All-Time Top ABL Players: #9 Jimmy Key

#9 Jimmy Key
LHP - 1981 Peninsula Oilers
Bats: Right - Throws: Left
Drafted: White Sox '79, Rd. 10 (Did not sign); Toronto '82, Rd.3
MLB Career: 1984-1998
MLB Teams: Toronto, New York (A), Baltimore

It's the sixth game of the World Series and your team is head 3 games to 2. Your manager has picked you to take the mound and shut the lights out on the other team before they can force a seventh game. The pitcher for the opposing team is a guy by the name of Greg Maddux, so you know you won't have much room for error.  On top of all that pressure, tonight could be your last game in Yankee pinstripes before becoming a free agent. This will be your last chance to make an impact with millions of dollars on the line. What do you do?

If you're Jimmy Key, you throw six innings of 1-run baseball.



Four All-Star appearances and two World Series rings. That's the hardware that former Peninsula Oiler Key has to show for a 15-year Major League career. But before signing his first professional contract he was a standout two-way player with Clemson. With a 4.25 ERA in 53 innings he might not have seemed like a future star for the Oilers in 1981 (although with a 1.26 WHIP he wasn't terribly ineffective, either). But in NCAA play he tore it up, and accomplished another rare feat: earning first-team all conference honors at both the pitcher and designated hitter slots.

In his prime, Key was one of the top control pitchers in baseball. Perhaps a comparison to game-six rival Maddux isn't unwarranted. He also had an extremely effective pick-off move. He put up a career 1.229 Career WHIP, including a league-leading 1.058 stat in 1987 -- the same year he led the league with an ERA on the order of 2.76.

Key's downfall was his inability to stay healthy. He put up almost as many injury-shortened seasons as he did complete ones. But when he wasn't nursing a bum arm he was one of the game's greatest pitchers, and that's why Jimmy Key ranks #9 on our list of All-Time Top ABL Players.