Kent Tekulve made a long major league career by doing things no one else wanted to try. With a true submarine delivery that sent the ball in from ankle height, he turned deception into a weapon and discomfort into outs. Hitters rarely looked comfortable against him, and that was exactly the point.

He became a fixture in the Pirates bullpen in the late 1970s, trusted with work most relievers today would never see. In 1979, Tekulve pitched in 94 regular-season games, a workload that’s almost impossible to imagine now. That same year, he went on to save three games in the World Series, including Game 7, literally ending the championship on the mound.

Tekulve never overpowered hitters and never started a game, yet finished with 184 career saves and a reputation for reliability that managers valued more than radar-gun readings. He pitched whenever the situation demanded calm, not velocity.

After retiring, Tekulve stayed connected to the game as a respected college baseball broadcaster, especially in the Big Ten, where his insight and dry humor made him a familiar voice for a new generation of fans.

Mike Hampton arrived in Colorado carrying more attention than almost any pitcher the Rockies had ever signed. Coming off strong seasons in Houston, he joined the club before the 2001 season on a massive contract that made headlines everywhere. The expectations were huge. The reality of pitching at Coors Field was even bigger.

Hampton wasn’t a flamethrower. He survived on movement, location, and feel, the kind of approach that had worked well everywhere else. In Colorado, it became a daily grind. In 2001, he still managed to win 14 games, but the thin air and expansive outfield punished even good pitches. By 2002, the numbers told the story of how unforgiving the environment could be, even for an established veteran.

What often gets overlooked is how much Hampton helped himself at the plate. He was one of the best hitting pitchers of his era, winning five Silver Slugger Awards and routinely being treated like a real bat rather than a formality in the lineup. He hit home runs, drove in runs, and never looked uncomfortable swinging, even against elite pitching.

Over a 16-year career, Hampton won 148 games, struck out nearly 1,400 hitters, and left behind a career remembered as much for its context as its results. His time in Colorado became part of a broader lesson about Coors Field, expectations, and just how difficult the job can be, even when the resume says you’re ready.

Mike McCormick spent years as a good pitcher on Giants teams that always seemed to fall just short. Signed as a teenager under baseball’s old Bonus Baby rules, he was rushed straight to the majors and had to learn on the fly. By the early 1960s, he had settled in as a dependable left-hander, even leading the National League in ERA in 1960, but he was rarely the name people talked about first.

Then came 1967. After bouncing around the league and returning to San Francisco, McCormick put together a season almost no one saw coming. He won 22 games, led the league in victories, and captured the Cy Young Award, becoming the first Giants pitcher ever to do so. It was a late payoff for a career built on patience, durability, and adaptation rather than raw dominance.

McCormick stayed primarily a starter throughout his career, logging 16 seasons and more than 1,300 strikeouts in an era that demanded innings and toughness from pitchers.

After retiring, McCormick settled in Sunnyvale, CA, then North Carolina before passing away at age 81 after a long battle with Parkinson’s.

Brock Davis is one of those names you only stumble into if you really love baseball history. He debuted with the Houston Colt .45s in 1963 at just 19 years old, dropped straight into the majors at a time when expansion teams were forced to learn in public. There was no easing in. You either held on or you were gone.

That rookie season says a lot about the era. At one point, Houston ran out an entire lineup of rookies, Davis included, a snapshot of how raw and experimental those early Colt .45s teams were. He played the outfield, put the ball in play, and tried to survive against pitchers who had been working inside for a decade longer than he’d been alive.

He spent the next several years bouncing between the majors and minors with Houston, Chicago, and later Milwaukee, the kind of career built on readiness and adaptability. Davis hit .260 over parts of six MLB seasons, and in one of those perfect baseball footnotes, he hit exactly one home run, a ninth-inning shot at Candlestick Park off Jack Sanford in 1963.

The quiet twist is how it ended. In 1972 with the Brewers, after years of grinding, Davis hit over .300 in limited duty, then disappeared from the majors. No farewell tour. No second act.

It’s a very 1960s baseball story. Early opportunity. Limited patience. A career shaped by timing as much as talent. For fans who love the margins of the game, Brock Davis is part of the fabric.

Trevor May debuted with the Twins in 2014 as a starter, then reinvented himself as a reliever as the game leaned harder into pitch design, spin rates, and matchup-based bullpens. Over parts of nine MLB seasons, May logged 600+ innings, struck out more than 600 hitters, and carved out a role as a dependable late-inning arm with Minnesota, Oakland, and the Mets. His most visible run came in 2022 with New York, when he pitched high-leverage innings for a playoff team and finished the year with a sub-4.00 ERA.

What made May stand out went beyond the mound. He became the first active MLB player to fully embrace Twitch streaming, openly balancing gaming with a big-league career. He also spoke candidly about mental health, anxiety, and burnout, helping normalize conversations most players avoided. Trevor is can now be found making baseball more accessible to new fans on his social media, and is one of my favorite guests on the fantasy baseball podcast Rates & Barrels.

In 2023, May stepped away from baseball by choice, prioritizing well-being over longevity. His career marked a shift toward players being allowed to exist as full people, not just stat lines.