May 17 – Happy Birthday Jim McDonald
Yankee fans, the Yankee press and even some of his own Yankee teammates had not been too thrilled with this right-hander’s performance since he came to the Bronx in a November 1951 trade that sent a good-looking New York prospect by the name of Clint Courtney to the Browns. Born in Oregon and raised in Modesto, California, McDonald spent his first season in pinstripes pitching mostly out of Casey Stengel’s bullpen with an occasional starting assignment thrown in the mix.
After a couple of rough early outings, he had started throwing very well and when July rolled around his ERA was under two. That’s when he had an eight game stretch in which he lost three decisions, blew a save and doubled his ERA. Meanwhile, Courtney was having a solid rookie season for the Browns and every time the Yankees played St. Louis, he seemed to have big days at the plate. It was looking like the Yanks had made a very bad deal.
Fortunately for McDonald, Yankee pitching coach Jim Turner had faith in him. When the ’53 season rolled around, New York’s Holy Trinity starting three of Reynolds, Raschi and Lopat had all reached their mid-thirties and required more rest. In June of that year, Turner started using McDonald as his team’s fifth starter and he did OK, finishing the season with a 9-7 record and an ERA of 3.82.
That earned him a surprise start in the fifth game of that year’s World Series against the Dodgers. He wasn’t exactly brilliant that day, but he did manage to pitch into the eighth inning and get the win, making him at the time the 26th Yankee pitcher in history to earn a World Series victory (as of Opening Day 2014 that number of pitchers has increased to 59.)
McDonald then pitched sparingly but well for New York in 1954, winning four of his five decisions and lowering his ERA to 3.17. Then that November, in one of the biggest and most complicated trades in baseball history, he was traded to the Orioles in a transaction involving sixteen players. He pitched in the big leagues until 1958.
McDonald shares his birthday with this former Yankee owner, this former Yankee DH and this former Yankee pitcher.
| Year | Tm | W | L | G | GS | GF | CG | SHO | SV | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1952 | NYY | 3 | 4 | .429 | 3.50 | 26 | 5 | 9 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 69.1 | 71 | 31 | 27 | 1 | 40 | 20 | 1.601 |
| 1953 | NYY | 9 | 7 | .563 | 3.82 | 27 | 18 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 129.2 | 128 | 64 | 55 | 4 | 39 | 43 | 1.288 |
| 1954 | NYY | 4 | 1 | .800 | 3.17 | 16 | 10 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 71.0 | 54 | 28 | 25 | 3 | 45 | 20 | 1.394 |
| 9 Yrs | 24 | 27 | .471 | 4.27 | 136 | 55 | 30 | 15 | 3 | 1 | 468.0 | 489 | 262 | 222 | 24 | 231 | 158 | 1.538 | |
| NYY (3 yrs) | 16 | 12 | .571 | 3.57 | 69 | 33 | 17 | 10 | 3 | 0 | 270.0 | 253 | 123 | 107 | 8 | 124 | 83 | 1.396 | |
| CHW (3 yrs) | 0 | 3 | .000 | 5.82 | 21 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 43.1 | 53 | 34 | 28 | 5 | 21 | 22 | 1.708 | |
| BAL (2 yrs) | 7 | 12 | .368 | 5.24 | 37 | 19 | 8 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 135.2 | 160 | 96 | 79 | 10 | 76 | 48 | 1.740 | |
| BOS (1 yr) | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | 3.79 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19.0 | 23 | 9 | 8 | 1 | 10 | 5 | 1.737 | |
Pinstripe Birthdays 