Early career In his first season of professional baseball, Zdeb was assigned to the rookie league
Billings Mustangs, where he batted .184. He also spent 1972 in rookie ball with the
Kingsport Royals, where he improved to a .319
batting average with 12
home runs. In 1973, he began the year at
Waterloo in the
Midwest League, where he hit .355, earning him a promotion to the high-A
San Jose Bees, where he struggled, hitting .195. In 1974, Zdeb returned to San Jose. In his first full season there, he batted .295. Over the next two seasons, he continued to move up the ladder, playing at Double-A
Jacksonville in 1975 and
AAA Omaha in 1976.
"Long hair" confrontation At some point, during minor league
spring training, he showed up to camp with long hair, which was against team policy. Manager
Joe Gordon refused to give him a uniform, so he approached
general manager Lou Gorman, asking "Mr. Gorman, if I cut my hair, will I become a better ballplayer?" Gorman said he needed to cut it to properly represent the organization, and after initially refusing, he did so a couple days later.
Major leagues Rookie season: 1977 After the 1976 season, the Royals traded their primary backup outfielder,
Jim Wohlford, to the
Milwaukee Brewers, opening up a spot for Zdeb. With the left-handed
Dave Roberts on the mound for the
Detroit Tigers on
Opening Day, the right-handed hitting Zdeb wound up starting in left field in place of the left-handed hitting
Tom Poquette. Zdeb went 1-for-4 with a
run scored in his major league debut. Zdeb and Poquette
platooned over the rest of the season, and the rookie finished with what turned out to be a career high .297 batting average in 105 games. He also had career bests with 2 home runs and 23
RBI. In the
1977 American League Championship Series against the
New York Yankees, Zdeb appeared in four of the five games, but failed to get a hit in nine
at bats, although he did
steal a base. == Later life and family ==