Jeff Musselman

Harvard graduate Jeff Musselman pitched parts of five seasons (1986 to 1990) for the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets. Primarily a reliever, the lefty was back in the minors when he suffered a career-ending heart attack at age 29. Musselman then went to work for Scott Boras, one of baseball’s leading player agents, for nearly 30 years.

Jeffrey Joseph Musselman was born on June 21, 1963, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, but he grew up in Ocean County, New Jersey, about 50 miles east of Philadelphia. He was the oldest of Don and Linda (Lengyel) Musselman’s five children; followed by brother Greg and sisters Kelly, Casey and Corey. The family’s heritage was Polish and Pennsylvania Dutch.1 From 1969 to 1983, Don was the athletic director at Toms River North High School. He later served as the vice principal at Toms River South. In describing his upbringing, Jeff said, “What’s that book by Charles Dickens? Great Expectations. That’s what it’s like around here. Nobody tells you what to do or when to do it. You just know what you are supposed to do.” His father added, “We spend all our time at sporting events, music recitals, school meetings. We all go to watch each other.”2

Jeff played his first baseball in the Berkeley Little League.3 Seven-time batting champion Rod Carew was one player he enjoyed watching.4 As a Phillies fan and fellow southpaw, he naturally came to admire Philadelphia ace Steve “Lefty” Carlton.5

At Central Regional High School in Bayville, Jeff lettered in three sports. Though he stood only 5-foot-9 at the time (he grew to 6-feet, 180-pounds as a pro), he started for the Golden Eagles basketball squad.6 Quarterbacking the football team, he passed for more yards than any of his competition as a junior.7 In baseball that spring, Musselman went 12-2 with a 1.24 ERA to earn All Shore recognition. He led Central to a tie for the Class A South title, saved the Shore League championship game and earned three of his team’s five victories in the Ocean County Tournament. “He’s one of those kids you always hope to have on your team both as a person and a player,” remarked Golden Eagles coach Al Kunzman, whose pitching staff also included another future big leaguer, Mark Leiter.8 Mark’s younger brother Al Leiter, a freshman during Musselman’s 1981 senior year, would soon emerge as another major league-bound hurler.

In his final high school season, Musselman went 10-4 with an 0.93 ERA. Scouts from the Phillies and Mets regularly came to see him, but he wasn’t drafted. After graduating seventh in his class, Musselman spurned recruiting efforts from nearby Princeton and accepted a Harvard scholarship as an economics major.9

In his sophomore season he developed the slider that became his out pitch, and the Harvard Crimson made the first of two straight NCAA regional playoff appearances.10 He continued to sharpen it that summer pitching for Henry’s Playland in the Jersey Shore League. Musselman established himself as Harvard’s ace as a 1984 junior, going 7-1 with a 3.24 ERA.11 After excelling mostly in relief for the Cape Cod Baseball League’s Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox that summer, he began thinking seriously about professional baseball. “When I saw that I could really hold my own against those guys, my confidence went way up,” he explained.12

During his senior season, he no-hit the University of Pennsylvania on April 20.13 His 9-2 record and 2.34 ERA earned him Ivy League Pitcher of the Year recognition as the Crimson claimed a share of a third consecutive league title. Musselman went 21-6 for Harvard overall.14 Asked to recall his thoughts on graduation day, he said, “Just the opportunity to keep on playing baseball and a desire to be in the big leagues . . . Yes, I thought of the bus trips, but I had been told the situation called for a left-hander and I decided to give it a shot.”15

Musselman was selected by the Toronto Blue Jays in the sixth round of the 1985 June Amateur Draft. He was surprised because, while National League clubs like the Reds, Cardinals and Expos had expressed interest, no one from Toronto had ever contacted him.16 “I let them know that I was committed to becoming a major league pitcher, and if things didn’t go well for me at first, I wasn’t about to quit,” Musselman recalled.17 On June 19, he signed a professional contract through scout Paul Ricciarini.18 On a questionnaire he filled out a few months later, he cited signing two days before his 21st birthday as his greatest thrill to date.19

The Blue Jays brought Musselman straight to Canada — not to Toronto, but rather, the club’s Rookie-level Pioneer League affiliate in Medicine Hat, nearly 2,000 miles west in the province of Alberta. He was named the team’s Pitcher of the Year after going 6-4 with a 3.99 ERA in 15 starts.20 “It was no big adjustment when I went to pro ball,” Musselman insisted. “We had a pretty successful baseball program at Harvard. We had the third best winning percentage behind Texas and Michigan, and we faced tough competition.”21 In the dugout and clubhouse, his worldview expanded through his experiences with multiple teammates from the Dominican Republic, like Gerónimo Berroa. “They are much more mature than people their age here. They have been exposed to real life from very early on,” Musselman observed. “They’ve taught me a bit of Spanish, some new dances, and I’ve had to listen to some pretty terrible music.”22

When the season was over, he went home and worked as a stockbroker for Homestead Securities.23 He was aware that some people thought a guy with a solid fallback career wouldn’t possess the necessary drive and hunger to succeed in pro sports. Musselman, on the other hand, believed it worked to his advantage. “It’s like an unconscious confidence factor,” he explained. “In tough times and if you’re in a slump, it maybe eases your mind a little bit. … It is a game. You play it hard, you play to win, but, if you’re not successful in it, and you’ve given it the best you can, then there are other things in your life you can do.”24 He accepted the fact that his background made him an outlier. “I expect to be kidded about “Hahvahd” but I kind of like the idea. Having been there is something I can’t forget. So, there is no reason to want anyone else to forget,” he explained.25 “It takes a different kind of smarts to do well pitching, but you have to maintain a level of concentration and confidence in the classroom and on the mound.”26

Musselman began 1986 with the Ventura County Gulls. For the team’s only season in the Single-A California League, home games were played at Ventura College, where there were no lights. Though Musselman’s record was only 7-7 in 26 appearances (24 starts), his 3.03 ERA and 165 strikeouts in 154 innings with only 122 hits allowed were better indicators of his potential. He was voted the circuit’s best pitching prospect, and the hurler with the best breaking ball and control –high praise considering two of his rotation mates were Todd Stottlemyre and José Mesa.27 “We had a 100-pitch limit and at first it seemed to me like a bad rule, but as the season went along, I saw it was a good idea,” Musselman recalled.

He would have led the league in strikeouts if not for a promotion to the Double-A Southern League in late July. In seven starts for the Knoxville Blue Jays, he went 5-1 with a 2.83 ERA. “The big difference when I moved up was the hitters were more selective. They were more experienced and smarter and most of the lineups in the league had seven or eight right-handed hitters.”28

Meanwhile, in the majors, Toronto had pulled within 3 ½ games of the first-place Red Sox on August 31 after trailing by a dozen games in June. Facing a midnight deadline to set their playoff roster, the Blue Jays called up Musselman to replace rookie righty Luis Aquino. “I think it’s rushing [Musselman] a little bit,” GM Pat Gillick acknowledged. “But he’s a mature kid, a graduate of Harvard and we can use a left-hander in relief.”29 ,” Musselman said, “I was surprised, stunned and excited all at the same time.”30

Upon joining the team at Exhibition Stadium, Musselman said, “They hit a lot of ground balls against me, and I use my defense a lot. I had a lot of strikeouts this year and I would attribute that to my control.” After seeing the rookie throw for the first time, pitching coach Al Widmar said, “He’s got good stuff, a good slider and curve, and an average fastball. His delivery is the type where he can control the ball and not have too much trouble throwing strikes.”31

Musselman debuted against the Indians on September 2, 1986, in Toronto, beginning the ninth inning with the Blue Jays trailing, 5-2. Tony Bernazard greeted him with a single and took third on a steal and throwing error by catcher Ernie Whitt. After Brett Butler drew a base on balls, Musselman retired Julio Franco on a grounder, and departed following an intentional walk to Joe Carter to load the bases. He was charged with three earned runs after Aquino (back on the expanded September roster) relieved and allowed a bases-clearing double. The Blue Jays lost seven of 10 games to start September and quickly fell out of contention. In Musselman’s next outing 12 days later, he notched his first big league strikeout against Milwaukee’s Rob Deer. Overall, he posted a 10.13 ERA in six games, though he did not allow any runs in his last three appearances.

In 1987, Musselman spent the entire season in the majors, appearing in 68 games (one start), fifth most in the American League. Prior to the All-Star break, he held opposing hitters to a .198 batting average. He earned two of his three saves in June, when he also won four games, including a three-inning scoreless effort on his birthday to lift the Blue Jays into first place.

On June 29, he survived a scary line drive to the knee hit by New York’s Rickey Henderson, escaping with only a bruise.32 Beginning in late July, however, Musselman began feeling shoulder discomfort that he thought must be severe tendinitis. Once he got loose, he was okay, but he felt especially sore before and after pitching. His condition improved slightly in September.33 When he was credited with his 12th win in Toronto’s comeback triumph on September 25, he had more victories than any reliever in the majors, and the Blue Jays had the best record in baseball.

However, Toronto lost their last seven contests –four to Detroit– to blow a 3 ½ game lead over the second-place Tigers. With the clubs tied after 160 games, Musselman came on to pitch the bottom of the 12th of a tie game at Tiger Stadium in relief of Mike Flanagan, who’d allowed only two runs (one earned) through 11 innings. After Musselman surrendered two hits and a walk to load the bases with one out, Alan Trammell greeted Toronto righty Mark Eichhorn with a decisive single. The winning pitcher was Mike Henneman, The Sporting News’s choice for AL Rookie Pitcher of the Year honors, and the Blue Jays were eliminated with a 1-0 defeat the next day, Nevertheless, Musselman finished with a 12-5 record and a major league-leading .706 winning percentage.

Musselman wore uniform number 35 for most of the season but gave it to Phil Niekro when the Blue Jays acquired the future Hall of Famer on August 13. “Thirteen would be fine,” he answered when asked what alternate digits he would like, as it had been his number at Harvard.34 Clearly, Musselman didn’t suffer from triskaidekaphobia, but his luck soon turned for the worse.

Like fellow Toronto southpaws Jimmy Key and John Cerutti, Musselman was to follow an offseason maintenance program designed by Red Sox team physician Dr. Arthur Pappas with 20-to-25 minutes of daily exercises. “It involves the use of light weights,” Musselman explained. “It’s similar to what you do all season long. The idea is to build up your arm so you can maintain strength over the entire season, so you retain your velocity.”35

In December, Musselman visited Pappas’s office in Birmingham, Alabama, to learn more about the program. While there, he underwent another arthrogram. In addition to confirming the presence of scar tissue that a routine, post-season arthrogram had previously revealed, Pappas also discovered a previously undetected tear in the pitcher’s shoulder and performed a corrective operation on December 18.36 “Jeff couldn’t afford to delay surgery like Dave Stieb has done,” explained Musselman’s agent, Scott Boras. “Dr. Andrews made it clear that Jeff’s arm would have become a great deal worse had he not had the surgery right away. Jeff could have suffered serious rotator cuff damage if he tried throwing through pain next season.”37

On January 9, 1988, Musselman married Karen Bernard. He celebrated by jumping in a snowbank still dressed in his tuxedo, and continued rehabbing his shoulder on their honeymoon. Their union would produce three daughters: Alex, Maddie and Ella.

Musselman missed the beginning of the season but returned on May 24 by throwing 39 pitches in the first of two appearances for Dunedin in the Single-A Florida State League. Next, he advanced to the Syracuse Chiefs in the Triple-A International League, where he was 4-1 with a 2.94 ERA in 10 starts. The Blue Jays wanted him to follow Key’s blueprint and move into their rotation after a successful rookie year in relief. On Toronto’s first road trip after the All-Star break, Musselman hurled six scoreless innings in Anaheim to win his 1988 debut. Five nights later in Seattle, he exceeded 100 pitches for the first time since his surgery and won again.38 He improved to 3-0 with a 7 nning effort against the Yankees next time out, striking out a career-high seven. One month into his return, Musselman was 5-1 with a 1.46 ERA. He couldn’t sustain that level of excellence, but his 8-5 record and 3.18 ERA in 15 starts by season’s end were encouraging. In two of his victories, he defeated former Cy Young Award winner Bret Saberhagen. Musselman’s finest performance came against Cleveland on September 15: eight scoreless innings of four-hit ball.

Alcohol abuse was becoming a problem for Musselman, however. Initially, he’d rationalized that he was okay since he didn’t drink the night before he pitched.39 During spring training 1989, he sought help through an outpatient program. “I was a closet alcoholic, which no one around me realized,” he said. “I was good at lying and hiding it, but I had a terrible problem.”40 Years later, he’d reflect that the easy access to beer in major league clubhouses and hotel rooms provided “a safe environment for the problem drinker.”41 When the regular season started, he pitched a total of only seven innings in his first three starts. After he failed to retire any of the four Yankees that he faced in a 19-pitch effort on April 18, the Blue Jays decided to demote him to Triple-A. “He’s just got to go pitch,” explained Toronto manager Jimy Williams.42 Instead of reporting to Syracuse, however, Musselman was placed on the disabled list for “personal emotional problems.” “Once the season started, I saw what kind of emotional dependency I had,” he said.43 He arranged to check into Bellwood Health Services in Toronto for four weeks of inpatient treatment for alcohol addiction, vowing, “I will be back as a better person, teammate and ballplayer.”44 Gillick said, “It took a lot of intestinal fortitude for him to make that decision.”45

When Musselman returned on May 27, he expressed gratitude to his family, friends and the many people who called or wrote to express their support. Prior to the season, the Blue Jays had hired Sam McDowell to confidentially counsel players, and he and Musselman would remain in touch.46 “Now I can live more confidently and honestly,” Musselman said. “Alcoholism is a disease that society has wrongly accepted with indifference. I’ve got a new life now. It’s a happy ending for me, hopefully.”47

On June 1, Musselman tossed three innings for the Jays in an exhibition against the Southern League All-Stars in Knoxville. “He’s throwing better now than he did this spring,” insisted Widmar.48 Next, he began a rehab assignment at Syracuse, where he was named the Pitcher of the Month for June.49 Finally, after he posted a 5-2 record and 3.77 ERA in 10 starts for the Chiefs, he returned to the Blue Jays on July 23. He did not stay long, however. After two appearances, Musselman and minor leaguer Mike Brady were traded to the New York Mets for outfielder Mookie Wilson on July 31.

Mets pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre was the father of one of Musselman’s former Toronto roommates. Nevertheless, Musselman described the adjustment to his new club by saying, “It was doubly awkward for me” as New York was on a seven-game losing streak when he arrived and Wilson had been a popular teammate.50 Also, Musselman had been ejected from a spring training game after hitting Mets’ star Darryl Strawberry in the back with a pitch. (The incident occurred two innings after another Ivy Leaguer, New York’s Ron Darling, had plunked Toronto’s Jesse Barfield. Musselman fled the mound when the 6-foot-6 outfielder charged at him, but Blue Jays’ third baseman Kelly Gruber received a Strawberry elbow to the mouth for defending his pitcher.)51 “Here I am coming in, the guy who hit the big power hitter in spring training,” Musselman said. “But everybody was great. When I met Darryl, he showed a lot of class by laughing and telling me just to forget about it because we’re teammates now.”52

In his Mets debut, Musselman was charged with a loss in St. Louis despite pitching well for three innings. He relieved six times in the first half of August and earned five decisions: three wins and two losses. His ERA was 1.54 in his first eight appearances as the Mets moved within 1 ½ games of the NL East lead on August 21. On a team bus ride home from the airport that month, however, Musselman was the target of an angry diatribe from a drunken Strawberry, who brought up the spring training hit-by-pitch and his teammate’s dependency treatment. “It was uncalled for and unprovoked. Darryl just buried him for five minutes with a scathing blast,” one player told New York’s Newsday. “I knew it was the alcohol and not him talking,” Musselman said later. “Afterward, I felt bad about it. I felt bad for a long time. But I realized it’s an example of what alcohol can do. I knew where he was coming from.”53 Musselman wound up with a 3.08 ERA in 20 games for New York, but the Mets finished six games behind the Cubs. Strawberry, after batting only .225, checked into an alcohol rehabilitation program of his own that winter.

Prior to the 1990 season, Musselman won a healthy raise. After he’d earned $200,000 in 1989, the Mets offered him a modest increase to $220,000. When the case went to arbitration, however, Musselman was awarded the $315,000 that he requested.54 He was not as fortunate when the season started. The Mets’ sub-.500 start cost manager Davey Johnson his job on Memorial Day weekend. Under new skipper Bud Harrelson, New York regrouped and surged into a tie for first place entering the last day of June. The Mets were riding an 11-game winning streak when Musselman came on to protect a one-run lead against the visiting Reds in the top of the seventh inning. He allowed Cincinnati to tie the score with a leadoff walk and two one-out singles, however, and was charged with the defeat after reliever Wally Whitehurst surrendered a two-run double to Joe Oliver. After appearing in 26 of New York’s first 71 games, Musselman, who had an 0-2 record and a 5.40 ERA, was idle for 11 days before being demoted to Triple-A.

Back in the International League, Musselman moved into the Tidewater Tides’ rotation. In 10 starts, he went 4-3 with a 3.51 ERA, and the Mets brought him back up in September. His first appearance came in long relief in Pittsburgh on September 6 with New York already trailing by five runs in the third inning. The following night in Philadelphia, Musselman relieved former 20-game winner David Cone with one out in the seventh, a runner on second base, and the Mets down, 2-1. After lefty-swinging Len Dykstra greeted Musselman with a single, right-handed pinch-hitter Charlie Hayes delivered another to drive in a run, and lefty Von Hayes made it three straight hits with an RBI single as well. “His numbers were real good against them, like 0 for 11,” insisted Harrelson, defending the move after a New York defeat. Cone, on the other hand, remained furious about being relieved. “My official statement is that I should have been in the game. I deserved to be in the game,” Cone told reporters. “I intend to talk to Buddy about it. Anything else I might say, you couldn’t print.”55 After Musselman’s poor outing, National League hitters were batting .310 against him, including a .358 mark by right-handers. He did not appear in any of New York’s remaining 25 games, and became a free agent when the Mets declined to offer him a contract.

The Cleveland Indians invited Musselman to spring training as a non-roster player in spring training 1991, but he was released in mid-March.56 He caught on with the Oakland Athletics and spent the season with their Tacoma Tigers affiliate in the Triple-A Pacific Coast League. He made 24 starts (plus one relief appearance) but was hit hard, posting a 5-9 record and 5.79 ERA.

Musselman returned to Tacoma in 1992 and did well. In 19 starts, he was 7-7 with a 3.50 ERA in a hitter-friendly circuit with a 4.40 overall ERA. The Oakland brass told Tacoma manager Bob Boone that Musselman would soon be called up to the major league club. “I was throwing the ball better than ever, and more important, I was enjoying the game again. It had been a long time,” Musselman said.57

After experiencing numbness in his pitching hand during his last two outings in July, he underwent an angiogram to pinpoint the cause of his circulation issues. He was napping in his Tacoma apartment on the afternoon of August 2 when the doctor called to tell him he could pick up his X-ray results. Fortunately, the pitcher had forgotten to turn on his answering machine, so the telephone rang until it awakened him. “When I woke up, I was right in the middle of having a heart attack,” he recalled. “I was just soaking wet, and I was having a hard time breathing.”58

After hanging up with the doctor, Musselman called 911. Worried that the nearby apartment building resembled his, he went outside to wait for the ambulance and lay down in the grass. His heart stopped on the way to the hospital, and the paramedics had to pull over on Interstate 5 to perform CPR. At the hospital, he had a second heart attack.59 Emergency surgery was performed to dissolve a blood clot in Musselman’s shoulder that was blocking his right coronary. His life was saved, but his career was over.60 “I had panic attacks for months after that,” he said. “The thing about a panic attack is that it feels like a heart attack. I’d drive myself to the hospital and they’d say I just need to learn how to relax.”61

Shortly after Musselman’s heart attacks, he was hired by Scott Boras, later named the “Most Powerful Sports Agent in America” by Forbes magazine.62 “[Boras] believes in you do things right, the money will follow,” Musselman told LA Weekly in 2007. “We’re at the ballpark every day. We’re looking at teams’ rosters and thinking about players’ goals; what makes a player tick? Sometimes teams’ and players’ goals merge. This is what we’d be doing anyway, thinking about ways to serve the game.”63 As of 2021, Musselman and his wife live in Newport Beach, California, and he is a Vice President for the Boras Corporation.

Musselman finished his major-league career with a 23-15 record and 4.31 ERA in 142 games (19 starts), but it was not the end of his family’s athletic impact. At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, his daughter Maddie scored 12 goals for the gold medal-winning U.S. women’s water polo team. “I live every day, not like it’s my last, but as if I’m really grateful to have it as a gift and that I’m really going to do everything I can to live it to the fullest,” Jeff said in 1999. “I don’t think you realize how much you really want to live until you’re faced with a situation of living and dying.”64

Last revised: June 4, 2021

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Eric Vickrey and Norman Macht and fact-checked by Evan Katz.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted www.ancestry.com, www.baseball-reference.com and www.retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 Jeff Musselman, Publicity Questionnaire for William J. Weiss, June 30, 1986.

2 Jon Gelberg, “Musselmans American as Apple Pie,” Asbury Park (New Jersey) Press, February 23, 1986: I10.

3 Jeff Musselman, Publicity Questionnaire for William J. Weiss, October 5, 1985.

4 Jeff Musselman, 1987 Topps Traded Baseball Card.

5 Jeff Musselman, 1989 Topps Baseball Card.

6 “Boys Basketball Class A South,” Asbury Park Press, December 2, 1980: 49.

7 “Central a Threat Despite Big Losses,” Asbury Park Press, September 22, 1980: 52.

8 “Youth Dominates All-Shore Baseball Team,” Asbury Park Press, June 22, 1980: 75.

9 Jeff Musselman, 1989 Fleer Baseball Card.

10 Joe Zedalis, “Jays Summon Jeff Musselman,” Asbury Park Press, September 2, 1986: 17.

11 Kenny Van Sickle, “Harvard ‘9’ Favored,” Ithaca (New York) Journal, April 13, 1984: 13.

12 Jon Gelberg, “Musselman Knows Odds Against ‘Ivy’,” Asbury Park Press, February 23,1986: I1.

13 “Harvard’s Musselman Fires No-Hitter at Penn,” Boston Globe, April 21, 1985: 61.

14 Gelberg, “Musselman Knows Odds Against ‘Ivy’.”

15 Milt Dunnell, “Harvard to Bullpen Could Be a Smart Move,” Toronto Star, September 6, 1986: D1.

16 Neil MacCarl, “Luxury to Jays is Two Lefties Gracing Bullpen,” Toronto Star, September 2, 1986: D2.

17 Gelberg, “Musselman Knows Odds Against ‘Ivy’.”

18 Musselman, Publicity Questionnaire (1986).

19 Musselman, Publicity Questionnaire (1985).

20 Gelberg, “Musselman Knows Odds Against ‘Ivy’.”

21 MacCarl, “Luxury to Jays is Two Lefties Gracing Bullpen.”

22 Gelberg, “Musselman Knows Odds Against ‘Ivy’.”

23 Musselman, Publicity Questionnaire (1986).

24 Larry Millson, “Musselman’s Stock on Rise,” Globe and Mail (Toronto), April 14, 1987: D3.

25 Dunnell, “Harvard to Bullpen Could Be a Smart Move.”

26 Steve Henson, “Gulls Complete Sweep of Fresno with 6-1 Victory,” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1986: B14.

27 Jeff Musselman, 1988 Score Baseball Card.

28 MacCarl, “Luxury to Jays is Two Lefties Gracing Bullpen.”

29 Larry Millson, “Left-hander Musselman Joins 24-man Jay Roster,” Globe and Mail, September 1, 1986: C4.

30 Zedalis, “Jays Summon Jeff Musselman.”

31 MacCarl, “Luxury to Jays is Two Lefties Gracing Bullpen.”

32 “Blue Jays,” The Sporting News, July 13, 1987: 29.

33 Larry Millson, “Jay Southpaw on the Mend,” Globe and Mail, January 28, 1988: A28.

34 “Unlucky’s the Way They Like It,” Vancouver Sun, November 13, 1987: C4.

35 “Blue Jays,” The Sporting News, December 14, 1987: 56.

36 Millson, “Jay Southpaw on the Mend.”

37 Marty York, “Blue Jays Hush Up on Musselman’s Arm Surgery,” Globe and Mail, December 31, 1987: D1.

38 “Blue Jays,” The Sporting News, August 8, 1988: 21.

39 Jack O’Leary, “Pitcher Postcard from the Edge,” Boston Herald, October 27, 1993: 86.

40 Peter Gammons, “Life Starts Over for Musselman,” Boston Globe, November 20, 1993: 54.

41 Y. Tarek Farouki, “Come Back to Life, Sobriety and the College,” Crimson (Harvard, Massachusetts), November 2, 1993, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1993/11/2/come-back-to-life-sobriety-and/ (last accessed May 19, 2021).

42 “Blue Jays,” The Sporting News, May 1, 1989: 29.

43 Robertson, “Jeff Musselman Got Jays’ Support When It Counted.”

44 “Blue Jays,” The Sporting News, May 8, 1989: 25.

45 Robertson, “Jeff Musselman Got Jays’ Support When It Counted.”.

46 Marty York, “Widmar Dishes Out Secret About Angry Blue Jays Reliever,” Globe and Mail, August 17, 1989: A19.

47 “A.L. East,” The Sporting News, June 12, 1989: 20.

48 “A.L. East,”

49 “Blue Jays,” The Sporting News, July 17, 1989: 35.

50 Neil A. Campbell, “Musselman Adjust to Mets, Still Roots for Jays,” New York Times, September 18, 1989: C4.

51 Tom Verducci, “The Fight is Back in Mets,” (New York) Newsday, March 19, 1989: 11.

52 Campbell, “Musselman Adjust to Mets, Still Roots for Jays.”

53 Tom Verducci and Marty Noble, “Darryl’s Situation No Shock to Mets,” Newsday, February 5, 1990: 82.

54 “Ojeda is Surprised He’s the Oldest Met,” The Sporting News, March 5, 1990: 29.

55 Joseph Durso, “Cone Upset as Mets Drop 5th in Row,” New York Times, September 8, 1990: 41.

56 Sheldon Ocker, “Key Moves” The Sporting News, April 1, 1991: 64.

57 Jeff Bradley, “Musselman Mystery,” Daily News, March 28, 1993: 307.

58 Larry Millson, “Heart Attack Changed Athlete,” Globe and Mail, December 16, 1999: S1.

59 Bradley, “Musselman Mystery.”

60 “Musselman Hospitalized,” Globe and Mail, August 4, 1992: C12.

61 Millson, “Heart Attack Changed Athlete.

62 Jason Belzer, “The World’s Most Powerful Sports Agent 2014,” Forbes, November 4, 2014, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbelzer/2014/11/04/the-worlds-most-powerful-sports-agents-2014/?sh=1e0bbf154818 (last accessed February 28, 2021).

63 Jeffrey Anderson, “The Boras Factor,” LA Weekly, May 22, 2007, https://www.laweekly.com/the-boras-factor/ (last accessed May 19, 2021).

64 Millson, “Heart Attack Changed Athlete.