Topic: Carlos Perez

Carlos Gross Pérez (born in 1971 in Nigua, Dominican Republic) is a former pitcher in Major League Baseball and the brother of former major league players Melido Pérez and Pascual Pérez.

Pérez signed with the Montreal Expos as an amateur free agent in 1988. After being an all-star pitcher in his debut season in 1995, Pérez's career looked extremely promising. However, he soon suffered an untimely and devastating injury which forced him to miss the entire 1996 season. After rehabilitation, he re-joined the Expos in 1997 but still displayed steady showings of his all-star form. After several productive months into the 1998 season, Pérez was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 31 along with Hiram Bocachica and Mark Grudzielanek for Peter Bergeron, Wilton Guerrero, Ted Lilly, and Jonathan Tucker.

By the time he became a Dodger, his once likely potential for being a dominant left-handed major league pitcher was quickly slipping away. Frustration grew and Pérez pitched his two worst seasons in 1999 (2-10 in only 16 starts) and 2000 he was religated to the bullpen (after an entire career as a starter). Many fans remember a somewhat famous outburst by Pérez while in the dugout immediately after being removed from a game by his manager in Dodger Stadium. Pérez, fuming over a poor performance, proceeded to passionately destroy a water cooler with a baseball bat for several moments (video clips of it are still played on sports television networks when topics relating to "athlete outbursts" occur). His performance soon thereafter, coupled with a legal issue stemming from an airplane flight in which a flight attendant accused Pérez of choking, threatening, and causing injury to her, forced him to an early exit from baseball.