Gail Hopkins, Date of Birth, Place of Birth
TweetGail Hopkins
Baseball player and coach and orthopaedic surgeon
Date of Birth: 19-Feb-1943
Place of Birth: Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States
Profession: baseball player
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Pisces 
About Gail Hopkins
- Gail Eason Hopkins (born February 19, 1943) is a former Major League Baseball player and coach.
- Before reaching the majors, he was a catcher at Pepperdine University, where he was named an All-American in 1963.
- He was primarily a first baseman and catcher in the majors, and was the first Pepperdine baseball player to play Major League Baseball.
- Hopkins also played basketball at Pepperdine.
- He recalls that part of why he chose Pepperdine was that he had gone to high school in southern California and wanted to stay in the area; he also wanted to study both religion and biology, and Pepperdine gave him the chance to do so.
- In 2010, Gail became the second athlete from Pepperdine University to be inducted into the West Coast Conference Hall of Honor.
- Hopkins was raised in the Churches of Christ.After playing for the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Canadian Baseball League in 1964, Hopkins signed a professional baseball contract with the Chicago White Sox organization.
- He played minor league baseball from 1965 to 1968 in the Florida State League, California State League, Caroline League, Southern League and Pacific Coast League.
- From 1968 to 1974, Gail played with the Chicago White Sox, Kansas City Royals and Los Angeles Dodgers, and was a member of the 1974 National League champion Dodgers (though he did not see action in the postseason).
- He played in over 100 games each season between 1969 and 1971.
- Hopkins was known as a difficult batters to strike out having one of lowest strike out to at bats ratios in baseball during his playing career.
- From 1975 to 1977, he subsequently played for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp and Nankai Hawks in the Japanese Professional Baseball leagues.
- In 1975, Gail set a Hiroshima Carp home run record with 33 while helping lead the Carp to its first Central League Championship and a trip to the Japan Series.
- In 1976, he played in the Japanese All-Star game, batting .329 for the season.
- In 1977, Gail played for the Nankai Hawks of the Pacific League, before retiring from professional baseball to pursue a full-time career in medicine. In Nolan Ryan's first career no-hitter (May 15, 1973), Hopkins appeared as a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the 8th inning, and hit a bloop fly that Angels shortstop Rudy Meoli caught with a running catch.
- Ryan stated in his autobiography "Throwing Heat" that Hopkins' out was the closest he came to losing the no-hitter. Hopkins and his wife Caroline, who is a registered nurse, raised two children who both became physicians: a daughter, Leah G.
- Hopkins, M.D., who is an Internal Medicine specialist in private practice in Parkersburg, West Virginia and a son, Gail E.
- Hopkins, II, M.D., who is an Orthopaedic Spine Surgeon specialist practicing in Redlands, California with Arrowhead Orthopaedics. After his baseball career ended, he earned four graduate degrees: a Master's in Religion at Pepperdine, a Master of Divinity from United Theological Seminary, a Doctorate in Biology at the Illinois Institute of Technology and an M.
- D.
- degree from Rush Medical College where he was a member of Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.
- He went on to become a board certified orthopedic surgeon completing his residency at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois.
- He engaged in the private practice of orthopedic surgery in Lodi, California (1986–1994), Hinsdale, Illinois (1994–2003) and Parkersburg, West Virginia (2004–2014).
- He has served on the Pepperdine University Board of Regents since 1986.
- He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Ohio Valley University, a Churches of Christ affiliated college in West Virginia., where he also served as Adjunct Professor of both Bible and Biology.
- A 2001 story on Hopkins referred to him as a "thoughtful individual whose love for God forms the center of his life and whose strong convictions shape that life".
Read more at Wikipedia