Welcome to the relaunched This Day in Yankees History. With the start of the 2020 season delayed for the foreseeable future, the Pinstripe Alley team decided to revive the program in a slightly different format. These daily posts will highlight two or three key moments in Yankees history on a given date, as well as recognize players born on the day. Hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane with us!

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This Day in Yankees History (March 28th)

34 Years Ago

The Yankees and Red Sox make a rare trade, as the two teams decide to swap designated hitters. Coming off a Silver Slugger win with the Yankees in 1985, Don Baylor was sent to Boston in exchange for Mike Easler.

On a narrative level, the Red Sox came out as clear winners, with Baylor winning another Silver Slugger and receiving down-ballot MVP votes while helping Boston make the World Series. However in pure numbers, Easler had the better season. In terms of OPS+, Easler hit 121 compared to Baylor’s 112. In Baseball Reference WAR, Easler won 2.1 to 1.6. It’s just that the Yankees finished 5.5 games back of the Red Sox and missed out on the playoffs. Neither team was hurt long term, as both Easler and Baylor would be out of the majors by the end of the 1988 season.

Meanwhile, the Yankees and Red Sox have made just three deals since, most recently in 2014, when Kelly Johnson and Stephen Drew were swapped.

19 Years Ago

After helping the Yankees to the 2000 World Series title, the Yankees traded Glenallen Hill to the Angels.

Hill put up an impressive 175 OPS+ with 16 home runs in 40 games. However, he struggled in the ALDS and didn’t end up playing much in the next two rounds. The Yankees received minor league outfielder Darren Blakely back, who had been a fifth round draft pick three years earlier. Blakely didn’t amount to much, only reaching Double-A in the Yankees’ system. However, they didn’t miss out losing Hill, who hit .136/.136/.182 in 66 at-bats, was released by June 1st and never played in the majors again.

17 Years Ago

The YES Network reveals that they failed to come to an agreement with Cablevision to provide access to the one-year old channel to the cable carrier’s three million subscribers. It’s hard to tell who exactly was at fault here all these years later, but we can all have a pretty good guess if James Dolan was involved.

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Vic Raschi was born on this day in 1919. The pitcher was a four-time All-Star and a six-time World Series champion with the Yankees, playing with the team from 1946 to 1953. He was one of, if not the key pitcher on several of those teams. Raschi was given the start in game one of the 1950 World Series, and put up a career postseason ERA of 2.24. It is also the birthday of Mark Melancon and Edwar Ramirez, a pair of late 00/early 10s Yankees relievers. Although it hasn’t come with the Yankees, Melancon has gone on to have a pretty decent career. Not so much for Ramirez.

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We thank Baseball-Reference and Nationalpastime.com for providing background information for these posts.