Results tagged ‘ Kevin Brown ’
Yanks got in draft duels with NFL
The National Football League began its amateur draft Thursday in Manhattan. The Yankees made two first-round selections in Major League Baseball’s first-year-player draft that went on to play pro football.
John Elway, who won two Super Bowls with the Denver Broncos, was the Yankees’ first pick of the 1981 draft and the 26th choice overall. Two years earlier, he had been drafted by the Royals but decided to attend Stanford. Elway played one season in the Yankees’ organization at Class A Oneonta and returned to Stanford where he played both football and baseball. In 1983, Elway was taken in the NFL draft by the Colts, then based in Baltimore. He was eventually traded to Denver where he became one of the city’s greatest sports legends.
Another first-round choice was Brandon Weeden, now the quarterback of the Cleveland Browns. The Yankees made him the 71st overall pick in 2002. Weeden pitched in the minors for several seasons both before and after the Yankees included him in the 2003 trade with the Dodgers that brought Kevin Brown to the Bronx. Weeden left baseball for good in 2006.
Also picked by the Yankees in lower rounds of the draft were two future football stars who also spent some time in the major leagues.
They chose Bo Jackson in 1982 with their second pick of the second round. He later played for the Royals and made the All-Star team. The Yankees took Deion Sanders in the 30th round in 1988. “Neon Deion” got into 71 games for the Yankees in 1989 and ’90 and batted .178 with 31 runs, four doubles, two triples, five home runs, 16 RI and nine stolen bases in 11 attempts in 180 at-bats. Sanders played in the World Series for the Braves in 1992 and on Super Bowl champion teams with the San Francisco 49ers and the Dallas Cowboys.
Tough Hall ballot for former Yankees
Last week’s Hall of Fame election was a tough one for those players with ties to the Yankees. Of the eight players on the ballot who spent time with the Yankees, five failed to get the five percent required to remain in consideration and were dropped. The three players who will remain on the ballot next year did nothing to improve their chances of election anytime soon, if ever.
With a record total of 581 ballots submitted by Baseball Writers’ Association of America members with 10 or more consecutive years of service, 436 votes were needed for election to satisfy the 75-percent requirement. Second baseman Roberto Alomar with 523 (90.0 percent) and pitcher Bert Blyleven with 463 (79.7) were the only ones to make the grade; Alomar in his second time on the ballot and Blyleven in his 14th and next to last time.
Kevin Brown, who pitched for the Yankees in his later years after having been a Yankees Killer with the Rangers early in his career, did the best of those who wore the pinstripes that failed to make the cut, with 12 votes, which reflected only 2.1 percent of the ballots cast. First baseman Tino Martinez, one of the franchise’s most popular players, got 6 votes (1.0 percent), and pitcher Al Leiter and first baseman John Olerud received 4 apiece (0.7). Shut out entirely was outfielder Raul Mondesi.
Brown has become sort of a darling of the SABR (Society of Baseball Research) set, who love his statistics. I admit Brown had a better career than a lot of people may think (211-144 record, 3.28 ERA, 2 ERA and WHIP titles, 6 All-Star appearances), but the Hall of Fame is for the great, not just the very good. Brown’s time with the Yankees was one of the areas that worked against him. His impact was less than minimal; it was non-existent. Martinez also falls into the very good category, as did his old buddy Paul O’Neill, who was a one-and-done candidate four years ago.
The others had their moments in the sun, which is why they were on the ballot in the first place, but Cooperstown just was not to be their destination.
As for those who remain, the outlook is not good, since each lost ground in the voting. Reliever Lee Smith, who pitched in eight games for the Yankees in 1993, is stuck below 50 percent. He might have been expected to get to the half-way point in this year’s election but instead fell to 45.3 percent – two percent below his 2010 showing. He has up to six more years for consideration (players may stay on the ballot up to 15 years provided they get 5 percent of the vote each year), but he appears to be going backward.
The same holds true for outfielder Tim Raines, whose candidacy is based more on his high-profile years with the Expos and White Sox rather than his role-playing time with the Yankees. I would have thought that appreciation for Raines’ record as a leadoff hitter would have heightened after Rickey Henderson’s election in 2009, but Rock is also moving in reverse. He went from receiving 37.5 percent of the vote last year to 30.4 percent this year. Time at least is on Raines’ side; this was only his fourth year on the ballot.
Very much like Smith, time is running out on Don Mattingly, the Dodgers’ new manager whose entire playing career was spent with the Yankees. The 2011 election was Donnie Baseball’s 11th year on the ballot. He fell from 16.1 percent last year to 13.6 percent this year. Mattingly has never done better than the 28.2 percent he got in his first ballot year of 2001. He is down to less than half of that now and has only four years possibly remaining for consideration.
The 2012 ballot will feature another Yankees favorite, Bernie Williams, the switch-hitting center fielder and cleanup hitter on four World Series championship teams. This is just a hunch, but he is bound to do better than the first-year candidates with Yankees pedigrees this time around.
Burned-up Burnett
Joe Girardi is an understanding man, a lot more understanding that I would be if I were managing the Yankees and A.J. Burnett pulled the deal on me that he pulled on Girardi Saturday before a sellout crowd at Yankee Stadium on an Old Timers’ Day devoted to the memory of George Steinbrenner and Bob Sheppard.
Forget for a minute how Boss George would have reacted to the news that one of his start pitchers averaging over $16 million a year in contract money punched himself out of the game before getting an out in the third inning. How about having to wait until the end of a brutal 10-5 loss to a Rays team on the heels of the Yankees in the American League East race to find out just what the heck happened?
Not only that. Girardi talked to the Fox broadcasters Kenny Albert and Tim McCarver during the game and said he would find out what happened to Burnett and send word back to them. The word that came later was that Burnett had fallen down the steps in the dugout, which turned out to be a lie.
This is not a politician’s blog, so I won’t say that Burnett misspoke. He lied. The tall tale he told was to the trainers so he could continue pitching even with lacerations on both of his hands. Girardi had his doubts, naturally, since he figured the only way someone could get cuts on their hands falling down steps would have been to dive down them.
Girardi still had a game to try to win. The Yankees were in a bad way for sure, but a 4-2 deficit in the third is not insurmountable. That the manager had to rely on the soft underbelly of his bullpen (Dustin Moseley, Chad Gaudin) is what took the game out of control, and that is Burnett’s fault. At least he pleaded guilty to that.
“I told Joe after the game that I was embarrassed and what really happened,” Burnett said. “I’ll apologize to all my teammates [Sunday].”
They deserve to hear that from Burnett, who finally admitted to Girardi after the game that his wounds were due to counter-punching the double doors leading to the clubhouse, which loosened some Plexiglas that sliced the fleshy portion of his palms just below the wrists. Never mind the suicide jokes. This is no laughing matter. Burnett did a stupid thing and then compounded it by trying to pitch after injuring his hands.
Yankees fans surely remember similar stupidity from Kevin Brown in September 2005 when he broke his pitching hand by venting his frustration in the same fashion, although he took on a brick wall. When will players realize that a wall or a door always wins that fight?
What Burnett did no matter how much his frustration may have seemed justified was to jeopardize the division chances of everyone in that clubhouse. That Girardi was not more upset than he let on was frankly a surprise to me.
Burnett is not some green kid but a 33-year-old veteran in his 12th big-league season. He should know better.
“It’s not something I want my players to do,” he said. “Mr. Steinbrenner called Paul O’Neill a warrior, and he hit more things than anybody.”
That almost sounds like justification. I was around for O’Neill’s entire time with the Yankees, and he never missed a game because of an injury related to his famous encounters with water coolers and light bulbs. Girardi said he does not expect Burnett to miss a start and that he’ll get an extra day because of Monday’s open date. That just means the Yankees got lucky. Burnett should know that, too, which is why an apology to his teammates is in order.
Jack O'Connell
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