Kenny Rogers was a very good Major League pitcher for two decades. New York signed him to a four-year $20 million free agent contract in December of 1995, when the left hander was thirty years old. He was the second best starting pitcher on the Yankee staff during the 1996 regular season, winning 12 of his 20 decisions. What Kenny Rogers wasn’t able to do, was pitch well for the Yankees in the postseason. If you can’t pitch well in pinstripes in October and you get paid $5 million per season, you’re in trouble. In 1996, Rogers had one of the worst postseason performances of any Yankee starting pitcher in history. He started three games, one each in the ALDS, ALCS and the Series. He did not last longer than three innings in any of them and he gave up 11 total runs for an ERA of 14.14. Even though New York won all three of those series, Rogers became a player Yankee fans loved to hate. When he followed his disastrous postseason up by going 6-7 in 1997, he was jettisoned to Oakland for a player to be named later, who turned out to be Scott Brosius. From the date of that trade until he retired from baseball at the end of the 2008 season, Rogers went 131-77 for five different teams. In 2006 he went 3-0 in a great postseason performance for Detroit that featured a seven-plus inning shutout victory over the Yankees in the 2006 ALDS. Rogers was born in Savannah, GA, on November 10, 1964.

Kenny shares his November 10th birthday with this former Yankee DH.