Batting average .280 Home runs 136 Height 1.91 m Home runs 37 Runs batted in 435 Weight 97 kg | Runs batted in 120 Name Troy Neel Batting average .264 Role Baseball player | |
Troy Lee Neel (born September 14, 1965) is an American former professional baseball player. After a solid start in Major League Baseball (MLB), Neel moved to Japan and compiled strong numbers in six seasons playing in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).
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Early life
Neel was born in Freeport, Texas. He attended Texas A&M University before his professional baseball career.
Career
Neel played in the major leagues for the Oakland Athletics primarily as a first baseman and designated hitter from 1992 to 1994.
Moving to Japan, he had a successful baseball career for the Orix BlueWave, playing with them for six seasons from 1995 until 2000.
Neel was the Most Valuable Player in the 1996 Japan Series, as the BlueWave defeated the Yomiuri Giants 4-games-to-1. Neel had 6 RBI in the Series.
Neel finished his professional baseball career in 2001 playing with the Doosan Bears in Korea.
Personal life
Neel has been married at least two times.
Child support controversy
In 2000, Neel was ordered by the State of Texas to pay $5,000 a month in child support to his ex-wife who is the mother of his two children, a son and daughter. Instead of paying, Neel fled the country and played baseball in Japan.
After retiring from athletics, the remarried Neel purchased a 16-acre 700,000 sq ft (65,000 m2) island in Vanuatu in the South Pacific, where he and his wife ran a 21-room resort which cost a reported $1.5 million overlooking a lagoon Called "the worst dead beat dad in 'the history of Texas'", he owed over $725,000 in child support, ultimately determined to be $778,000. In 2005, a grand jury in San Antonio indicted Neel on a charge of foreign travel to evade child support obligations.
His passport expired in 2008, and Vanuatu authorities forced him to leave the country. On December 11, 2008, Neel was arrested at the Los Angeles International Airport by US Health and Human Services investigators after he exited a plane from Sydney, Australia; he awaited trial in San Antonio, Texas. On May 7, 2009 Neel was scheduled to plead guilty in court to avoiding child support payments. Neel faced as much as two years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.
Neel reached a one-lump settlement with his ex-wife, for $116,000 and not the $778,000 he owed, a reduction of 85%. He received no jail time sentence, only probation.