Ken MacKenzie (baseball)

Kenneth Purvis MacKenzie (born March 10, 1934) is a Canadian former relief pitcher in Major League Baseball. He played for the Milwaukee Braves (1960–61), New York Mets (1962–63), St. Louis Cardinals (1963), San Francisco Giants (1964) and Houston Astros (1965). A member of Yale's Class of 1956,[1] MacKenzie lettered in men's hockey and baseball at Yale College. He returned to Yale as head baseball coach in 1969 and held that post for ten seasons.

The native of Gore Bay, Ontario, threw left-handed, batted right-handed, and was listed as 6 feet (1.8 m) tall and 185 pounds (84 kg) (13 stone, 3 pounds). MacKenzie signed with the Braves in 1957 and began working his way through the club's farm system, becoming a relief specialist in 1959, his third professional baseball season. After working in 14 games for Milwaukee in brief trials in 1960 and 1961, his contract was sold to the expansion Mets on October 11, 1961, one day after that year's expansion draft.

An original Met, MacKenzie posted a 5–4 record and was the only man among 17 pitchers on the 1962 Mets to win more games than he lost on a team that suffered 120 defeats. Manager Casey Stengel said of him: "He's a splendid young fella with a great education from Yale University. His signing with us makes him the lowest paid member of the class of Yale '56."[2] In 1963, MacKenzie again was the Mets' lone over-.500 pitcher, winning three of four decisions for a team that would lose 111 games. MacKenzie, however, was traded to the pennant-contending St. Louis Cardinals on August 5, 1963. His Met totals: eight wins, five losses, and four saves, with a 4.96 earned run average over 76 games pitched.

His eight victories as a Met would be his only ones in Major League Baseball. He bounced from the Cardinals to the Giants to the Astros through the 1965 campaign, spending time in Triple-A in the process. All told he won eight of 18 MLB decisions in 129 games pitched (all but one as a reliever), with five career saves. In 208​¹⁄₃ innings pitched, he allowed 231 hits and 63 bases on balls, with 142 strikeouts.