Lenny Harris

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leonard Anthony Harris (born October 28, 1964 in Miami, Florida) is a former Major League Baseball utility infielder. He is best known for holding the record for the most pinch hits in a major league career. He batted left-handed and threw right-handed. Currently, he is the hitting coach for the Washington Nationals.

Harris was the Cincinnati Reds' fifth-round pick in the 1983 amateur draft. He made his major league debut with the Reds in 1988. He batted .372 in 16 games with Cincinnati in 1988. He played 61 games with the Reds in 1989; his batting average that year with the Reds was .223, and he was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers along with Kal Daniels for Tim Leary and Mariano Duncan.

Harris continued playing with the Dodgers through the 1993 season, playing in at least 107 games each season. 1993 was also the year when he started doing more pinch hitting. He never hit more than 3 home runs in any given year until 1996, but while with the Dodgers he did have several good seasons at the plate; he batted .304 in 1990 and .287 in 1991.

He became a free agent after the 1993 season, at which point he resigned with Cincinnati, where he continued to play until he was traded to the New York Mets in 1998. Harris actually pitched once for the Reds, on June 1, 1998. The Cincinnati Post reported, "Harris, who hadn't pitched since May 1983, when he led Jackson High School in Miami to a 5-3 victory over Miami Springs, proved to be effective when working on 14 years of rest. The first Cincinnati position player to appear on the mound since Dave Concepcion at Dodger Stadium on June 3, 1988, struck out Brent Mayne on three pitches (strike three was a nasty backdoor slider) before getting Stan Javier and Bill Mueller to fly out."^[1] Coincidentally, Mayne would make a relief appearance for the Colorado Rockies two years later.

In 1998, he batted .295 with the Reds in 57 games, but after joining the Mets, he batted only .232 and did not resign with the Mets the following year, instead opting to sign with the Colorado Rockies. He hit well with Colorado, but was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks for minor leaguer Belvani Martinez after 91 games there. He went 11-for-29 in 19 games with the Diamondbacks; he remained in Arizona for the first two months of the 2000 season, when he was traded back to the Mets for pitcher Bill Pulsipher. He finished the 2000 season with the Mets and also spent the 2001 season there. In 2001, he broke MLB's career pinch hits record, previously held by Manny Mota.

The 2002 season proved successful for Harris. He batted .305 in 122 games with the Milwaukee Brewers at the age of 37, showing that he would still be able to play for several more years. He started the 2003 season with the Chicago Cubs, with whom he played 75 games before being released and signing with the Florida Marlins. He was on the Marlins' championship team in the 2003 World Series. Although he batted just .193 in the 2003 campaign, he resigned for one year with the Marlins in 2004. Although he had said that he would retire after the 2004 season, he resigned for another year with the Marlins in 2005 and said that he will return for the 2006 season. However, the Marlins released him during spring training in 2006.

After his release, he became the infield coordinator for the Washington Nationals, and is currently the hitting coach.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference