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According to Baseball Reference, 786 players have pitched for the Yankees over the years.
All but 25 of them completed more than one inning. A handful of the ones who didn’t went on to, or had played for another team prior to being a Yankee. A couple others were position players. That leaves seven pitchers whose entire major league careers consist of an inning or less. These are there stories.
The most recent addition to this club is Steve Garrison. A Brewers’ draft pick, Garrison had played a couple seasons in the minors for them and the Padres by the year 2010. In September of that year, the Yankees picked him up off waivers after he had been designated for assignment. They kept him on for the following season, and called him up in July 2011.
After six seasons in the minors, Garrison made his major league debut on July 25th against the Mariners. The lefty recorded the final two outs in a 10-3 win. A couple days later, he was sent down after the Yankees activated Rafael Soriano from the DL.
Garrison was DFA’d later in the season. In subsequent years, he got minor league deals with the Mariners and Diamondbacks, but never got recalled to the majors. Most recently, he played for the Camden Riversharks in the Atlantic League in 2015. At least, he’ll always have, uh, getting Justin Smoak to line out on his résumé.
The earliest instance of this came back in 1905. The third ever season for the Yankees/Highlanders. On the final day of that season, the Highlanders played a doubleheader against the Boston Americans. In one of those games (not sure which one, box scores from 1905 aren’t exactly readily available online), they brought in a pitcher by the name of Art Goodwin.
Goodwin faced five batters. Two of them walked, and he allowed two hits. He threw one wild pitch, and all four runners would score, although only three runs were earned. Goodwin recorded one out, but would finish the game and the season with an 81.00 ERA. That was also good for a 20.52 FIP, a 12.000 WHIP, and 54 H/9. That would be the only game of his major league career.
Even though we don’t know which of the two games he pitched in, the Highlanders lost both. That means that Art Goodwin never got to pitch in a win, never mind a good win.
Clem Llewellyn first showed up in minor league stats pages in 1922, which would be the same year he played his first major league game. The North Carolina graduate made his major league debut on June 18th of that year.
With the Yankees down 9-2, Llewellyn came in to pitch the eighth. He allowed one hit, but retired the other three hitters he faced. Despite playing in the minors for another three seasons, no other teams gave him another shot in the bigs.
In his post playing career, Llewellyn became a lawyer and president of two different minor leagues. So, he was in charge of more leagues than he had innings pitched.
Stay tuned, as tomorrow we’ll learn about the other four.
Sources
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/garrist01.shtml
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA201107250.shtml
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/goodwar01.shtml
https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/1905-schedule-scores.shtml
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/n/newkifl01.shtml
Mayer, Ronald A. The 1937 Newark Bears: a Baseball Legend. Rutgers University Press, 1994.
Cava, Pete. Indiana-Born Major League Baseball Players: a Biographical Dictionary, 1871-2014. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2015.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA193408210.shtml