Nick Capra

{{short description|American baseball player & coach (born 1958)}}

{{Infobox baseball biography

|image=Army Reserve Soldier receives honor at Chicago White Sox home game (cropped).jpg

|caption=Capra (left) with the White Sox in 2017

|width=

|name=Nick Capra

|team=

|number=

|position=Outfielder

|bats=Right

|throws=Right

|birth_date={{Birth date and age|1958|3|08}}

|birth_place=Denver, Colorado, U.S.

|debutleague = MLB

|debutdate=September 6

|debutyear=1982

|debutteam=Texas Rangers

|finalleague = MLB

|finaldate=April 24

|finalyear=1991

|finalteam=Texas Rangers

|statleague = MLB

|stat1label=Batting average

|stat1value=.167

|stat2label=Home runs

|stat2value=1

|stat3label=Runs batted in

|stat3value=1

|teams=

As player

Texas Rangers ({{mlby|1982}}–{{mlby|1983}}, {{mlby|1985}}, {{mlby|1991}})
Kansas City Royals ({{mlby|1988}})

As coach

Chicago White Sox ({{mlby|2017}}–{{mlby|2020}})

}}

Nick Lee Capra (born March 8, 1958) is an American professional baseball coach, most recently for the Chicago White Sox.

Career

A former outfielder, Capra appeared in 45 MLB games over portions of five seasons for the Texas Rangers and Kansas City Royals, collecting nine total hits and one home run, a solo blow off Steve Baker of the Oakland Athletics on September 22, 1982.Retrosheet [http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1982/B09220OAK1982.htm box score: 1982-09-22] He attended Lamar Community College, Blinn College and the University of Oklahoma and was drafted by the Rangers in the third round of the 1979 amateur draft. He threw and batted right-handed and was listed as {{convert|5|ft|8|in}} tall and {{convert|165|lb}}.

Capra made his professional debut with the Rangers' Double-A Tulsa Drillers affiliate in 1979. Over the course of a 17-season minor league baseball career, he batted .294 with 1,170 hits. He played his last season with the Florida Marlins' Triple-A Charlotte Knights in 1995.

Capra joined the White Sox' system in 1996 as a minor-league manager, working at all levels of the minors for 11 seasons (1996–2005; 2008). In 2006–07 he served Chicago as roving minor league hitting coordinator. Then from 2009 to 2011 he was the ChiSox' minor league field coordinator before becoming the club's director of player development for five seasons (2012–16). On October 14, 2016, he was named the third-base coach for the Chicago White Sox of Major League Baseball.{{cite news|last1=Merkin|first1=Scott|title=McEwing named bench coach amid staff changes|url=http://m.whitesox.mlb.com/news/article/206077092/joe-mcewing-among-white-sox-coach-changes/|accessdate=October 17, 2016|work=whitesox.com|date=October 14, 2016|archive-date=October 16, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161016214520/http://m.whitesox.mlb.com/news/article/206077092/joe-mcewing-among-white-sox-coach-changes/|url-status=dead}} His appointment to manager Rick Renteria's staff for 2017 marked his first assignment as a big-league coach, and his 22nd season in the White Sox organization. In 2019 Capra signed a new 2-year contract to remain as 3rd base coach. The White Sox let him go following the 2020 season.