Mike Birkbeck
Michael Lawrence Birkbeck is a college baseball coach and former baseball pitcher. He is the pitching coach at Kent State University. Birkbeck played college baseball at the University of Akron. Birkbeck played for the Milwaukee Brewers, New York Mets, and the Yokohama BayStars of the Nippon Professional Baseball league.
In six MLB seasons, Birkbeck had a 12-19 win-loss record, 54 games pitched, two complete games, 270 ⅓ innings pitched, 319 hits allowed, 158 runs allowed, 146 earned runs allowed, 27 home runs allowed, 93 walks allowed, 149 strikeouts, four hit batters, eight wild pitches, 1,196 batters faced, four intentional walks, 12 balks and a 4.86 ERA.
In 1986, Birkbeck became the second ever former Akron Zips baseball player to reach Major League Baseball. The only other to date was Jack DiLauro, who reached the major leagues in 1969.
Birkbeck is currently an associate baseball head coach at Kent State University. In 2012, he was named the ABCA/Baseball America Assistant Coach of the Year.
