Denny Stark

EVERY MAJOR-LEAGUE PLAYER has a first time running onto a big-league field wearing a big-league uniform. Whatever happens after that—whether it’s years, weeks, or a matter of days—there’s no taking that first one away. Denny Stark got his in 1999. Then, 10 years later, after an injury to his pitching arm knocked him out of the majors and put him on a setback-ridden comeback journey, he got to have that first-time feeling again.

To earn his return to the major leagues, it took almost five years and thousands of hours of work, with no guarantee he’d pitch in the majors again. “Running onto a major-league field [in 2009] felt as good as the first time I got called up,” Stark said in 2025. “To overcome those odds, and everything I’d gone through, to be back in the big leagues, it validated everything.”1

For Dennis James Stark—born October 27, 1974, in Hicksville, Ohio, to Rosalind “Roz” (Mann) and Conrad Stark, two years after his older sister Sheila—that first major-league jog came at New Comiskey Park in Chicago. He wouldn’t actually pitch in a game for two weeks, but he was on big-league grass with a big-league number (56) on his back. Stark was a hard-throwing 24-year-old righty drafted by the Seattle Mariners three years earlier. He was considered a strong prospect by the organization and got the call-up when rosters expanded on September 1.

The second time, he was 34. By then he had had some success in the majors and a lot of it in the minors.

In between, there were solid seasons in the Mariners’ minor-league system, including a Pacific Coast League Pitcher of the Year season in 2001, an 11–4 campaign with the Colorado Rockies in 2002, and a lot of arm trouble. There were five character-building years that included Tommy John surgery, a year of rehabilitation, a minor-league comeback stint doomed from the start because the surgery failed when his body rejected a replacement tendon in his elbow, followed by a second Tommy John a year later and a whole new rehab until he could throw well enough to ask for cold tryouts with any club that would take a look.

The Mariners did take a look and signed him to a minor-league contract that eventually led back to the big leagues. Essentially, it was a career in two parts, the first before the two surgeries, the second being the double rehabs and the struggle to come back.

Stark spent all or parts of 13 seasons in professional baseball, six of them including big-league appearances. Except for a short stint in the Cleveland Indians’ minor-league system and a final season with the Bridgeport Bluefish in the independent Atlantic League, all of his time came in the Seattle and Colorado organizations.

At every level, he was primarily a starter. His lifetime major-league record was 15–14 with an ERA of 5.81 over 73 games. In the affiliated minors he was 56–43 with an ERA of 3.69 in 200 games. Most of his minor-league time came in Class AAA, where compiled a record of 30–16 in 111 games.

The independent league season, in 2010, was a final attempt to make it back to the majors. He had a good year but didn’t attract much interest from major-league organizations and after the season decided to retire from professional baseball and pursue a career as a firefighter.

Stark and his wife Shelly have two children, a daughter Taylor and son Brayden. The family lives in Broomfield, Colorado, which is part of the Denver metropolitan area.

After retirement, he joined the Arvada, Colorado, Fire Protection District as a firefighter. As of 2025, he was working as a firefighter, emergency medical technician, and hazardous materials officer.

Although born in Hicksville, where the local hospital was located, Stark grew up nearby in the even smaller town of Edgerton in the northwest corner of Ohio, less than five miles east of the Indiana state line and less than 20 miles south of Michigan.

Stark’s father had a 30-plus year career as a manager in the recreational vehicle industry. His mother worked in quality and code compliance at a manufacturing facility.

Stark graduated from Edgerton High School in 1993 after starring in both basketball and baseball. He received small college scholarship offers but wanted to play Division I baseball. The University of Toledo was the closest Division I program, so Stark walked on with the Rockets to pursue his dream of a major-league career.

He played three years for Toledo in the Mid-American Conference and posted solid but not remarkable numbers. As a freshman, he was in the bullpen and got 40 innings and posted a 2.93 ERA. Over the next two years, he was a starter, going 3–4 with a 7.51 ERA in his sophomore year and improving to 9–7 with a 4.44 ERA in 99 innings his junior year, completing seven games that season.2

By his junior year, Stark was 6-foot-2 and 210 pounds. He was throwing a mid-90s fastball and had caught the eye of the Mariners, who chose him in the fourth round of the 1996 June draft.

Stark said that before the Mariners picked him he hadn’t known how interested they were. “Ken Madeja was the scout,” Stark said. “He’s legendary. He’s a stay-in-the-background type of guy. Later on, I found out how many of my games he watched.” In 2016, Madeja received a Legends in Scouting Award from the Pro Baseball Scouts Foundation.3

Stark spent nearly all of his first six professional seasons in the Mariners’ minor-league system before being traded to Colorado on December 16, 2001.

Shortly after the 1996 draft, the Mariners sent the 21-year-old Stark to their short-season Single-Single-A team in Everett, Washington, just 30 miles north of Seattle. He started four games for Everett and finished the season 1–3 with a 4.45 ERA. He showed good potential as a quality starter, as he threw 30 1/3 innings and had 49 strikeouts while walking 17.

Looking back, Stark described himself as a fastball, slider, and changeup pitcher who later developed a sinker. In his first three years in the Mariners’ system, he didn’t rise above the Single-A level. His third year, 1998, was shortened by a stress fracture in his right arm, and he pitched only 29 1/3 innings. The injury occurred early enough in the season that he was able to return to finish the year pitching for the Mariners’ Arizona Fall League team in Peoria.

To start the 1999 season, he was assigned to Seattle’s Double-A New Haven affiliate in the Eastern League. The Ravens’ pitching staff that year included 10 players who eventually made it to the major leagues, three of whom were part of the 2001 Seattle Mariners. In 1999, Stark made 26 starts and compiled a 9–11 record with an ERA of 4.40. It was impressive enough to get him a late-season call-up from the Mariners in his fourth year with the organization.

“We were on the road, and I was supposed to start. It was September 1st and I ate lunch by myself because it was my start day,” Stark recalled. “I got back to the hotel and players said [manager] Dan Rohn was looking for me. I thought to myself, ‘Is this what I’m thinking it is?’ I went to his room and knocked, and he let me know that I was catching a flight in a couple hours. It’s a memory no one ever forgets. I had every emotion there is. I called my dad. He put in a lot of time playing baseball with me. My dad was never too tired.”

The Mariners were in Chicago playing the White Sox on the last day of a road trip. “I flew from Binghamton to Chicago and got to the stadium in the first inning. I got to the clubhouse and changed and went to the bullpen,” Stark said. “My parents were there. Getting to run out to the bullpen in right field was pretty exciting.”

His first major-league appearance came two weeks later on September 15 in Tampa. Stark was sick with the flu, but manager Lou Piniella called on him to start the eighth with the Mariners trailing, 5–3. Stark struck out the first batter he faced, Bob Smith. He was then lifted after giving up three straight singles and was subsequently charged with three runs, one unearned. In his first stint in the majors, he made five appearances, pitched 6 1/3 innings, and gave up 10 hits and eight runs.

The Mariners started him back at New Haven for the 2000 season. He seemed headed for a promising year, but a torn labrum in his pitching shoulder ended his season after eight starts. In those eight starts, he was a respectable 4–3, but the rest of the numbers really popped. His ERA was 2.19, his WHIP was under one, his strikeout-to-walk ratio was 2.47, and he gave up just one home run in 49 1/3 innings.

Rohn was the Ravens’ manager again in 2000. In 2010, Rohn, then managing the Las Vegas 51s in the Pacific Coast League, recalled Stark’s determination: “He was a big-time competitor. I still remember the day he blew his arm out for us in Double A and the last pitch he threw was 94. He keeps battling and wants to play the game. And he’s built a pretty good career because of his perseverance.”4

Arguably, Stark’s best season in professional ball was 2001, but a stacked Mariners pitching staff kept him relegated to the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers for most of the season. He won Pacific Coast League Pitcher of the Year honors with a 14–2 record in 24 starts and an ERA of 2.37.

That was Seattle’s 116-win season, tying the major-league regular-season record for wins set by the 1906 Chicago Cubs. Breaking onto that roster was a significant uphill climb. Starters in 2001 included Freddy García, Aaron Sele, Jamie Moyer, John Halama, Paul Abbott, and Joel Piñeiro. The talented rotation maintained unusually good health throughout the season. Those six accounted for all but seven regular-season starts that year. Stark made three, and Brett Tomko started the other four.

It wasn’t any easier to win a spot in the bullpen, which included Norm Charlton, Arthur Rhodes, Jeff Nelson, Ryan Franklin, José Paniagua, Brian Fuentes, and Kazuhiro Sasaki.

Stark was up and down with the club that year. He appeared in four games and earned one of the club’s wins in a five-inning start against the Rangers in late June. That was victory number 58.

More significantly, he was the starter for the game that became win 116, in which he threw three scoreless innings in a 1–0 victory over the Rangers. It was the next-to-last day of the regular season, the team had clinched a playoff berth, and Stark was one of five pitchers that day as Piniella lined up the pitching staff for the playoffs that would start three days later.

Stark was called up from Tacoma for two starts in June, just before the All-Star break. He was recalled when rosters expanded in September. Between spring training and the call-ups he only spent a few months with the big club that year, but it was enough to see that the 2001 Mariners were a special club. He said, “You saw a lot of great players having great seasons. [Bret] Boone, Ichiro, the pitching staff: Paul Abbott, Jamie Moyer all had great years. Freddy García had a great year. It just seems like team chemistry [was a factor in] a lot of wins.

“My first start was in Anaheim and I remember [pitching coach] Bryan Price saying, ‘You just need to keep us in the game. This team is resilient, and it won’t quit.’ And that’s what I saw.”

That season, when he was called back up for the last month, things weren’t exactly normal. The Mariners were chasing the 1906 Cubs, but the record had been overshadowed by the September 11 terror attacks. When he joined the club, like every other team in baseball, the Mariners were figuring out where sports fit in the world.

When the attacks occurred, Stark was still with the Rainiers. “I was in New Orleans with Tacoma. Game one of the championship series was supposed to be the night of [September 11] and I was supposed to pitch,” Stark recalled. “I woke up and logged on to my computer and that was the first I’d heard about [the attacks].”

That series was canceled and the Rainiers and Zephyrs were declared co-champions. Stark was supposed to be on his way to the Mariners for the late-season call-up, but air travel was grounded. “A couple of us got to fly out a couple days later,” he said.

He spent most of the last month of the regular season with the Mariners but got in only two games. The first was a three-inning relief appearance. The M’s were down, 6–0, and Stark struck out three of the first four men he faced and held the A’s scoreless for two innings before giving up two homers and three runs in his last inning.

In his other appearance, on October 6 against the Texas Rangers, he helped make history. “It was a spot start,” Stark said. “We were going to the playoffs and the game plan was to get some work in for several people. I was starting it off. … We had won the day before, number 115. Jamie [Moyer] pitched it and I knew I was going to start the next day. I didn’t think about it much the night before but then the next day coming to the park, I stopped for some food and looked at the newspaper and it said, ‘M’s going for number 116’ and I [realized] okay, here we go.”

A few words from veteran Jay Buhner helped, Stark said. “I can remember being in the clubhouse, and when it was time for me to go warm up, I started making my way and he made a funny comment to me that eased me and that really helped.”

Stark pitched three scoreless innings, allowing only one hit and striking out two. He left after three innings with a 1–0 lead on Boone’s first-inning home run.

It was a much bigger crowd—45,607 folks—than Stark was used to seeing in the PCL. “I do remember striking out A-Rod (Álex Rodríguez) in the first.” Seattle fans had booed the former Mariner all year, seeing his signing with Texas after the 2000 season as a money-driven betrayal. In the first, Stark got the first two batters on groundouts, and when Rodriguez struck out for the final out, fans went nuts. “With the season the Mariners were having, the playoffs, all this happening after September 11, there was just this electricity,” Stark recalled.

“In the middle innings I was back getting my arm iced and I ventured back out to the dugout” to watch as the Mariners held on to their 1–0 lead. “Getting to go out and shake hands after that win and be a small part of it, that whole experience …” he said as his voice trailed off. “Not a lot of people have been part of win 116.”

The Rangers won the next day, 4–3, on the last day of the regular season, meaning the Mariners and the Cubs share the record.

Stark wasn’t active for the playoffs but traveled with the team. The Mariners beat the Cleveland Indians in the American League Division Series but lost to the Yankees in the American League Championship: season over and no trip to the World Series.

“We got down, 0–2, at home [in the ALCS], but they were close games; one thing here or there and it turns out different,” Stark said. “When we went back to New York, I didn’t have a sense that the team was in trouble, because it was such a great team.”

The Mariners won the third game, 14–3, then lost the fourth when New York rookie Alfonso Soriano ended a nail-biter with a walk-off homer in the ninth. The Yankees ended Seattle’s season with a blowout of their own in Game Five.

Stark remembers the supercharged atmosphere of the ALCS and the intense national spotlight because of the backdrop of September 11. All over the country, people who never rooted for the Yankees were rooting for them this time. In their Division Series against the Oakland A’s, the Yankees had been on the knife’s edge of elimination and came back to win three in a row to advance, further fueling the “team of destiny” headlines.

“The interesting thing about that is how the Yankees got to that point [beating Oakland to advance to the Mariners matchup in the League Championship Series]. Oakland had them down, 2–0, and then in Game Three, Derek Jeter made that play.”

Clutching a 1–0 lead in the seventh inning of Game Three and trying to stave off elimination, New York’s shortstop and captain made a miraculous play that reversed momentum for the whole series. It looked like an errant throw was going to allow the tying run to score and bring the potential winning run to third for the A’s, but Jeter came from nowhere to field the throw and flip a relay backwards and on the run to get Jason Giambi at home and end the inning. The Yanks made their one-run lead hold up for six more Oakland outs then went on to win the next two games and head into the Seattle series tagged as a team of destiny.

“It was that close to it being Seattle and Oakland” and not the Yankees in the ALCS, Stark said.

Then 26 years old, coming off one of his healthiest and most successful seasons and potentially on the cusp of a Mariners roster spot, Stark saw his future as being with Seattle. “I remember the flight home after we lost to New York in ‘01,” he said. “I thought: ‘That’s alright, we’ll be back.’ And two months later I wasn’t even in the organization anymore.”

That winter, the Mariners traded Stark, Fuentes, and Paniagua to the Rockies for Jeff Cirillo, a third baseman.

“It was hard to leave the Mariners,” Stark said. “That’s the team that drafted you, and the organization was having so much success at all levels at that time. But I understood why they were doing it and left on good terms.”

He had a strong year for the Rockies in 2002, his official rookie year at the age of 27, going 11–4 with an ERA of 4.00. He had 20 starts and also pitched out of the bullpen for about two months that season. In home games at hitter-friendly Coors Field, he was 8–1 with an ERA of 3.21.

It would be the only healthy season he would have with the Rockies. In 2003, he had a muscle strain in his shoulder and wasn’t activated until July 1. He appeared in just 17 games for the Rockies that season, going 3–3 with a 5.83 ERA.

In 2004, the arm problems were getting serious. He was 0–5 in six appearances with the Rockies, then was sent to Triple-A Colorado Springs and released at the end of the season.

In the offseason, he signed with Cleveland and started the 2005 season with the organization’s Triple-A affiliate in Buffalo. He pitched just 6 2/3 unproductive innings over three appearances, and was released. A week later, he signed again with the Rockies, joining Colorado Springs. Over the rest of the season, he was 2–5 and threw 52 innings before a torn UCL cut his season short. He was not called up to the major leagues that season and was released again at the end of the season. That fall, he underwent the first of his two Tommy John surgeries, which began his time out of baseball and the climb to get back.

“I thought I’d be back by the end of the season in ‘06,” Stark said. But things weren’t progressing. “I was having a lot of pain. I did all my recovery and strength work,” but in throwing sessions, “… every time I got pushed back, distance-wise, it started hurting. So I’d take 10 days off and come back and it would hurt when I’d add distance. By this time, it was well into the [2006] season. It wasn’t until July that I realized the surgery didn’t work.”

“I remember talking with the doctor [about having a second surgery], and I said, ‘Well, I don’t really have a choice.’ The doctor said, ‘Sure you do. You can have it done and see if it works, or not do it and that would be an end to [your] baseball career.’”

Stark viewed it through that lens and decided to fully commit to making it back to the big leagues. “I didn’t want to go out on that note,” he recalled.

The second surgery was about a year after the first, and he began the tedious strength and conditioning rehab all over again. Meanwhile, he had missed the entire 2006 season and was about to miss the 2007 season.

“It was long,” Stark said. “You’re talking almost three years of physical therapy, strengthening the arm daily, trying to throw, it not working, and then starting all over.”

But he kept doing the work, aiming for a return to the mound in 2008. “I got back to what I felt was a pretty good ability to pitch, but I’m coming off two Tommy John surgeries, I’m not under contract with anybody, I haven’t pitched in two and a half years, so who will give [me] a chance to even work out?”

As spring training approached in 2008, Stark was 33 and had last thrown a pitch in competition when he was 30. Teams weren’t coming to him, so he went to them. He packed up everything at his Denver home and drove to Phoenix, where he was able to get a couple of tryouts through old contacts. “I went to the M’s and did a private workout and was able to do one with Kansas City,” Stark recalled.

“In March, Seattle said they’d sign me. They were great. They understood I hadn’t seen a live hitter in almost three years. They put me on a plan and built me up and got me back pitching again. I felt like I was back home again.”

When 2008 spring training ended, he stayed in Arizona to face live hitting, He did well enough to earn a promotion to Tacoma, where he finished the season by going 3–0, all the wins coming in August. In 21 innings pitched, he had 21 strikeouts, just four walks, and an ERA of 3.00.

There was little doubt that the second surgery had been successful, but he still wasn’t all the way back. He finally returned to full strength in 2009 for the team that drafted him.

“I had a good spring training in 2009 and was called up [from Tacoma] in May,” Stark recalled. “It felt as good as the first time I got called up. To overcome those odds and everything I’d gone through, to be back in the big leagues, it validated everything.”

His first game back on a big-league mound was May 3. With the Mariners trailing Oakland, 4–2, he came in to start the seventh. He pitched two-thirds of an inning and gave up a hit and a walk but no runs. The appearance ended a marathon that had started July 19, 2004, the last time he’d thrown a pitch in a big-league game. The long journey back wasn’t lost on people close to baseball and was well covered in the Seattle press. “We were playing Oakland, and Matt Holliday, who I had played with in Colorado [was with them],” Stark said. “I remember, that when I came in, he was on the top step clapping.”

Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu called on him again the next night against Texas. The Mariners trailed by a run when Stark came in to pitch the ninth, and he set the Rangers down in order. Two days and two successful outings.

The following night, a 10th-inning injury to reliever Shawn Kelley forced Wakamatsu to go to Stark for the third night in a row. But this time, it could hardly have gone worse. The teams were tied, 1–1, with one out when Stark came in. He gave up six runs on five hits, including a grand slam, and the Rangers ended up winning, 7–2.

Stark was only with the Mariners long enough to make nine appearances, after which he was reassigned to Tacoma, where he finished the season. Outside of the disastrous game against Texas, he had pitched well and news coverage at the time attributed his reassignment to the club’s immediate need for a catcher. The Mariners’ news release at the time noted that if one were to throw out the numbers from the blown Texas game, his ERA would have been 1.80.

It had been a great comeback story, but the Mariners didn’t bring him back for the 2010 season. Stark still felt like he could pitch in the majors, which led him to the independent Bridgeport (Connecticut) Bluefish and an 8–4 season in 2010. But major-league offers didn’t come, and at age 35, Stark ended a 13-year association with professional baseball and started a new career as a firefighter.

“I was reaching my mid 30s, and it had not been easy trying to get signed for 2010,” he said. “I had started realizing I wanted to have a second career after baseball. I had family members in the fire service and heard from multiple former ballplayers who were in the fire service. I got an offer to play winter ball in Mexico, but I had gotten married in 2010, and my wife was pregnant and I decided, ‘No, it’s time to pursue a second career.’”

“I find [firefighting] very rewarding; there are a lot of similarities to baseball,” Stark said. “You’re working as a team; you’re dependent on fellow firefighters. And you get very close. We work 48-hour shifts. They become family, just as your former teammates were.”

“And it’s pretty exciting. When the bullpen phone rings you get those butterflies in your stomach. When you get a call for a structure fire…” he said, leaving the listener to decide where the two events fall on the excitement scale.

“I feel very fortunate,” Stark said. “We all wish we had Hall of Fame careers. I’ve been very fortunate to have played with so many great players: Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martínez, Todd Helton, Larry Walker, Ichiro, Álex Rodríguez to name some. When all is said and done, I’ll have six or seven teammates who are in the Hall of Fame.”

“I’ve always been a big baseball fan, I didn’t have the 10-year major-league career, but I did have some really memorable moments. In my childhood years in the ‘80s, one of the great players was Rickey Henderson, one of the best players of all time.

“I was with the Rockies [in 2003] and we were playing the Dodgers and I was pitching. Here I am in Dodger Stadium and guess who’s coming up to the plate: Rickey Henderson [then playing in his final major-league season]. I actually stepped off and said to myself, ‘Oh my word, it’s Rickey Henderson.’ But you quickly put it out of your mind and focus on your job.”

For the record, Stark pitched seven innings that day, gave up only four hits and got the win. He faced Henderson three times and kept the all-time stolen bases leader off the bases all day.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Refreence.com, MLB.com, Retroheet.org, and a number of newspapers including:

Arnold, Kirby. “Need For a Catcher Costs Pitcher Denny Stark His Job,” Everett Herald, June 7, 2009.

Kays, Timothy. “Edgerton Honors native Son Denny Stark With a Uniform Retirement Ceremony,” (Edgerton, Ohio) Village Reporter, December 20, 2017.

Kelley, Steve. “Six-run 10th? Denny Stark has overcome worse,” Seattle Times, May 6, 2009.

NOTES

1 Denny Stark, phone interview with the author on July 14, 2025. (Unless otherwise attributed, all direct quotations from Denny Stark are from this interview.) He provided additional information in a December 22, 2025, telephone call.

2 “1994 Toledo Rockets,” The Baseball Cube. https://www.thebaseballcube.com/content/stats_college/1994~20262/#pitching. Accessed January 8, 2026.

3 Greg Johns, “Mariners’ Madeja honored at scouts banquet,” MLB.com, January18, 2016. https://www.mlb.com/news/mariners-scout-ken-madeja-honored-at-banquet-c162231648. Accessed January 8, 2026.

4 Dave Solomon, “Surgeries Are a Stark Reminder for Bluefish Hurler,” New Haven (Connecticut) Register, August 5, 2010.