Bullpen coach Craig Bjornson, a former Tucson High School baseball and football standout, will be receiving a winner’s share of about $350,000 for helping the Astros claim the World Series.
Craig Bjornson had a notable baseball career, winning five games and saving five others in relief as Tucson High won the 1987 state championship.
He was also a standout football player, a starting guard on Todd Mayfield’s THS football team, earning the Star’s Sept. 21, 1986, Player of the Week award for a victory over Canyon del Oro.
Bjornson then pitched successfully at Arizona Western College and at Nicholls State before returning to Tucson in the summer of 1991. A lefty whose father,ÌýRuss Bjornson, was a catcher on Tucson High’s state championship team of 1956, Craig planned to complete his degree at Arizona. In the interim he began playing in a city summer league.
In mid-June of ’91, Bjornson learned that Houston Astros scout Clark Crist, a former UA College World Series championship shortstop, was holding a one-day tryout camp at Hi Corbett Field.
Why not give it a try? When Bjornson showed up at the ballpark, about 100 other players had the same dream — the Big Leagues.
Incredibly, Bjornson was the only player Crist signed that day; 48 hours later he was part of the Astros’ system, reporting to Class A Burlington, Iowa, of the Midwest League.
Talk about humble beginnings.
Last week, after spending six years as the Houston Astros bullpen coach, two weeks after helping the Astros win the World Series, Bjornson was hired by the Boston Red Sox. He will be Boston’s bullpen coach in 2018.
Tucson High's Craig Bjornson hired by Boston Red Sox to be their bullpen coach. Not bad. World Series champ one day, off to Fenway Park the next.
— Greg Hansen (@ghansen711)
I don’t know who has a better baseball story than Craig Bjornson.
After three years in minor-league baseball, he returned to Tucson and was an assistant coach at Pima College. That was 1998. Now, all these years later, he’s got a World Series ring and works at Fenway Park.
Along the way, Bjornson traveled the minor-league circuit for 10 years, a pitching coach in small-town cities in Vermont, Utah and Washington and in the Venezuelan Winter League.
The Astros will soon announce that those, like Bjornson, involved in the world championship will each receive a winner’s share of about $350,000. For Bjornson, it is money well-earned.
A celebration honoring Bjornson and Tucsonan Brent Strom, the Astros’ accomplished pitching coach, will be held Saturday, Dec. 16 from 5-8 p.m., at the Centerfield Baseball facility on Julian Drive near Interstate 10 and Irvington Road. Information: or 440-4487.
