Education
Burns attended Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, earning first-team All-America honors before being drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the 7th round of the 1984 MLB amateur draft.
Burns attended Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, earning first-team All-America honors before being drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the 7th round of the 1984 MLB amateur draft.
He played for the A"s from 1988 to 1991, and would also play for the Texas Rangers (1992–1993), and Saint Louis Cardinals (1993). He was nicknamed "The Mad Hatter" because of his habit of frantically tugging at the bill of his cap and re-adjusting it prior to every pitch as well as "Third Degree" for his penchant of giving up runs near the end of his career. Burns made his Major League Baseball debut on May 31, 1988, and during that season was a reliably effective starter at the back end of the A"s rotation.
Burns switched to an almost exclusively relief role in following seasons.
He left the A"s following the 1991 season to sign with the Texas Rangers, then finished his career on September 17, 1993, with the Saint Louis Cardinals. Burns now runs the Todd Burns School of Baseball in Huntsville, Alabama.