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Ron Coomer was a solid hitter while playing for four teams, mostly the Minnesota Twins, across the 1995-2003 seasons. A corner infielder who took his hacks from the right side, the Chicago-area native counted 92 round-trippers among his 827 base knocks. An All-Star with the Twins in 1999, he later suited up for the Cubs, Yankees, and Dodgers.

He is currently in his 13th season as a color analyst in the Chicago Cubs radio booth. Working along the legendary Pat Hughes, Coomer not only provides insight gleaned from his playing days, he consistently contributes entertaining anecdotes. Given those attributes, he was an ideal candidate for an installment of our Challenging Career Quiz series.

As with most of the dozen players-turned-broadcasters who preceded him, I began by asking who he faced the most times.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Would it be Scott Karl?”

Coomer wasn’t particularly close with his guess. He matched up against the erstwhile Milwaukee Brewer a total of 25 times, whereas he faced Chuck Finley 45 times.

“Really?” Coomer said upon learning it was the longtime California/Anaheim Angels southpaw, against whom he went 11-for-42 with a pair of home runs. “I remember Chuck very well. I remember getting some hits off him, and I really remember that I got a lesson taught to me when I was a young big league player. He threw me a pitch inside and I blasted it, but hit it way foul at the Metrodome. I thought, ‘Well, he’s not throwing that again.’ I was wrong. He doubled up and struck me out on the same fastball inside. I went, ‘Hmmm, OK. Don’t forget that.’ I think this was my first year in the big leagues.”

Asked who he logged the most hits against, the affable slugger-turned-analyst echoed his earlier answer.

“I don’t know that either,” he said. “It had to be a lefty. It’s not Scott Karl?

Nope.

“How about Darren Oliver?”

Also no. With no more guesses forthcoming, I informed him that it was David Wells, against whom he went 15-for-35.

“I had a home run off of him at Yankee Stadium,” Coomer said of the southpaw with 239 wins on his ledger. “He was a really good pitcher, but also tailor-made for my style of hitting. He was going to throw strikes — he was going to be aggressive and take his chances — so either you got him or he got you. He had a good fastball inside to righties, but yes, I always hit pretty well against David Wells.”

A pitcher he fared even better against was James Baldwin. He went 14-for-32 with five doubles versus the right-hander.

“He was one of my teammate in the minors,” recalled Coomer, who was in the White Sox system prior to reaching the big leagues with the Twins. “We then played against each other a lot in the majors. I hit him pretty well because I knew what James liked to do. I’d played behind him as a third baseman, so I probably had a little bit of an advantage.”

“We were good friends when we played against each other,” added Coomer. “I remember hitting a bases-loaded double down the right field line against the White Sox at The Cell. He looked at me at second base and was really mad. He thought we were maybe getting their signs or something. But yeah, another guy who was really aggressive, which fit into my swing. A really good guy, though.”

Most home runs? This time the Scott Karl guess proved accurate. Coomer went yard against his former NL Central adversary five times.

“We played each other a bunch, because he was with Milwaukee and I was with the Twins,” said Coomer. “Another guy who threw from the left side and was aggressive. That was always a strength for me. Darren Oliver comes to mind, too. I could make adjustments on guys who came after you and would throw inside, so I would often do pretty well against them.”

Rare is the hitter who can’t name the first pitcher he took deep, so rather than toss Coomer that cookie, I asked if he could name his second victim. Flummoxed, he simply threw up his hands.

I told him that it was C.J. Nitkowski.

“That would have been in Detroit at Tiger Stadium,” Coomer correctly recalled upon hearing the answer. “I almost hit for a cycle that day. I hit a home run — a three-run homer, I believe — a triple to right-center, a single, and then I hit one to center field that was going over Chad Curtis’ head. But he caught it. That was that.”

Home run number one came against a far more accomplished hurler.

“I’d gotten called up a few weeks before that,’ Coomer said of his August 16, 1995 blast against the Seattle Mariners at the Metrodome. “I remember not swinging in my first at-bat against him — he walked me on a 3-1 count — and I also remember thinking that I had probably never seen a fastball that hard. He threw one under my hands and it was basically, ‘Wow.’ Dan Wilson was catching — Danny is a Chicago guy — and he started laughing, because I went, ‘Whoa.’ When it’s a 100-mph fastball right under your hands, it’s kind of, ‘Well, OK now.’”

“My next at-bat we had two on and two out,” continued Coomer. “I hooked a slider way foul, but hit it real good. I thought, ‘Man, I missed my pitch against him.’ A couple pitches later he threw the same pitch and I hit into the left field seats.”

The pitcher was none other than Randy Johnson. All told, Coomer went 5-for-20 against The Big Unit.

Who set him down on strikes the most times?

“I think I got one hit all my life against Pedro [Martínez]. Was it Pedro?” asked Coomer, whiffing badly on his guess. While correct that he mangaged just one hit, he only fanned twice in his 10 trips to the plate against the Hall of Famer. The honor belongs to Johnson and Finley, with 10 strikeouts each.

Coomer considers Martínez the toughest pitcher he went up against.

“Nobody was better than Pedro,” he opined. “Pedro was the hardest for me to hit, and the reason is that I never could see the ball come out of his hand. Along with the stuff he had, he had a deception where I just couldn’t see him. It felt like I went to home plate without a bat. I just couldn’t hit him.”

A pair of right-handed changeup artists were also tough on Coomer. While he took each of them deep once, the slugger went just 1-for-9 with two strikeouts against Doug Jones, and 1-for-8 with five strikeouts against Keith Foulke. How did the signature offerings of the respective All-Star relievers compare?

“They were very different,” Coomer explained. “Foulke threw a circle change over the top, and Jones threw more of a sidearm split that seemed like it never got to home plate. Foulke was fastball-changeup and had a great arm action. He’d throw a changeup, you saw fastball, and it wasn’t a fastball.”

“I had such a problem with Jones,” he said of the bullpen stalwart who logged 303 career saves. “But then one day we were in Oakland and I told myself that I was just going to look for his changeup. If he only throws me fastballs, so be it. I remember hitting three fastballs in a row almost over our [first base] dugout. I was determined not to come off my plan, and he finally threw me a split for a strike. I hit it over the left field wall. I thought, ‘Finally, I won a battle against this guy.’ But he was very unique and very good. A lot of guys I faced were very good.”