Tragedies have struck Major League Baseball too many times this year. It just seems like the year of 2021 is the year of athlete deaths. Unfortunately, the most recent organization to be stuck with tragedy is the New York Yankees.
On June 11th of 2021, former New York Yankees pitcher Art Ditmar passed away at the age of 92.
A finesse control pitcher, Ditmar divided his career between the Athletics and Yankees. Ditmar won 47 games for the Yankees in a span of five years, with a career-high 15 in 1960, despite not getting to pitch on a regular basis in a rotation that included Whitey Ford, Bobby Shantz, Don Larsen and Bob Turley. In a nine-season career, Ditmar compiled a 72–77 record with 552 strikeouts and a 3.98 ERA in 1,268 innings.
In other MLB news, New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole recently commented on whether or not he has used “Spider Tack” while pitching. For those unaware, “Spider Tack” is a sticky substance used to enhance a pitchers grip on a baseball. Cole had the following to say on the subject:
“I don’t [long pause] … I don’t know … I don’t quite know how to answer that, to be honest,” Cole said during his videoconference with reporters before the Yankees began a three-game series at Minnesota.
Credit: ESPN.COM
He then paused again before continuing, “There are customs and practices that have been passed down from older players to younger players, from the last generation of players to this generation of players, and I think there are some things that are certainly out of bounds in that regard.
“This is important to a lot of people who love the game, including the players in this room, including fans, including teams, so if MLB wants to legislate some more stuff, that’s a conversation that we can have. Because ultimately we should all be pulling in the same direction on this.”
This post was originally done by Chris Powers.
