Bio
Brian Deon Barton was born April 25, 1982, in Los Angeles, California, to the proud parents of Derard Barton and Malisia Childress. He has two brothers and three sisters.
Barton began his baseball career at the young age of six and joined his first organized team, the Cleveland Indians (also his first professional organization), at the age of eight with Sportsman Little League of Inglewood, California. A few years later, he played in the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program and later returned, in 2000, to help the Los Angeles based team defeat Puerto Rico to clinch the RBI World Series.
Barton attended Westchester Senior High School where he lettered in three sports (baseball, football, and track). He earned conference co-MVP honors and was a first team All-City and Daily Breeze selection. He attended Loyola Marymount University where he majored in Aeronautical Engineering and lettered in baseball. After one year at Loyola, Barton transferred to the University of Miami where he helped lead the baseball team to two College World Series appearances while earning All College World Series honors in 2004. He majored in Aerospace Engineering at Miami and is one semester from completing his degree.
Barton was signed by the Cleveland Indians as a non-drafted free agent on August 9, 2004. During his three seasons in the Indians organization, Barton put up some productive numbers that led him to being selected in the Major League phase of the Rule 5 draft.
Barton made the Opening Day roster on March 31, 2008 and recorded his first major league hit (4/1/08) on the first pitch he saw with a single to leftfield off of Colorado Rockies’ pitcher Taylor Buchholz. He later hit his first major league homerun (5/27/08), a solo shot, off of Houston Astros’ pitcher Shawn Chacon. He later finished the 2008 season with a .268 batting average, 2 homeruns, and 13 RBI.
Barton was traded to the Atlanta Braves on April 20, 2009 for pitcher Blain Boyer.
He played the 2010 season with the Bridgeport Bluefish and Newark Bears of the Atlantic League where he hit .348 to win the league batting title.
Barton is now in his fourth season with the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs.
In his free time, Barton enjoys reading, writing, putting together puzzles, fishing, and spending time with his family and friends. However, his biggest passion is traveling where he has visited Ethiopia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Hawai'i, Canada, England, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Australia, Jamaica, South Africa, Peru, Taiwan, Venezuela, UAE and the Bahamas. His goal is to visit every country in the world, then space.