Tagged: july 18
June 18 – Happy Birthday Felix Heredia
The only member of the Yankee all-time player roster to be born on June 18 (1975) is their former reliever, Felix Heredia. The Yankees claimed the southpaw off waivers during the 2003 season and he pitched real well out of their bullpen for the remainder of that year, making 12 appearances during which he allowed just two earned runs in fifteen total innings. That effort represented an ERA of just 1.20 prompting New York to sign him to a new two-year contract. But during his second season in pinstripes, Heredia struggled with control problems and his Yankee ERA ballooned by over five times causing Joe Torre to eventually lose faith in him. The Yankees traded him to the Mets after the 2005 season in a deal that returned Mike Stanton to the Yankee bullpen. Heredia retired after the 2005 season with a 28-19 record for his ten years in the big leagues and 6 career saves. During that decade he pitched for six other teams in addition to the Yankees.
The only other member of the Yankee baseball family to be born on this same date is this announcer, who’s most famous call had nothing to do with Yankee baseball.
Year | Tm | W | L | G | GS | GF | CG | SHO | SV | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2003 | NYY | 0 | 1 | .000 | 1.20 | 12 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15.0 | 13 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 1.200 |
2004 | NYY | 1 | 1 | .500 | 6.28 | 47 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 38.2 | 44 | 28 | 27 | 5 | 20 | 25 | 1.655 |
10 Yrs | 28 | 19 | .596 | 4.42 | 511 | 2 | 128 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 458.1 | 448 | 259 | 225 | 45 | 232 | 351 | 1.484 | |
CHC (4 yrs) | 15 | 6 | .714 | 5.01 | 221 | 0 | 54 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 163.1 | 166 | 102 | 91 | 20 | 80 | 146 | 1.506 | |
FLA (3 yrs) | 6 | 7 | .462 | 4.72 | 118 | 2 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 114.1 | 112 | 68 | 60 | 5 | 72 | 102 | 1.609 | |
NYY (2 yrs) | 1 | 2 | .333 | 4.86 | 59 | 0 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 53.2 | 57 | 33 | 29 | 6 | 25 | 29 | 1.528 | |
NYM (1 yr) | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2.2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0.750 | ||
CIN (1 yr) | 5 | 2 | .714 | 3.00 | 57 | 0 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 72.0 | 61 | 27 | 24 | 9 | 28 | 41 | 1.236 | |
TOR (1 yr) | 1 | 2 | .333 | 3.61 | 53 | 0 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 52.1 | 51 | 29 | 21 | 5 | 26 | 31 | 1.471 |
July 18 – Happy Birthday Ramiro Pena
After the Yanks spent close to $350 million during the 2008 offseason to sign Sabathia, Teixeira and Burnett, putting their Mexican League find, Ramiro Pena on the Opening Day roster as the team’s utility infielder was probably a money-saving move on the part of the team’s front office. It worked out pretty well. The 23-year-old native of the Mexican city of Monterrey was paid the MLB minimum salary of $400,000 and responded with decent fill-in defensive efforts at short and third plus produced an impressive .287 batting average. Pena did spend July and August of his first big league season back in the minors after the Yankees acquired Eric Hinske in late June of 2009, but he returned to New York in September and hit his first big league home run. Though he didn’t see action in that year’s postseason, Pena more than earned the World Series ring he received when the Yankees topped the Phillies in the ’09 World Series.
That effort earned him a return trip to the Bronx the following year and though his average dropped sixty points, his defense improved and so did his RBI production. What really killed Pena’s career as a Yankee was the emergency appendectomy he was forced to undergo in July of 2011, right after he had again been recalled to the Bronx to fill in for an injured Eric Chavez. Major League utility players who get hurt when the starters they are supposed to replace are also hurt are simply asking for trouble. Sure enough, Pena appeared in just three games for New York during the entire 2012 season and was released at the end of that year.
The Atlanta Braves signed him as a free agent in December and he was establishing himself as Atlanta’s super sub during the first half of the 2013 season until the injury jinx bit him again. Pena underwent shoulder surgery this month and will miss the remainder of the year.
Pena shares his birthday with this former Yankee manager, this former starting piitcher and this long-ago pinch-hitter.
Year | Tm | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2009 | NYY | 69 | 121 | 115 | 17 | 33 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 4 | 5 | 20 | .287 | .317 | .383 | .699 |
2010 | NYY | 85 | 167 | 154 | 18 | 35 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 18 | 7 | 6 | 27 | .227 | .258 | .247 | .504 |
2011 | NYY | 23 | 46 | 40 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 11 | .100 | .159 | .175 | .334 |
2012 | NYY | 3 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .250 | .250 | .250 | .500 |
5 Yrs | 230 | 445 | 410 | 54 | 100 | 12 | 3 | 5 | 44 | 11 | 21 | 76 | .244 | .281 | .324 | .606 | |
NYY (4 yrs) | 180 | 338 | 313 | 40 | 73 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 32 | 11 | 13 | 58 | .233 | .266 | .288 | .553 | |
ATL (1 yr) | 50 | 107 | 97 | 14 | 27 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 12 | 0 | 8 | 18 | .278 | .330 | .443 | .773 |
July 18 – Happy Birthday Johnny Hopp
Back in the late forties and early fifties, Yankee GM George Weiss would scour the rosters of the 15 other big league teams looking for what the New York media liked to call “pennant insurance.” With the platoon master, Casey Stengel calling the shots on the field in the Bronx, Weiss knew that providing the Ol’ Perfessor with one good extra bat or pitching arm was the recipe for a few extra late-season wins and quite possibly another trip to the Fall Classic. In August of 1949, Weiss had grabbed the “Big Cat,” Johnny Mize from the cross town Giants for $40,000 dollars. The primary reason the former NL batting champion was available in the first place was because Giant manager Leo Durocher was not very fond of him. When Weiss gave Mize to Stengel, Casey used him masterfully as a pinch hitter and part-time first baseman for the next five Yankee seasons.
A year after getting Mize, Weiss spent another 40,000 Yankee dollars to get Johnny Hopp from the Pirates. Hopp had been a teammate of Mize’s when both played and starred for the Cardinals early in their careers. Though he didn’t have lots of power, Hopp was a great defensive first baseman, a better-than-average center fielder and a solid batsman who turned pitches into line drives with great regularity. In fact, when Weiss swung the deal to put him in pinstripes, Hopp was hitting .340. The national baseball press howled that the mysterious Weiss was somehow using the financial might of the Yankees to form a cabal of MLB owners willing to sell New York any player needed to fill a gap in the team’s roster. In actuality, no NL team in the pennant race at the time of the Hopp transaction wanted or needed a first baseman who could not hit for power. But Stengel welcomed him with open arms into his toolbox, which was more commonly referred to as the Yankee dugout.
During the final month of the 1950 regular season, Hopp appeared in 19 games for New York and hit .333 with a .486 on base percentage. His timely hitting helped the Yankees hold off a very good Detroit Tiger team to win that year’s pennant by just three games. In 1951, Hopp’s age (35 at the time) began to catch up with him as injuries limited his play and had a negative impact on his batting average. The Hastings, Nebraska native was given his outright release the following year and he finished his big league career as a member of the Tigers. He retired with a .296 lifetime batting average and four World Series rings, two each with the Cardinals and Yankees.
Hopp shares his July 18th birthday with this former Yankee Manager, this one-time Yankee starting pitcher and this Yankee utility infielder.
Year | Tm | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1950 | NYY | 19 | 35 | 27 | 9 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 8 | 1 | .333 | .486 | .593 | 1.078 |
1951 | NYY | 46 | 73 | 63 | 10 | 13 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 9 | 11 | .206 | .306 | .317 | .623 |
1952 | NYY | 15 | 28 | 25 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | .160 | .250 | .160 | .410 |
14 Yrs | 1393 | 4805 | 4260 | 698 | 1262 | 216 | 74 | 46 | 458 | 128 | 464 | 378 | .296 | .368 | .414 | .782 | |
STL (7 yrs) | 669 | 2401 | 2129 | 355 | 619 | 116 | 41 | 24 | 244 | 69 | 227 | 218 | .291 | .362 | .418 | .779 | |
PIT (3 yrs) | 331 | 1208 | 1081 | 170 | 335 | 53 | 22 | 14 | 117 | 21 | 120 | 71 | .310 | .379 | .438 | .818 | |
NYY (3 yrs) | 80 | 136 | 115 | 23 | 26 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 14 | 4 | 19 | 15 | .226 | .341 | .348 | .689 | |
BSN (2 yrs) | 263 | 993 | 875 | 145 | 272 | 43 | 10 | 5 | 80 | 34 | 92 | 64 | .311 | .381 | .400 | .781 | |
BRO (1 yr) | 8 | 14 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | .000 | .000 | .000 | .000 | |
DET (1 yr) | 42 | 53 | 46 | 5 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 7 | .217 | .308 | .239 | .547 |