Today in baseball history…

So, I’ve always wanted to buy one of these baseball fact books. The ones that are filled with random and useless facts. Things like, Who was the first pitcher to strike out back-to-back-to-back batters, but the last strike out was swinging and in the dirt, allowing the batter to advance to first, and then give up a homerun on the next pitch?

So, I don’t know that answer. But I wish I did. I know I’ve seen it happen in college baseball, so I’m sure it’s happened in the Bigs. And for some reason I really want to know who did it first.

The other question I’ve always wondered is who had the shortest MLB career? Not the guy who was signed and then released the following morning. I mean, who played the shortest career?

Is there a guy who played outfield for one series and was released? A guy who pinch hit, one time, and popped out in the bottom of the ninth with a man on third down by a run… and he was released the next morning?

Actually, amazingly, there has been a shorter MLB career that the one above. And it happened 40 years ago, on Sept. 15th, 1971 at the Astrodome.

The 1971 Houston Astros weren’t exactly the 1931 Yankees. The ’71 Astros finished 79-83, the team had only been around for about 10 years and they were still pretty young. In fact, the two oldest players on the team were battery-mates.

Lefty pitcher Fred Gladding, 35 was the oldest and his lefty catcher Johnny Edwards was 33. The rest of the lineup was a bunch of no-named 20-somethings, save perhaps, a 27-year-old Joe Morgan.

But there was one player in particular on this team who would live in infamy. He was drafted in the 5th round of the amateur draft in 1968. In 1971, called up from Oklahoma City just 13 days earlier, a 21-year-old pitcher would have, perhaps, the shortest MLB playing career in the history of the league.

If you look up his stat-line it wouldn’t even read like binary code. Just a one and all zeros. Even if it included his pitch count.

It was on Sept. 15th, 1971 that Astros pitcher Larry Yount, the older brother of Hall of Famer Robin Yount, was credited with his only major league appearance. And maybe the shortest MLB playing career in the history of the league.

See, Yount didn’t even throw a pitch. Didn’t pick a runner off. Didn’t even get to hear the ump say, “Play Ball!”

He took the mound in the ninth inning of a game against Atlanta with the Astros trailing 4-2. After a few warmup tosses he felt some pain in his elbow and had to leave the game.

He never appeared in another major league game. He is the only pitcher in the history of the league to ever be credited with an appearance, yet never throw a pitch.

Sure, he continued to play in the minors. In fact, in 1974 – the same year Robin Yount was called up to play with the Milwaukee Brewers. – Larry Yount was traded by the Houston Astros with Don Stratton to the Brewers for Wilbur Howard.

Howard went on to bat .252 for the Astros for the next five years. Larry Yount called it a career in 1976 with a 40-69 minor league record and a 0-0 MLB record.

He retired with a perfect record. No walks, no hits, no homeruns, no balls, no hit batters. And a 0.00 ERA.

He also retired in the record books.