Walt Weiss

Initially drafted by the Baltimore Orioles in the 10th round of the 1982 amateur draft, Weiss decided to put his professional baseball career on hold and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1984, he played collegiate summer baseball with the Wareham Gatemen of the Cape Cod Baseball League, and set a league record for most doubles in a season. In June 1985, he was the 12th overall pick in the 1985 draft.

At the age of 23, he made his first major league appearance for the Oakland Athletics in September 1987. The club was impressed enough with the young shortstop's talent that they traded starter Alfredo Griffin that December, making him their starting shortstop for 1988. His offensive numbers were low (.250 average, three home runs, 39 RBIs and 44 runs scored), but his defensive wizardry helped lead the A's to their first American League pennant since 1974. The 1988 World Series was a rematch of the 1974 matchup, with the Los Angeles Dodgers winning the National League pennant. His costly error in Game 4 helped the Dodgers win the Series in five games, but he was voted American League Rookie of the Year for 1988 as the third consecutive Oakland player to win the award after sluggers José Canseco in 1986 and Mark McGwire in 1987. He also made the 1988 Topps All-Star Rookie Roster.

In 1989 the A's repeated as AL pennant winners, meeting their crosstown rival San Francisco Giants in the 1989 World Series. Although the Series would be overshadowed by the Loma Prieta earthquake on October 17 which delayed play for ten days, Weiss homered and the A's swept the Giants to claim their first world title in fifteen years.

1990 saw Weiss put up his best offensive numbers to date in hits, runs and batting average, while also stealing nine bases. The A's won their third straight pennant, but Weiss was injured in the 1990 American League Championship Series against the Boston Red Sox and missed Oakland's 1990 World Series loss to the Cincinnati Reds, four games to none.

Limited by prior injuries, he didn't play much in 1991 as the A's missed the playoffs for the first time since 1987. In what would be his final year in Oakland, he hit .212 in 1992 and was traded to the new NL expansion Florida Marlins for Eric Hefland and a player to be named later during the offseason.

He played in 158 games in 1993 for the Marlins, but after the season became a free agent, chose to sign with the Colorado Rockies (which like the Marlins were a new NL expansion team in 1993) and was the first player to play for both of these 1993 expansion teams. Weiss spent four years in Colorado, posting career highs in home runs (8) and RBIs (48).

In December 1997, he signed with the Atlanta Braves and became their starting shortstop, hitting .280 and making the All-Star team for the only time in his career in 1998. The Braves finished with 106 wins but lost the NL pennant to the San Diego Padres, but he was slowed by injuries and appeared in less than a hundred games for the first time since 1991. The next season, his decline continued with a disappointing .226 batting average.

In 2000, he only had 192 at-bats, mostly due to losing the starting shortstop job to the emergent Rafael Furcal, who would go on to win Rookie of the Year just like Weiss twelve years prior. He retired after the season.

Weiss was signed on November 7, 2012, to be the manager of the Colorado Rockies. Weiss made the decision to step down as the manager of the Colorado Rockies after four managerial seasons with the club on October 3, 2016. He finished with a record of 283 wins and 365 losses. The Braves announced that Weiss had been hired as bench coach on November 10, 2017.