With MLB rosters already being shredded by injuries, quarantines, and the coronavirus, we're seeing threadbare teams on the diamond. The Mets just beat a skeleton crew called the Boston Red Sox, featuring many players probably more fit for loading docks than major league ballparks.
It's not unique to Boston, of course, as the Miami Marlins have been banished for a week, and the Yankees were unable to play two games at Philadelphia because the place is a petri dish for COVID-19. So as starters are scrubbed and replaced by scrubs, we thought it would be fun to look at five little-known players who jumped on their chance and morphed into important New York Yankees.
5. Erick AlmonteAlmonte was inserted at shortstop to replace an injured Derek Jeter on April 2, 2003. The soft-hitting Almonte, who had just four career plate appearances, responded by smacking seven hits and driving in six runs over his first four games, posting an astonishing .412 BA. Almonte would cool off, but ended 2003 batting .260 with one homer, 11 RBI, and 17 runs scored over 31 unexpected games. It wasn't Ruthian, but Almonte helped keep the infield intact until Jeter returned, and the Yanks went on to win 101 games and the AL pennant.
4. Aaron SmallOn July 20, 2005, little known Aaron Small took the mound for the first time as a Yankee, and pitched 5 1/3 average innings in an 8-4 win over the Texas Rangers. The journeyman hurler, who had pitched for six other teams in ten years before joining the Yanks, won his next start on July 28. And Small kept winning through the rest of the season, finishing with a 10-0 record in his first summer in pinstripes. He made one poor start in the ALDS, which the club lost to the Angels, but the Summer of Small was the most unexpected run since the Summer of Spencer.
3. George SelkirkImagine replacing Babe Ruth, and then imagine also wearing No. 3 in the process. That was the biblical shadow in which George Selkirk played in 1935. In 128 games, Selkirk smacked 11 home runs, drove in 94 runs, and sported a muscular .312 BA. Not bad when saddled with Babe Ruth's number and legacy. Selkirk would be overshadowed his entire career in pinstripes, playing next to Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Bill Dickey – "No player ever had a tougher assignment," manager Joe McCarthy said of Selkirk's task – yet Ruth's replacement hit over .300 in five of nine seasons, and was a key cog in the machine that won four straight Fall Classics from 1936 through 1939. He even crushed a homer off Carl Hubbell in his first World Series at-bat in '36.
2. Shane SpencerUsually, you've blown your chance to be a big-league star after you turn 25. So when the barely-known Shane Spencer was batting .176 over nine games sprinkled between April 10 and August 4, 1998, there was little chance we would hear from a 26-year-old rookie who was pining for time on a team with a surreal 80-28 record and 15.5 game lead in the AL East. But in his next game on August 7, Spencer went 5-for-5, including two home runs, raising his average to .376. Then September came, and Spencer went wild, clubbing eight more homers, including three grand slams, and notching 21 RBI. Over a mere 67 at-bats, the outfielder finished the season with a .373 batting average, 10 homers, and 27 RBI, all 10 of those dingers coming over a span of 54 plate appearances. Spencer smashed two more homers in the ALDS, and would help the Yankees win 125 games, including a sweep of the Padres in the World Series, as they planed their flag as the best baseball team in history.
1. Lou GehrigWally Pipp had a fine career with the Yankees between 1915 and 1924, but one day in 1925, in an effort to shake things up, manager Miller Huggins decided to give a kid from Columbia University, Lou Gehrig, a shot at first base – and in the process turned Pipp's name into a baseball verb. The 22-year-old Gehrig would swat 129 hits in 126 games, leading to an impressive stat line for the rest of the season – 20 homers, 23 doubles, and even 10 triples along the way to a .295 average. Gehrig would then would hit over. 300 for each of the next 12 years, and that's to say nothing of his epic 493 homers, a couple MVP awards, and a streak that made him forever known as the Iron Horse. Before he tragically died at age 38, Lou Gehrig would play in 2,130 consecutive games, and is still considered one of best baseball players in history. Fun fact, though: the game in which he replaced Pipp wasn't Game 1 of Gehrig's streak; alas, he had pinch-hit the day before, so the streak, just like Gehrig's legacy, began somewhat innocuously.
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