Brien Taylor
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Brien Taylor (born December 26 1971) is a former pitcher in minor league baseball best known for being just the second amateur player to be picked first overall in the Major League Baseball Draft and never reach the major leagues. (The first was Steve Chilcott, in 1966.)
Taylor was born in Beaufort, North Carolina and drafted by the New York Yankees in 1991. He was offered about $350,000 to sign a minor league contract, the typical amount given to #1 draft choices at that time. However, agent Scott Boras (acting as an "advisor" because unsigned players were not allowed to have an agent at that time) advised the Taylor family that the previous year's top-rated high school pitcher, Todd Van Poppel, was given more than $1.2 million to sign with the Oakland Athletics, giving up a scholarship to Stanford University in the process. The Taylors held out for "Van Poppel money," even though they had less leverage because Brien's poor grades at East Carteret High School prevented him from getting a major college scholarship offer. They then used a local junior college as leverage to get the Yankees to agree to pay Van Poppel money. The Yankees were without the official services of owner George Steinbrenner, who was serving a suspension at the time, but through the media, Steinbrenner said that if the Yankees let Taylor get away, they should be "shot." Taylor was signed for $1.55 million the day before his classes were set to begin. Further delay would have meant the deal could not be signed until after the school year ended, which coincided with the following year's draft.
While quickly ascending the minor league ranks in 1993, Taylor suffered a torn labrum while defending his brother in a fistfight. Unfortunately, Taylor was never the same pitcher again. He was at Double-A before the incident but spent the bulk of the remainder of his professional baseball career struggling at Single-A.
He was released by the Yankees at the end of the 1998 season and pitched for minor league affiliates of the Seattle Mariners and Cleveland Indians until retiring in 2000.
He currently works in real estate, specifically buying and repairing homes for resale.[citation needed]
External links
- Minor league statistics
- The arm that changed the Major League draft, retrieved June 6, 2006
- A New Standard (Sports Illustrated, September 9, 1991), retrieved June 7, 2006
- Tracking Down Brien Taylor by Wayne Coffey - New York Daily News