Pat Borders

Pat Borders was an American baseball catcher who won a gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Borders grew up in Florida and had a scholarship offer in football and baseball to Mississippi State University but turned it down to play professional baseball. He was drafted in the sixth round of the 1982 Major League Baseball draft by the Toronto Blue Jays.

Borders came up to the majors in 1988 with the Blue Jays, initially playing either first or third base, but he converted to catching. He played on the Blue Jays World Series Championship teams in 1992 and 1993 and was with them through the 1994 season. He was voted the World Series MVP in 1992. He is one of only five Olympians (through 2022) to win both a gold medal and a World Series ring.

Borders played in the majors through 2005, although quite peripatetically, playing successively with the Kansas City Royals (1995), Houston Astros (1995), St. Louis Cardinals (1996), California Angels (1996), Chicago White Sox (1996), Cleveland Indians (1997-99), Toronto in 1999, Seattle Mariners (2001-04), Minnesota Twins (2004), and finally the Mariners again in 2005. For his career he batted .253, with 69 home runs and 346 RBIs. Borders later became a minor league manager in the Philadelphia Phillies organization. In 2015 he was named manager of the Williamsport Crosscutters.