Ken Clay
| Ken Clay | |||
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| Pitcher | |||
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Born: April 6, 1954 Lynchburg, Virginia |
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| MLB debut | |||
| June 7, 1977, for the New York Yankees | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| October 2, 1981, for the Seattle Mariners | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Win-Loss | 10-24 | ||
| Earned run average | 4.68 | ||
| Strikeouts | 129 | ||
| Teams | |||
| Career highlights and awards | |||
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Kenneth Earl Clay (born April 6, 1954) is a former Major League Baseball right-handed pitcher. Following his brief major league career, Clay had several run ins with the law. Most recently, he was sentenced to five years in jail for grand theft for creating a fake sales order at the Sarasota, Florida copy machine office in which he worked.
Drafted by the New York Yankees in the second round of the 1972 Major League Baseball Draft, he soon emerged as one of the top pitching prospects in the Yankees' organization. However, he never lived up to his potential, and was eventually traded away by the Yankees after three seasons in which he went 6-14 with a 4.72 earned run average. Clay's lack of success at the major league level is often cited as the catalyst for Yankees owner George Steinbrenner's desire to build his team through free agency and trades rather than relying upon his own farm system.
Clay was drafted in the second round of the 1972 draft upon graduation from E. C. Glass High School in Lynchburg, Virginia. He put up respectable numbers in his first five seasons in the Yankees' farm system, going 46-40 with a 3.64 ERA, but was wild. In 726 innings pitched, Clay walked 348 batters. He got it together in 1977; in ten starts with the International League's Syracuse Chiefs, Clay went 5-1 with a 1.68 ERA. He was called up by the Yankees to relieve some of the burden on manager Billy Martin's overextended pitching staff.
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