Major League Baseball

Gilmore Girls' Luke Danes and His Minor League Baseball Past

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Long before he opened Luke’s Diner in Stars Hallow, Luke Danes (actor Scott Gordon Patterson) spent seven years in the minor leagues.

This generation’s favorite TV diner owner, Luke Danes, can be found in the fictional town of Stars Hallow, Connecticut. He converted his father’s hardware store into Luke’s Diner and has been a mainstay in the town for many years. He regularly battles with Taylor Doose, who owns Doose’s Market and runs the town meetings as town selectman. Luke has also had an on-again, off-again relationship with the lovely Lorelai Gilmore that goes back to October of 2000. Some people are absolutely enthralled with everything that goes on in Stars Hollow, while others just don’t see what the fuss is about. Even as he is a big part of the happenings in Stars Hollow, Luke would definitely be in the “don’t see what the fuss is about” crowd.

Five years before we met him as the owner of Luke’s Diner, we knew him briefly as Billy, from “The Sponge” episode of Seinfeld (December 7, 1995). Elaine Benes had recently learned that her favorite form of birth control, the Sponge, was being taken off the market. She hoarded as many boxes as she could, but still wanted to use them judiciously. She was dating Billy at the time, which led to the question of his “spongeworthiness.”

Luckily for Billy, he proved to be “spongeworthy”, although only for a single game. He wasn’t “spongeworthy” enough for a double-header. The year before his fling with Elaine Benes, he was in the movie “Little Big League.” He was originally slated to be the lead opposite Sela Ward, but he was bumped to a lesser role when the producers chose Timothy Busfield over him. It must have been a hit to the confidence to lose a coveted role to the “Revenge of the Nerds Guy.”

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Many years before the world would get to know him as “the spongeworthy guy” and then Luke Danes, Scott Gordon Patterson was a 1st round pick (12th overall pick) by the Atlanta Braves in the January amateur secondary draft in 1980. At the time, there were multiple amateur drafts. The biggest, like now, was the June draft, which had the most players, including all of the new high school graduates and college seniors who had just finished their seasons. Darryl Strawberry was the #1 overall pick in the 1980 June draft. He would be one of the key players for the Mets in the 1980s and he would hit 335 home runs in a 17-year major league career.

The January draft typically involved high school players who had graduated in the winter, junior college players, and players who had dropped out of four-year colleges. The 1980 January amateur draft was headlined by #1 pick Colin McLaughlin, who never reached the big leagues. The best player taken in the first round of this draft was Dave Gallagher, an outfielder who played for seven different teams in nine major league seasons, but only qualified for the batting title in one of them.

There was also a secondary phase of the January draft. This is the draft in which the Atlanta Braves picked Scott Gordon Patterson with the 12th pick (not to be confused with the Scott Patterson who pitched in four major league games in 2008). Tom Henke is the most notable player taken in this draft. He was chosen 12 picks after Patterson, but ended up pitching 14 years in the major leagues and saving 311 games. He was a two-time all-star who helped the Blue Jays to their 1992 World Series Championship by allowing just a single run in 8 innings that post-season. Henke was a large, bespectacled guy who pitched very well for the Blue Jays in his career. He was “The Terminator.”

Patterson never made it to the major leagues, but he had some success in the minors. He started his career with the Anderson Braves of the South Atlantic League, where he was teammates with Brett Butler, Brook Jacoby, and Brad Komminsk, among others. As a 21-year-old in A ball he led the team in innings pitched with 165.

He had a fast start to the 1981 season, going 9-0 with Class-A Durham and winning his first four decisions for Double-A Savannah when he was moved up a level. He was 13-0. The rest of the season didn’t go so well. Patterson was 1-8 down the stretch and finished the year 14-8. Despite the poor finish, he was a good enough prospect to draw interest from the New York Yankees. In April of 1982, the Braves traded Patterson to the Yankees for Bob Watson. Yankees VP of baseball operations Bill Bergesch said at the time, “This deal enables us to obtain a young, talented pitcher about whom we have had excellent reports. Scott has advanced rapidly in the Braves’ organization and our people who have seen him feel he has a great deal of potential.”

Patterson made it to Triple-A as a 23-year-old in 1982. He played with many former and future major league players on this Columbus Clippers team, including veteran Bobby Bonds and up-and-comer Don Mattingly. Steve Balboni led the team in home runs. Patterson led the team in starts, but was just 7-12 with a 5.50 ERA and 1.60 WHIP.

The 1983 season was the last year Patterson was used primarily as a starting pitcher. He split time between Double-A Nashville and Triple-A Columbus and was 14-6 with a 4.26 ERA in 28 starts during the season. That 1983 Columbus Clippers team was good, finishing with a record of 83-57. Big Steve Balboni hit 27 long balls, but the team leader was 26-year-old outfielder Brian Dayett, who hit 35 big flies. Outfielder Otis Nixon, 24 years old at the time, stole 94 bases and scored 129 in 138 games. Only five of the 42 players on the roster never made the major leagues.
Over the final three years of his professional career, Patterson transitioned to the bullpen and bounced back and forth between Double-A and Triple-A, never quite making it to the big leagues. He got good reviews for his arm, though. In May of 1986, Clippers manager Barry Foote told The Dispatch that Patterson “might have the best fastball in the Yankees’ minor league organization.”

Of course, you need more than a great fastball to get the best hitters in the world out on a consistent basis. Patterson was good, but not good enough to make it to the highest level. In seven minor leagues seasons, he was 63-52 with a 4.31 ERA and 1.48 WHIP. He had success in the lower minors, with a 3.59 ERA in A ball and a 3.61 ERA in Double-A, but couldn’t get upper level hitters out consistently, with a 5.43 in 373 Triple-A innings.

He spent his final spring training with the Dodgers in 1987, but didn’t make the team. In a People Magazine article in 2002, Patterson revealed a heart-to-heart talk he had with Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax. Patterson said, “I was brokenhearted and I told him my heart wasn’t in it anymore. He said, ‘Then this is where you should get out.’” He got out.

We never heard Luke talk about his baseball past while serving breakfast and coffee at Luke’s Diner in the early 2000s and it doesn’t come up in the more recent Gilmore Girls Reunion Netflix Revival. Even though he was once very close to pitching in the major leagues, about the only link to baseball we see with Luke Danes is the ever-present backwards baseball cap on top of his head.

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