointment."^[2]

Anderson is now the assistant to the pitching coach and works in the front office for the Rays. In 2008, he served temporarily as a color analyst for Rays television broadcasts during a ten-game West Coast road trip, teamed with play-by-play announcer Dewayne Staats while regular Rays broadcast partner Joe Magrane was away on assignment as an analyst for NBC Sports coverage of baseball at the 2008 Summer Olympics. In 2009, Anderson again worked as a part-time TV analyst for the Rays, calling some 40 games for which Magrane's successor, Kevin Kennedy, was unavailable.

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[edit] External links

• Career statistics and player information from MLB, or Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)