Mike Quatrine served as the 1990 Elmira Pioneers trainer - his Pucko team card says so.
Quatrine's stint as a minor league trainer, however, appears to have been unremarkable, at least not remarkable enough to be noted in that role by any other source available.
He's not mentioned in any Elmira Star-Gazette article available at Newspapers.com. He doesn't appear on any other cards available at TradingCardDB.com.
He didn't even get a mention in the 1990 Elmira Pioneers souvenir program, which I found and purchased on eBay specifically because my normal avenues had come up empty for definitive connections.
In fact, other than Quatrine's job title as the Pioneers' trainer and Quatrine's possession of an Elmira uniform and a mustache, Quatrine's trainer card includes no other information about him. Not his hometown, where he went to school, nothing.
In the life of this project, trainers have been some of the most unpredictable research topics. If nothing else, players always have stats to work with. Trainers, however, don't have that.
Trainers can appear in newspaper articles, though that's rare. But mentions elsewhere are very much dependent on using card information to match information found elsewhere.
But Elmira did have a history with trainers, even a local trainer, as featured in The Star-Gazette.
Three years earlier, the Pioneers found and hired a local trainer, Ithaca College senior Bernie Stento, The Star-Gazette wrote. The team had asked Elmira College for applicants and the request made its way to Ithaca.
"I'm used to the baseball scene, I'm coming right off it," Stento told The Star-Gazette in June 1987. "I'm pretty much used to the daily routine."
Twelve years before that, The Star-Gazette featured then Pioneers trainer Tony Cleary, a native of Binghamton. Cleary told the paper he became a trainer because he wanted to help athletes.
"One year in pee wee football junior high in Binghamton, I kept seeing kids getting hurt and the coaches had no idea of what was needed to help them," Cleary told The Star-Gazette. "That's when I got interested in training."
Cleary went on to continue as a minor league trainer, including make it to AAA Pawtucket. His last trainer card came in 1989, at Pawtucket, the year before Quatrine made his brief appearance as trainer for the Pioneers.
- Elmira Star-Gazette, Aug. 17, 1975: Tony Cleary wants to help athletes
- Elmira Star-Gazette, June 14, 1987: Pioneers add new trainer
Made the Majors:1,256-33.9%
Never Made Majors:2,445-66.1%-X
5+ Seasons in the Majors:522
10+ Seasons in the Minors:309
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