The Yankees have a baseball player by the name of Oliver Cedeno, who was on one of their Dominican Summer League teams this season. Cedeno is a 17-year-old catcher who hit .164/.305/.181 in 142 plate appearances, but we're not here to talk about how bad that is. Who knows how hard it is to play your first season of quasi-professional baseball as a 17-year-old in the Dominican summer heat while wearing full catching gear. The thing that we can be sure of is that he will make you feel ridiculously old.
Mr. Cedeno, if he can really be given the honorific of mister, being a baby, was born in 1996. To be specific, he was born on May 24, 1996 and this was what the Yankees lineup looked like on that day:
Wade Boggs 3B
Joe Girardi C
Paul O'Neill RF
Jim Leyritz DH
Tino Martinez 1B
Mariano Duncan 2B
Gerald Williams LF
Ruben Rivera CF
Derek Jeter SS
On this day they lost 10–4 to a Seattle Mariners team that included Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez, and Jay Buhner. Scott Kamieniecki was the pitcher for the Yankees against Sterling Hitchcock. In fact, the entire Tino Martinez trade played in this game. Jim Mecir and Jeff Nelson both pitched for the Yankees and Russ Davis played third base for the Mariners.
At this point Derek Jeter was still only 21 and Alex Rodriguez was 19 20.
Do you feel old now? I do, and I bet they would too if they even knew who Oliver Cedeno was.