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KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Former Eastern Illinois baseball player Kevin Seitzer has returned to the Major League Baseball franchise that he was an All-Star for in 1987 after being hired as the Kansas City Royals' hitting coach last month.

Previously, Seitzer was the hitting coach with the Arizona Diamondbacks for the first half of the 2007 season.

Since retiring after the 1997 campaign, a year in which he played in the World Series with the Cleveland Indians, Seitzer has been the co-owner of the Mac-N-Seitz baseball school in Kansas City with friend and former Royals teammate Mike Mcfarlane. He has also gained a strong reputation as a freelance hitting instructor and worked with former Royals like Carlos Beltran, Raul Ibañez and Joe Randa.
 

Seitzer led EIU to the 1981 Division II World Series and established the program batting average record (.418) before being selected in the 1983 Amateur Draft. He was runner-up for 1987 American League Rookie of the Year honors after leading the league in hits as an All-Star third baseman for the Royals.

Seitzer was inducted into the EIU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1992 and has returned to Charleston for the annual alumni weekend numerous times, most recently in 2005. He also attended EIU's series at Kansas State in March of 2006.
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Seitzer Returns to Royals' fold
By Dick Kaegel, MLB.com

The last time Kevin Seitzer was employed by the Royals was near the end of Spring Training in 1992. His rookie glory of 1987 had been eroded by declining averages, surgery on both knees and the arrival of a new third baseman, Gregg Jefferies.

The Royals tried to trade Seitzer and couldn't, so they released him. Next spring, 17 years later, he will be back in uniform as the Royals' hitting coach.

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