Former major league pitcher Brad Halsey dies in climbing accident
Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that left-hander Brad Halsey, who played in parts of three seasons in the majors with the New York Yankees, Arizona Diamondbacks and Oakland Athletics, was killed in a recreational climbing accident near his home in New Braunfels, Texas. Halsey was 33 years old.
Halsey’s best season came in 2005 with Arizona, when he posted a 4.61 ERA in 26 starts. He finished his major league career with the A’s a season later, appearing in 52 games. He tried unsuccessfully to catch on with the Los Angeles Dodgers in spring training 2009. His career ERA was 4.84 in 286 1/3 innings.
He broke in with the Yankees in 2004, allowing two runs over 5 2/3 innings in his debut against the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on June 19. Reporter Tyler Kepner wrote richly about Halsey’s first game in the New York Times:
The Yankees promoted Halsey on Saturday, but he worked out in Los Angeles on Friday with Neil Allen, his pitching coach at Class AAA Columbus. Allen, a longtime major leaguer, gave Halsey simple advice: ”Don’t look at the upper deck at Dodger Stadium. Keep focused on the target.”
But this was not Halsey’s boyhood home in Houston, where his mother, Loretta, built a mound in the front yard and taught him how to pitch. And it was not the University of Texas, where Halsey helped the Longhorns to the 2002 College World Series title. He was pitching in a storied park for a team of All-Stars, and when Alex Rodriguez tossed him the ball before his first pitch, Halsey gave in to the moment. ”A-Rod just threw me that ball,” he said he thought to himself. ”It was awesome.”
The day got even better for Halsey, who lasted five and two-thirds innings, earning the victory as the Yankees beat the Dodgers, 6-2. Halsey, 23, a left-hander, gave up two runs, five hits and a walk, and even singled in his first at-bat since his sophomore year in high school.
”He started right out with strike one, strike two,” Manager Joe Torre said. ”He wasn’t going to beat himself. I was very pleased with the outing. You couldn’t ask for more than that, really.”
Not long after, he made another effective start against the Boston Red Sox, in a game more famous for featuring a diving catch into the stands by Derek Jeter, who was bloodied in the face by a close encounter with an unoccupied seat.
MLB has posted other highlights from Halsey’s third start, which came in front of 55,000 fans at Yankee Stadium. Note the congratulatory butt-pat by Jeter, along with the encouragement by Alex Rodriguez, near the end of the video.
Later that season in a game at Fenway Park, Halsey became a True Yankee for being on the mound when the benches cleared after he hit Dave Roberts with a pitch. No one was ejected.
Halsey became an ex-Yankee when the club traded him in a package for Randy Johnson after the 2004 season.
Halsey hadn’t pitched professionally since 2011, when he returned to the Yankees organization and made a combined 24 appearances at Class A and AA. There’s another 90 seconds or so of Halsley’s work from his final pro season available here:
An eighth-round pick out of Texas in 2002, he made 17 starts that year for the Longhorns on their way to the College World Series title.
Halsey’s agent broke the news of his death Tuesday. A truncated online obituary lists Friday as the day he died. The USA Today story indicates that more details of Halsey’s death will be released after authorities conclude an investigation.
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David Brown is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter!
