Bio

Fredrick DeShun Lewis

Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (1999-2001) / Baseball
Wiggins, Mississippi

Scan through the sports section of any newspaper in the United States, and you will probably find the Major League Baseball box scores ... and when you get to the San Francisco Giants information, you'll see the name "FLewis" in the lineup. That's Fred Lewis, Giants outfielder and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College alumnus. Lewis, a Wiggins native, is the son of recent Gulf Coast retiree Vivian Lewis.

Lewis played baseball and football at Gulf Coast (Perkinston Campus), during the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 seasons. As a baseball player, he made the All-State and All-Region teams. He attended Southern University in Baton Rouge before going to the minor leagues. In the minors, he played with the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, Hagerstown Suns, and the Norwich Navigators.

Since becoming a pro, Lewis gets a head start on the season by working out with the Gulf Coast baseball team before leaving for spring training. "They help me, and I help them," he says, "I love to practice with the guys. It helps me get my blood flowing. I really believe this cool weather gets me in shape."

Lewis earned a trip to the majors by playing in 120 games with the Fresno Grizzlies, the Giants’ AAA affiliate, as an outfielder. In 439 at-bats, the 6-foot-2, 190-pound Lewis batted .276 with 12 home runs and 56 RBIs. As the 2006 season ended in Fresno, he was packing his bags to go home when destiny paid him a visit. "I expected to be going home. They asked me, 'Why are you packing to go home? You're going to the big leagues.' It was like a dream come true." So Lewis went to Chicago to join the Giants as they took on the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

Lewis split the 2007 season between the minors and San Francisco. On May 13 of that year, Lewis hit for the cycle (when a player records a single, double, triple, and home run all in the same game) in just his third major league game of that season at Colorado. That 5-for-6 performance with three runs scored and four RBIs made Lewis just the fourth player in MLB history (since 1900) to hit his first big-league home run as part of a cycle.

On June 1, 2007, he hit his first MLB grand slam against the Philadelphia Phillies, and on July 4, he hit another grand slam against the Cincinnati Reds, becoming the first player in Giants history to hit two grand slams in his rookie season.

Lewis played his last major league game in 2012, finishing with a .266 batting average in 535 games. He finished second in the National League with 11 triples in 2008. He batted .288 in two seasons with the Hiroshima Carp in Japan and would play his final professional game in 2016 in the Atlantic League.