Sparky Lyle
FameRank: 4

"Albert Walter "Sparky" Lyle" is an American former left-handed relief pitcher who spent sixteen seasons in Major League Baseball/Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1967 through 1982. He was a relief pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Texas Rangers (baseball)/Texas Rangers, Philadelphia Phillies, and Chicago White Sox.

A three-time Major League Baseball All-Star Game/All-Star, he won the American League/American League (AL) Cy Young Award in 1977. He led the American League (AL) in save (baseball)/saves in 1972 and 1976. With the Yankees, Lyle was a member of the World Series champions in 1977 and 1978.

Lyle co-authored, with Peter Golenbock, The Bronx Zoo (book)/The Bronx Zoo, a 1979 tell-all book which chronicled the dissension within the Yankees in its World Series Championship seasons of 1977 New York Yankees season/1977 and 1978 New York Yankees season/1978. From 1998–2012, Lyle served as manager of the Somerset Patriots, a minor league baseball team of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball.

More Sparky Lyle on Wikipedia.

When we were up 6-1, the game was not over. Not versus that club. Not by any means.

He's going to play the rest of the way out.

I really don't know why. I know one thing: My guys go out there and play hard for me. That is such a confidence booster for me.

I'll miss him for sure.

The best part of it was we shut their offense down. I knew we had the pitching to do what we've got to do and what we can do.

When you sign some new guys, you are selling them on the league. Joe Klein has been very good about it. Sometimes he has apologized, and sometimes he has said deal with it. Moaning about it just made everyone else think bad about it.

Billy actually passed the pitcher but I thought that the pitcher got the corner of the bag and Billy got the middle. It was close.

Last year I didn't think he was ready to throw, and I told him to take the rest of the year off. I gave him my word that we would bring him to spring training.

He was safe, no if ands or butts about it. That was one of the worst calls of the year. That wasn't even a contest. It changes the whole thing.