Professional Career
A multi-sport star in high school, Pennyfeather turned down a football scholarship with Syracuse University in order to play baseball at that same school. After his sophomore year at Syracuse, Pennyfeather signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1988 as an undrafted amateur free agent and began his professional career with the Pirates' affiliate in the Gulf Coast League.
Listed at 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) tall, weighing 195 pounds, and batting and throwing right-handed, Pennyfeather made his major league debut on June 27, 1992. During his major league career he appeared in 40 games over those three years and collected nine hits, including a double.
In 1994 he was claimied on waivers by the Cincinnati Reds, who traded him to the California Angels for Eduardo Pérez in 1996.
Pennyfeather continued to play professionally after the end of his major league career. He played for the minor league affiliates of the Anaheim Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers, as well as the Taipei Gida of the Taiwan Major League, the Broncos de Reynosa of the Mexican League, and teams in the independent Northern League and Atlantic League. He is one of only three players who played in the Atlantic League in each of its first ten seasons.
2006 was Pennyfeather's final season, during which he played for the Newark Bears of the Atlantic League. He went out on a high note, as he was honored as Newark Bears Player of the Year, and was also a member of the Atlantic League All-Star team. The Bears honored him with an in-game ceremony on September 21, 2006, during their final home game of the season.
Read more about this topic: Will Pennyfeather
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or career:
“The relationship between mother and professional has not been a partnership in which both work together on behalf of the child, in which the expert helps the mother achieve her own goals for her child. Instead, professionals often behave as if they alone are advocates for the child; as if they are the guardians of the child’s needs; as if the mother left to her own devices will surely damage the child and only the professional can rescue him.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)