Hall of Fame
Mueller was a four-year starter in baseball at Missouri State and was the Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year in 1993. That year he also received first-team All-Missouri Valley Conference honors and ABCA All-Region laurels.
In his collegiate career, Mueller led Missouri State in hits, batting average, runs scored and stolen bases three times and paced the Bears in at-bats and triples twice. He graduated as Missouri State’s single-season record holder for runs, hits, singles and walks and had career marks for runs (234), hits (289), total bases (398), walks (154) and stolen bases (65).
He was selected to play for the USA National Team and participated in the U.S. Olympic Trials in 1991 and after his collegiate career he was drafted and signed by the San Francisco Giants in 1993, he made his Major League debut in 1996. Mueller played with the Giants through the 2000 season, was traded to the Chicago Cubs in 2001, traded to San Francisco late in the 2002 season, and signed as a free agent with Boston Red Sox in 2003 and led the American League in hitting that year.
Through his first six full Major League seasons, he had a career batting average of .286, and on July 29, 2003 in Texas, he became the first player in Major League history to hit grand slam home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game (and he remains the only player to have accomplished that feat.) In 2004, he was a starter for the World Series champion Boston Red Sox.
Mueller received a Missouri State University Outstanding Young Alumni Award in 2000 and was Inducted into the Missouri State Athletics Hall of Fame in 2004.
After finishing his on-field career, Mueller worked as a coach and assistant General Manager for the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers, 2007-2014, and he became assistant hitting coach for St. Louis Cardinals, 2015, and was the Cardinals’ first base coach in 2016, and returned to his position as assistant hitting coach in 2017, although he is no longer with the Cardinals.