Kenneth Purvis MacKenzie (born March 10, 1934) is a Canadian former

relief pitcher In baseball and softball, a relief pitcher or reliever is a pitcher who enters the game after the starting pitcher is removed because of fatigue (medical), fatigue, ineffectiveness, injury, or ejection (sports), ejection, or for other strategic ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

. He played with the

Milwaukee Braves The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) East division. The Braves were founded in Bost ...

(1960–61),

New York Mets The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major league ...

(1962–63), St. Louis Cardinals (1963),

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Yor ...

(1964) and

Houston Astros The Houston Astros are an American professional baseball team based in Houston, Texas. The Astros compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division, having moved to the division in 2013 after ...

(1965).

Early life

A member of Yale's Class of 1956, MacKenzie lettered in men's hockey and baseball at

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

. He returned to Yale as head baseball coach in 1969 and held that post for ten seasons. The native of

Gore Bay, Ontario ] Gore Bay became a town on April 7, 1890, on Manitoulin Island in Ontario, Canada. Located on Gore Bay, a bay of Lake Huron's North Channel, it is one of the two incorporated towns of Manitoulin District, of which it is the administrative and gov ...

, threw left-handed, batted right-handed, and was listed as tall and (13 stone, 3 pounds).

Career

MacKenzie signed with the Braves in 1956 and began working his way through the club's

farm system In sports, a farm team, farm system, feeder team, feeder club, or nursery club is generally a team or club whose role is to provide experience and training for young players, with an agreement that any successful players can move on to a higher ...

, becoming a relief specialist in 1959, his third

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Mod ...

season. After working in 14 games for Milwaukee in brief trials in and , his contract was sold to the

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Mets on October 11, 1961, one day after that year's expansion draft. An original Met, MacKenzie posted a 5–4

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and was the only man among 17 pitchers on the Mets to win more games than he lost on a team which suffered 120 defeats.

Manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

Casey Stengel said of him: "He's a splendid young fella with a great education from Yale University. His signing with us makes him the lowest paid member of the class of Yale '56." In , MacKenzie again was the Mets' lone over-.500 pitcher, winning three of four decisions for a

team A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson (academic), Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interde ...

which would lose 111 games. MacKenzie, however, was traded to the pennant-contending St. Louis Cardinals on August 5, 1963. MacKenzie recorded eight wins, five losses, and four saves, with a 4.96

earned run average In baseball statistics, earned run average (ERA) is the average of earned runs allowed by a pitcher per nine innings pitched (i.e. the traditional length of a game). It is determined by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number ...

over 76

games pitched In baseball statistics, games pitched (denoted by Games G in tables of only pitching statistics) is the number of games in which a player appears as a pitcher; a player who is announced as the pitcher must face at least one batter, although except ...

for the Mets. Those eight victories would be his only Major League Baseball wins. He bounced from the Cardinals to the Giants to the Astros through the campaign, spending time in Triple-A in the process. All told, he won eight of 18 decisions in 129 games pitched (all but one as a reliever), with five career saves. In 208

innings pitched In baseball, innings pitched (IP) are the number of innings a pitcher has completed, measured by the number of batters and baserunners that are put out while the pitcher is on the pitching mound in a game. Three outs made is equal to one innin ...

, he allowed 231

hits Hits or H.I.T.S. may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''H.I.T.S.'', 1991 album by New Kids on the Block * ''...Hits'' (Phil Collins album), 1998 * ''Hits'' (compilation series), 1984–2006; 2014 - a British compilation album se ...

and 63 walks with 142

strikeout In baseball or softball, a strikeout (or strike-out) occurs when a batter accumulates three strikes during a time at bat. It usually means that the batter is out. A strikeout is a statistic recorded for both pitchers and batters, and is deno ...

Post-MLB Career

MacKenzie coached baseball and ice hockey at

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

between 1969 and 1979.

References

External links

1934 births Living people Atlanta Crackers players Baseball people from Ontario Canadian expatriate baseball players in the United States Houston Astros players Louisville Colonels (minor league) players Major League Baseball players from Canada Major League Baseball pitchers Milwaukee Braves players New York Mets players Oklahoma City 89ers players St. Louis Cardinals players San Francisco Giants players Tacoma Giants players Wichita Braves players Yale Bulldogs baseball coaches Yale Bulldogs baseball players Yale Bulldogs men's ice hockey players {{Canada-baseball-pitcher-stub