Hiram Gabriel Bocachica Colon (born March 4, 1976 in Ponce, Puerto Rico) is a former Major League Baseball outfielder, now playing for the Saitama Seibu Lions of Nippon Professional Baseball. He is 5'11" and weighs around 195 pounds.

[edit] Major league career

He was drafted by the Montreal Expos in the 1st round (21st overall) of the 1994 Major League Baseball Draft and played for the Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Seattle Mariners before being released in 2005 and scooped up by Oakland from free agency.

Bocachica impressed scouts with his amazing spring training performance of 2006, and would have been on the MLB roster for that season, had he not suffered from a bone growth in his right hand. He was claimed off waivers by the San Diego Padres on May 31, 2007. He became a free agent at the end of the season.

Bocachica wore #44^[1] during his brief stint with the Mariners.

[edit] Nippon Professional Baseball

Bocachica signed with the Saitama Seibu Lions on December 3, 2007. Despite playing only 78 games during the 2008 season, he hit 20 home runs, including one in the seventh game of the Japan Series, which the team won.^[2]

[edit] Family

Hiram is married to his wife Jocelyn and has a daughter, Aliyah.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Career statistics and player information from MLB, or ESPN, or Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube
• Hiram's own website

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