Jim Mecir


James Jason Mecir is an American former baseball player. He played for five teams in an 11-year career, and retired from the Florida Marlins in. He was a right-handed pitcher.
Mecir is notable for having overcome a birth defect to become an effective Major League pitcher as well as for regularly throwing a screwball. He spent 4½ years as a member of the Oakland Athletics and is prominently mentioned in Michael Lewis's bestselling book .

Career

Mecir attended Eckerd College, and in 1990 he played collegiate summer baseball with the Falmouth Commodores of the Cape Cod Baseball League. He was selected by the Seattle Mariners in the third round of the 1991 amateur draft. He played for Seattle in, the New York Yankees in and, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays from to, the Oakland Athletics from to, before spending the last year of his career with the Marlins. He announced his retirement on October 2, 2005, following the Marlins' last game of the season.
Mecir was inducted into the Suffolk Sports Hall of Fame on Long Island, New York, in the Baseball Category with the Class of 2011.

Adversity

In, Mecir received the Tony Conigliaro Award, given annually to the player who most effectively overcomes adversity to succeed in baseball. Mecir was born with two club feet; despite several childhood surgeries that enabled him to walk, he was left with a right leg that was one inch shorter than his left leg and a right calf that was only half the size of his left calf.
Mecir was inadvertently the subject of attention which began on May 15, 2005. On that Sunday, Mecir pitched poorly in a game against the Padres, and ESPN analyst John Kruk cited Mecir's limp when Mecir walked to the mound. Kruk presented this as evidence that the Marlins were negligent for asking Mecir to pitch. Kruk came under heavy public criticism for being insensitive, even though Kruk was unaware. However, Mecir did not take offense when informed of the remark.