Lenny Harris didn’t just stay in the baseball conversation after his playing days ended - he popped up in the middle of a FIFA World Cup broadcast.
During the 89th minute of Fox’s round of 16 match between Switzerland and Colombia, analyst Darren Fletcher brought up the former Cincinnati Reds fan favorite and current Daytona Tortugas bench coach by name.
“Do you know the man who's regarded as the greatest ever pinch-hitter in the history of baseball?” Fletcher asked.
“It's a guy called Lenny Harris. Had 212 pinch-hits.”
That number is the one that made Harris a record-setter. Over an 18-season MLB career, he piled up 212 pinch-hits for eight teams, setting the league mark.
Harris first reached the majors with the Reds in 1988, after Cincinnati selected him in the fifth round of the 1983 MLB Draft. He played for the Reds in 1988 and 1989, then returned for another run from 1994 through 1998.
Harris once explained how much work it took to be ready for one swing in the middle of a game. Speaking to members of the former Green Diamond Gallery in Montgomery in 2014, he said staying loose was everything for a pinch-hitter.
“I would have other players soft-toss to me in the cage,” Harris said at Green Diamond. “I would also wear sleeves to stay warm, even in hot weather. I would even hit balls into other players’ lockers and break everything to get myself motivated to pinch-hit.”
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