Kenny Greer

Righty reliever Kenny Greer’s 10-year career in pro ball featured two stints in the majors, in 1993 and 1995. In his big-league debut, he pitched a perfect 17th inning and got the win as the New York Mets scored the game’s lone run in the bottom half. His only other big-league decisions were both losses, which came in eight outings with the San Francisco Giants.

That one win at the top level proved memorable to Mets fans. Greg Prince – whose book Faith and Fear in Flushing is subtitled “An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets” – made good use of it in his afterword. Prince’s interview with longtime Mets broadcaster Gary Cohen is called “From Greer to Eternity.”

Kenneth William Greer was born on May 12, 1967, in Boston. He has called the Bay State home for his entire life. His father, James Greer, was a firefighter, mailman, and bus driver.1 His mother, Pauline (née MacDonald), had two other sons, James and Kevin, and a daughter named Kathy.2 All of the children were good athletes – “the whole family is competitive,” said Kenny Greer in 1993.3

Young Kenny was greatly influenced by his older brother Kevin. After Kevin died suddenly at age 51 in 2016, Kenny said that there were multiple teams he probably made because of Kevin, starting with Little League – “The reason I played in the major leagues is because I was chasing him.” Kevin had pro potential too, according to Kenny, but he hurt his shoulder in a skiing accident during his senior year at Westfield State University in Massachusetts.4

Kenny Greer attended Hull High School in the Boston suburb of Hull. He played football in addition to baseball. He became a member of Hull High’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2012.

Greer then went on to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The Minutemen had two other future big leaguers during his time there. Fellow pitcher Dave Telgheder was also later Greer’s teammate with the 1993 Mets – they were roommates in both places.5 Their shortstop was Gary DiSarcina.

One might have expected Greer to play in one of the nation’s premier summer collegiate baseball circuits, the Cape Cod Baseball League. It was close to home, and brother Kevin had previously pitched there.6 Kenny Greer was supposed to play on the Cape after his junior year – but instead, he was drafted and turned professional.7

The New York Yankees selected Greer in the 10th round of the June 1988 amateur draft. In a 1998 interview with David Wolcott of a Boston-area local newspaper, the Cohasset Mariner, he said he’d expected to be drafted, but not as high as he was. Greer was a lifelong Red Sox fan, as one would expect, and “becoming a Yankee led to the requisite amount of razzing from friends and family.” Yet he was still happy to be in the archrival organization. “It was exciting just to be in a professional baseball uniform,” he said. 8

The new pro’s first assignment was Oneonta in the New York-Penn League. His manager there was former Red Sox catcher Gary Allenson, of whom he said, “We took some friendly abuse and had a lot of things to talk about.”9 In 15 games – all starts – Greer posted a sharp ERA of 2.40 and displayed excellent control, walking just 18 men in 112⅓ innings.

In the championship game of that season, however, his career was jeopardized by a shoulder injury. With one out remaining and Oneonta leading 2-1, Greer made a pickoff throw to second base. He recalled, “I felt excruciating pain in my shoulder and fell to the ground.”10 Fortunately, “winter rehab on a slightly torn rotator cuff took care of it.”11 The problem did not recur.

Greer graduated from UMass in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in sports management. He came to view it as a vital achievement. “Right after my first season I went back to Amherst and got my degree. I didn’t realize it was that important then. My family and coaches advised me to do it. Now I’m glad I did,” he said in 1993. “Most of the guys in my situation say they want to wait a few years before going back. However, when you are 26 or 27 it is a lot tougher to go back to college and get a degree. Most of them don’t.”12

With Prince William of the Class-A Carolina League in 1989, Greer started 13 times while coming out of the bullpen in 16 other games. Over the remainder of his career, he pitched almost exclusively in relief.

In February 1993 the Boston Globe ran a feature on Greer, focusing on his travails as a minor leaguer. He told the feature’s author, Paul Harber, that during his first two years in the minors, he worried incessantly about other pitchers in the system and where he ranked among them. “Doing that is crazy,” Greer said. “You can’t think about that all the time or it will drive you crazy. It doesn’t bother me anymore. Call it mental maturity. All I can worry about are things I control. All I can do is go out there and pitch. Worrying won’t make it any better and can make it a lot worse.”13

Over the course of the 1990-93 seasons, Greer climbed up the organizational ladder. He was on the verge of quitting before the ’92 season, but it was a turning point for him, as he developed a forkball that helped him get lefty hitters out.14 He later told David Wolcott that whereas he’d been a pure power pitcher in high school, he had to change through college and the minor leagues. “Everyone can throw 90 mph once you go professional, so you need to have something that makes you special,” he said.15

Greer worked multiple jobs in the Boston area during the 1992-93 offseason. On weekends, he was at the South Shore Baseball Club, teaching high-school and youth players in the pitchers and catchers clinic. During the Christmas season, he was a sommelier for Boston Pops orchestra shows. Weekdays, he worked at the Bay State Bodybuilders Gymnasium, and when he wasn’t there, he served as a substitute teacher for the Hull public school system.16

“Sometimes I wonder why I’m doing this,” Greer muttered to himself during the Globe interview. But as Paul Harber noted, the answer didn’t take long. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”17

That opportunity arose several months later – with a new team. Greer was with the Yankees’ top farm club, Columbus, for most of the season. He pitched reasonably well (9-4, 4.42 ERA), although reportedly the organization thought that manager Stump Merrill overused the righty after he came off the disabled list.18

On September 17, 1993, Greer was dealt across town to the Mets in one of the rare transactions between the two teams. The Yankees – then still in contention in the AL East race – acquired 40-year-old veteran Frank Tanana, whose 21-year career in the majors was drawing to a close. The New York Times observed that the Yankees rotation had included three struggling rookie starters in the previous three weeks. The club was “just hoping that [Tanana’s] tired left arm can crank out six or seven capable innings a start for the next two weeks because hardly anyone one else’s can.”19 As it turned out, Tanana did go six to seven innings in each of his remaining three starts, though he lost both of his decisions. The Yankees finished a distant second to Toronto, which went on to repeat as World Series champion.

As for Greer, then aged 26, the Hartford Courant noted that “he was not expected to be kept on the 40-man roster by the Yankees this winter and could have become a six-year, minor league free agent.”20

Greer’s new club was limping toward the finish of a dismal 59-win season. The rookie did not get into a game until September 29. Manager Dallas Green (who’d replaced Jeff Torborg earlier that season) said, “I’d been saving [Greer] for a spot free of pressure. I guess the 17th inning of a scoreless game doesn’t have much pressure.”21

Greer needed just 13 pitches as he set the St. Louis Cardinals down in order. After Erik Pappas lined to left, Greer struck out Gerónimo Peña and opposing pitcher Les Lancaster. “I hadn’t pitched in a month,” said Greer. (The Columbus season had ended on September 4.) “I was trying to get pitches over the plate.”22

In the home half of the 17th, Jeff Kent’s two-out double brought home Eddie Murray and the game was over at last.

Fellow Mets pitcher Eric Hillman had a wry remark about Greer’s win. “He just tied me and A.Y. for victories in 1993,” said Hillman, who was then 1-9.23 Anthony Young, whose record-setting 27-game losing streak had ended earlier that season, was 1-16.

The Mets won their remaining four games, finishing with a winning streak of six. Greer did not make any further appearances that season.

Greer went to spring training with the Mets in 1994 but was optioned to Triple-A Norfolk at the end of March. Early that season, he held the “stopper” role in the Norfolk bullpen but went on the disabled list in April.24 He appeared four times for the Mets’ team in the Gulf Coast Rookie League while rehabbing from the elbow problem. Overall, he got into 25 games with the Tides, pitching 31 innings. In August he passed through waivers and was taken off the Mets’ 40-man roster, though he remained with Norfolk.

Near the end of November 1994, Greer signed as a free agent with San Francisco. The following February, with the major leagues’ crippling strike still in effect, he found himself walking a fine line. Technically, he wasn’t on strike, because he was in camp on a minor-league contract – but he felt very strongly about the issue because his father was a union man. “I never gave a thought to being a replacement player,” Greer said. “It’s been my dream all my life to play in the major leagues, but I don’t want to have to tell my son someday that I made the major leagues as a scab.” Yet he also said, “I need to be in camp to get my arm back in shape if I’m going to make it to the majors this year. I’ve been scraping by for seven years. If I don’t get to the major leagues, it’ll be like I wasted seven years of my life.”25

Greer began the 1995 season with the Giants’ top farm club, Phoenix in the Pacific Coast League. The big club called him up in June after Trevor Wilson went on the DL. The veteran had adjusted as a pitcher after surgery on his elbow the previous year to remove six bone chips and a bone spur. Greer later said, “After the surgery I actually picked up a little bit of velocity. I got to be a little more of a power pitcher.”26

Greer got into eight games in long and middle relief for San Francisco from June 21 through July 17. He posted an ERA of 5.25 while going 0-2. The Giants then returned him to Phoenix and called up Carlos Valdéz.

Greer became a free agent again after the 1995 season. The Chicago Cubs invited him to spring training in 1996, but he was unsuccessful in his bid to make the club. However, he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates organization that May.27 He spent the rest of the year pitching for their top affiliate, Calgary in the Pacific Coast League.

Greer’s final season as a pro, 1997, began with Calgary. He was released in May after making 15 appearances. Later that month, he caught on with the Baltimore Orioles, who signed him to a minor-league deal and assigned him to Triple-A Rochester. He got into 15 games for the Red Wings – a stint that he later called “simply horrible”28 – and was bumped down to Double-A Bowie. The 11 appearances he made for the Baysox were his last in pro ball.

After his release by the Orioles, Greer still held hopes of getting a nonroster invitation in 1998 from his lifelong favorites, the Red Sox. He contacted the team himself to tell them “I really do think that I could pitch at Fenway Park.” He called it the only thing that could stand between him and starting a new life after baseball. He still wanted to be involved with the game in some fashion, though, so he took a job as pitching instructor at a newly opened facility, the Bases Loaded Training Center in Hingham. One of his colleagues was his brother Kevin.29

In 2021 Greer recounted his final decision to retire. “At the end of my career, I had an invite to big-league camp with the Diamondbacks that I walked away from. I promised Abby [his wife] when I turned 30 I would make a decision. I had not been back to the big leagues in two-plus years and it was time.”30

For 10 years after leaving baseball, Greer worked for several leading home construction materials companies. His focus areas were sales, marketing, and management.

Greer became an executive recruiter in 2008, joining the firm of Executive Search Partners and becoming a partner the following year. His new career path was a good segue in view of his industry experience, people skills, and team orientation. He places high-level candidates in executive positions, as well as front- and back-office roles, within the nation’s leaders in the energy industry. Clients include investment banks, hedge funds, merchant/utility companies, and consulting firms.31

Greer is a longtime resident of Cohasset, which adjoins Hull to the south. Executive Search Partners is based there and it’s where his wife comes from. He and Abigail (née Adams) had three children: son Will and daughters Molly and Kate. Will, who became a pitcher like his father, was a member of the Bucknell University team in 2020 and 2021. As of 2021, Molly was playing lacrosse at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and Kate was a seventh-grader in the Cohasset school system.32

In 2021 Greer continued to participate in public and media events promoting baseball. He was involved as a consultant/speaker for youth baseball and proper coaching techniques. In his leisure time, Greer enjoyed coaching youth sports, golfing, fishing, family events, and country music. He and Abby were very active in their local church and community.33

Looking back on his time in pro baseball in 1998, Kenny Greer was realistic and content. He told David Wolcott, “As you get older, if you don’t perform you go out the door. That’s just business, but you have to go out there and enjoy it as long as you can.

“I had a great career. I got to play with the Giants and the Mets and was traded straight up for Frank Tanana. I have no regrets.”34

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Kenny Greer for his input (email to Rory Costello, May 21, 2021).

Photo credit: Courtesy of John Galluzzo, Committee for the Preservation of Hull’s History. Originally published in the book Hull and Nantasket Beach (2001).

Sources

Kenny Greer’s page on LinkedIn.com (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenny-greer-3ba8455/)

Kenny Greer’s page at Executive Search Partners website (https://www.ex-sp.com/team-member/kenneth-w-greer/)

Prince, Greg W. Faith and Fear in Flushing (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2009).

Notes

1 Kenny Greer, email to Rory Costello, May 21, 2021 (hereafter Greer email).

2 Kevin Greer obituary, Boston Globe, January 21, 2016: B7.

3 Paul Harber, “For Minor Leaguer, Pitching Never Ends,” Boston Globe, February 7, 1993: 35.

4 Ruth Thompson and Will Wassersug, “Scituate Mourns Kevin Greer, Coach and Teacher,” Quincy (Massachusetts) Patriot Ledger, January 21, 2016. https://scituate.wickedlocal.com/article/20160121/NEWS/160129198. Accessed May 22, 2021.

5 Greer email.

6 Harber, “For Minor Leaguer, Pitching Never Ends.”

7 Greer email.

8 David Wolcott, “Free Agent Has Dreams of Pulling on Red Sox,” Cohasset (Massachusetts) Mariner, January 15, 1998: 13.

9 Wolcott, “Free Agent Has Dreams of Pulling on Red Sox.”

10 Harber.

11 Greer email.

12 Harber.

13 Harber.

14 Harber.

15 Wolcott.

16 Harber.

17 Harber.

18 Michael Kay, “Stump Still Bitter?” New York Daily News, September 3, 1993: 76.

19 Jack Curry, “Last Gasp: Yanks Get Tanana From the Mets,” New York Times, September 18, 1993: 29.

20 Jack O’Connell and Sean Horgan, “Tanana Goes Crosstown and Uptown Just Like That,” Hartford Courant, September 18, 1993: D5.

21 Joe Sexton, “And So, After 17 Innings, the Mets Finally Rest,” New York Times, September 30, 1993: B13.

22 Sexton, “And So, After 17 Innings, the Mets Finally Rest.”

23 Sexton. Hillman got one more win that season. Young’s last appearance of the year came on September 11.

24 Mike Holtzclaw, “Hitting, Relief Pitching Lead Tides to 6-3 Victory,” Newport News (Virginia) Daily Press, April 20, 1994: 6.

25 John Harper, “At Least His Role Is Major,” New York Daily News, February 26, 1995: 46.

26 Wolcott, “Free Agent Has Dreams of Pulling on Red Sox.”

27 “PCL Postponement,” Calgary Herald, May 2, 1996: 61.

28 Wolcott.

29 Wolcott.

30 Greer email.

31 Kenny Greer’s page at Executive Search Partners website (https://www.ex-sp.com/team-member/kenneth-w-greer/).

32 Greer email.

33 Kenny Greer’s page at Executive Search Partners website.

34 Wolcott.