Born on December 9th, 1957 in Orlando, Florida, Steve Christmas had a brief major league baseball career from 1983-86, primarily as a catcher. In high school, Christmas was the quarterback for Orlando Colonial High School. He attended college briefly before being signed by the Cincinnati Reds in 1977.
Christmas worked his way up through the minors over the next five years. His best year came while he was with Indianapolis in 1982. That year Christmas went .306./.341/.452/.793. He was finally called up to the Reds in 1983.
Even though Johnny Bench was playing first or third base by this point in his career, Christmas did not see a lot of playing time since he had to compete with two other catchers, Dann Bilardello and Alan Knicely. Though he was batting nearly .400 in the spring, Christmas was sent down again. Christmas was known as an easy-going, friendly guy, but by his own admission he would sometimes lose his temper. The day he was sent down again, Christmas exploded, barging into the offices of Manager Russ Nixon and GM Dick Wagner.
''I sort of went crazy,'' Steve recalls with a laugh. ''I let them know how I felt. A couple of days later, they gave me a slap on the wrist by loaning me out to Tucson in the Astros' system. That's when I really thought about quitting.” But he didn’t quit. Christmas spend another year in the minors before being traded to the White Sox. Two years were spent there before he was shipped across town to the Cubs.
Christmas says, “It's so frustrating. You keep thinking, 'Why me?' Or, 'Why not me?' And you think about putting a wife and daughter through the life of a gypsy. This year we were just unpacking in an apartment in Des Moines when I was called up to Chicago. We were in a hotel there, and I was about to get a place when the thing happened with my elbow. We were back in Orlando and then back to Des Moines again.''
Christmas retired from baseball in 1986.