Lance Berkman

Among OPS leaders all-time, he is tied for 30th all-time while being 23rd among players with less than 10,000 plate appearances.

William Lance Berkman (born February 10, 1976), nicknamed "Fat Elvis" and "Big Puma", is an American baseball coach and former professional baseball outfielder and first baseman, who is the current head baseball coach of the Houston Christian Huskies.

He played 15 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Houston Astros, New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers.

Because of his last name and reputation as a strong hitter, Berkman gained distinction as one of the Astros' "Killer B's" early in his career, which included Bagwell and Craig Biggio, two formidable veteran players who helped established the club as perennial playoff contenders in the 1990s and 2000s.

Berkman graduated from Canyon High School in New Braunfels, Texas, in 1994.

Berkman then attended Rice University playing on the Owls baseball team, where he played for the legendary Wayne Graham, and was named a first team All-America by Collegiate Baseball Magazine, Baseball America and The Sporting News.

He was invited to visit the White House and dined with President Clinton along with the rest of the Baseball America honorees.

Throughout college, he batted a collective .385 with 67 home runs and 272 RBI.

In 1996, he played collegiate summer baseball with the Wareham Gatemen of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL), where he won the league's Thurman Munson Award for leading all hitters with a .352 batting average.

Berkman was named to the CCBL Hall of Fame in 2023.

His 41 home runs in 1997 ranked third-most in NCAA history.

The Houston Astros of Major League Baseball (MLB) selected Berkman in the first round, with the 16th overall selection, of the 1997 MLB draft.

The team assigned him to play with the Kissimmee Cobras, their Class A-Advanced affiliate, of the Florida State League.

In 53 games, he hit .293 with 12 home runs and 35 RBI.

In 1998, his second minor league season, the Astros promoted Berkman to the Jackson Generals of the Class AA Southern League.

His potential was beginning to show, as he hit .306 with 24 home runs and 89 RBI over 122 games.

The Astros granted him a mid-season promotion to the New Orleans Zephyrs of the Class AAA Pacific Coast League.

He played 17 games in New Orleans, and 1998 would prove to be his last full season in the minor leagues.

The Astros selected Berkman in the first round of that year's amateur draft, and he debuted in the major leagues in 1999.

He joined the Astros' vaunted "Killer B's" lineup that included Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio as all three players were instrumental in the club's playoff success.

In 1999, Berkman was midway through a great season in New Orleans when he was called up to the parent club, the Houston Astros.

Prior to the promotion, he had been hitting .323 with 8 home runs and 49 RBI through 64 games.

Throughout his entire high school, college, and minor league career, Berkman had almost exclusively played first base.

The Astros, who called him up to the major leagues for the first time in 1999 and already had Jeff Bagwell entrenched at first, shifted Berkman to the outfield so he could regularly hit in the starting lineup.

In fact, journalist Dayn Perry jocosely noted in 1999 that the Astros, "in pursuit of arcane history, used eight players whose last names began with 'B.'" The eight included Bagwell, Paul Bako, Glen Barker, Derek Bell, Sean Berry, Berkman, Biggio, and Tim Bogar.

The Astros traded Berkman to the Yankees at the 2010 trade deadline.

Berkman is a six-time MLB All-Star and won a World Series championship and the National League Comeback Player of the Year Award with the Cardinals in 2011.

He stands 6 ft, and weighs 220 lb. Berkman spent various seasons of his career as a regular at all three outfield positions.

A standout baseball player at Canyon High School, Berkman attended Rice University, where he played college baseball for the Owls.

He signed with the Cardinals as a free agent for the 2011 and 2012 seasons.

Berkman played a key part in the Cardinals winning the 2011 World Series, hitting a game-tying single in the bottom of the tenth inning of Game 6, with the Cardinals just one strike away from elimination.

Active in charity work, Forbes recognized him on their list of "30 most generous celebrities" in 2012.

He has led a group called "Berkman's Bunch," an outreach for 50 underprivileged kids to meet Berkman before each Saturday home game for autographs and other gifts.

He played the 2013 season with the Rangers before signing a one-day contract with Houston to officially retire as an Astro.

In fifteen seasons of baseball, he had an Adjusted On-base plus slugging (OPS)+ at 150 or above six times (the baseline average is 100) while having 100 walks in a seasons three times and 100 RBIs in a season six times.

In 2013, he purchased a fire truck and donated it to the City of West, Texas, after the West Fertilizer Company explosion.

Berkman was born in Waco, Texas, the son of Cynthia Ann (née Thomas) and Larry Gene Berkman.

His paternal grandfather, whose family's surname was originally "Björkman", was of Swedish descent.

That year he also made the all-time record book in RBIs (2nd-134), slugging percentage (6th-1.031) and total bases (4th-263) while leading the Rice Owls to their first College World Series appearance.

Berkman returned to Rice in 2014 to finish his degree.