University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics
Louisiana Athletics Hall of Fame
Paul Bako
- Induction:
- 2021
A Lafayette native, Bako played three seasons at Louisiana and helped the Ragin' Cajuns to a pair of conference titles. He was the starting catcher on Louisiana's 1991 American South Conference team and helped the Ragin' Cajuns to a 49-20 record.
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Bako was the catcher on UL's 1992 Sun Belt Conference championship squad where the pitching staff posted a 3.50 earned run average to rank 29th among Division I programs. He was named All-Sun Belt Conference his junior season in 1993 and was selected in the fifth round by the Cincinnati Reds in the 1993 MLB Draft.
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The epitome of the baseball "journeyman," Bako played for 11 different major league teams in a 12-year career, first reaching the major leagues in 1998 with the Detroit Tigers before playing for Houston (1999-2000), Florida (2000), Atlanta (2000-01), Milwaukee (2002), Chicago Cubs (2003-04), Los Angeles Dodgers (2005), Kansas City (2006), Baltimore (2007), Cincinnati (2008) and Philadelphia (2009). He played for a pair of teams (Atlanta and Chicago) that made a combined three playoff appearances and reached the NLCS (Atlanta-2001; Florida-2003). Â
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Bako was the catcher on UL's 1992 Sun Belt Conference championship squad where the pitching staff posted a 3.50 earned run average to rank 29th among Division I programs. He was named All-Sun Belt Conference his junior season in 1993 and was selected in the fifth round by the Cincinnati Reds in the 1993 MLB Draft.
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The epitome of the baseball "journeyman," Bako played for 11 different major league teams in a 12-year career, first reaching the major leagues in 1998 with the Detroit Tigers before playing for Houston (1999-2000), Florida (2000), Atlanta (2000-01), Milwaukee (2002), Chicago Cubs (2003-04), Los Angeles Dodgers (2005), Kansas City (2006), Baltimore (2007), Cincinnati (2008) and Philadelphia (2009). He played for a pair of teams (Atlanta and Chicago) that made a combined three playoff appearances and reached the NLCS (Atlanta-2001; Florida-2003). Â
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