KANNAPOLIS — Kannapolis Intimidators manager Razor Shines was at the wrong place at the wrong time throughout his star-crossed playing career.
But the 43-year-old Shines carries no regrets, no grudges, no bitterness. There will be a smile on his face every day he gets to pull on a baseball uniform.
In the 1980s, Shines had the best name in the big leagues — hands down — but his career accounts for only six tiny lines of agate type in the Baseball Encyclopedia. He squats in there between Billy Shindle, an obscure 1880s third baseman, and Ralph Shinners, a nondescript 1920s outfielder.
Shines, who smacked 134 homers and drove in over 700 runs in the minors, knows his less than luminous Baseball Encyclopedia big league numbers by heart — 68 games, 81 at-bats, 15 hits, no homers, five RBIs and a batting average of .185.
Shines played four seasons, but those numbers don’t exactly sing.
Shoot, the BE even gets his name wrong. It identifies him as “Anthony Raymond Shines.”
“Wrong,” says Shines. “It’s Anthony Razor Shines. They just assumed my name was Raymond and that Razor was a nickname. Nobody asked me.
“Razor’s a family name. My grandfather was a Razor. He gave that name to my father and he gave it to me. My son’s middle name is Razor. When my son has a boy, if he doesn’t want to name him Razor, well, that’s fine, but I wasn’t going to be the one who stopped it.”
Shines, as you can see, has a sense of humor. Managing a low Class A team, he’ll need it.
But there was a time when Shines’ playing career was very serious.
“I played some football, but it was baseball that consumed me when I was a teenager growing up in Durham,” says Shines. “I guess I’ve been on the road ever since.”
The road led first to Louisburg Junior College, then to St. Augustine’s College. Shines was a powerfully built catcher (6-feet-2, 210 pounds), who could switch hit. That brought out the scouts.
“They must have liked my style,” Shines says. “I knew only one speed — all out. That’s why I got an opportunity.”
In 1978, the Expos drafted Shines out of St. Augustine’s on the 18th round. He remembers it as the 13th, but perhaps that’s because he was so unlucky.
Shines tore through the low minors, then the high minors. He was a middle-of-the-order hitter and banged out 20 homers with big RBI numbers in stops at Memphis and Indianapolis. He was a prospect.
Shines sipped a three-game cup of coffee with the Expos in ’83, drank in another 12 games worth of the big leagues in ’84. But his timing was awful. Montreal already had a catcher — fellow named Gary Carter.
“Maybe it wasn’t the best time to be coming up,” says Shines. “They told me I needed to learn another spot.”
So Shines went back down and worked overtime learning to play the infield corners.
The Expos had all-star Tim Wallach at third base, but first appeared to be wide open.
And, ever so briefly, it was. Opening Day of 1985 found a proud 27-year-old Shines in Montreal’s starting lineup.
“It was in Cincinnati. They introduced the starters in numerical order,” he says, smiling and mimicking the public address announcer. “Starting in left field, No. 30, Tim Raines. Starting at first base, No. 31, Razor Shines. They call your name and you run out there and 60,000 people are cheering. It’s a thrill.”
Shines’ euphoria didn’t last. Soon after that, manager Buck Rodgers approached Shines and said he wanted to see what one of the organization’s prospects could do in a series in St. Louis.
“No problem,” Shines told him.
Unfortunately, that strapping youngster from Venezuela was named Andres Galarraga. The “Big Cat” made Busch Stadium look very small. And after taking a gander at Galarraga’s swing, Shines realized he had no future as Montreal’s first baseman.
“But that was just part of the game,” he says. “It was a tough time. But I had chances. No excuses.”
Shines didn’t play a single game in the majors in ‘86. He appeared in his last six big league games in ‘87.
But his career was far from done. He played for the Expos’ Triple A team in Indianapolis from ‘87 until 1993. He was a key guy on four straight championship teams and was inducted into the the team’s Hall of Fame. Among his Indy teammates were Jerry Manuel, now the White Sox manager, and Wallace Johnson, now the White Sox third base coach.
Shines witnessed the passing of eras with the Expos. He broke in when Carter, Raines and Andre Dawson were in charge.He survived long enough to play with the next generation of Expo stars— Randy Johnson, Larry Walker and Marquis Grissom — as they tore through Indianapolis.
After hanging his cleats up, Shines was a batting coach for a year, then managed Cincinnati’s South Atlantic League team in Charleston, W. Va., in 1995. He did fine — 12 games over .500 and third place — but at that point, he’d had enough of the road.
Shines spent the next four years in private business, but the White Sox convinced him to return to baseball as hitting coach for Tucson in the Arizona League last summer. There, Shines worked with promising Intimidators like Chris Amador and Mike Spidale. This year, he’s their manager.
Shines now lives in Texas (he has a wife and daughter, in addition to the latest Razor), but to a kid who grew up in Durham, coming to Kannapolis seems a whole lot like retuning home.
Shines looks relaxed and comfortable as he chuckles about that inning he pitched for Montreal in 1985 when they were getting bombed by St. Louis and ran out of arms. He spins yarns about trying to hit young Doc Gooden’s wicked curveball and about that day his single ruined a no-hit bid by the Cubs’ Dennis Eckersley.
“It was the only hit we got,” says Shines. “I’m still proud of that.”
There’s a lot for Shines to be proud of. Those six lines in the Baseball Encyclopedia says he was an ordinary player. But he knows better. Ordinary players never sniff the big leagues. Not even for 68 games and 81 at-bats.
And maybe that’s why his eyes still shine any time he’s asked to share a big league memory.
“If I had the chance, I’d do it all again,” says Shines. “It’s been fun. Baseball’s been just wonderful to me.”
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