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9/15/2001 - Mark Connor: Blue Jays Pitching Coach

Mark Connor might not be the most familiar name on the Blue Jays coaching staff, as he’s surrounded by the likes of manager Buck Martinez, former manager Cito Gaston, former White Sox manager Terry Bevington and former Blue Jay third baseman Garth Iorg. However, that doesn’t mean that the Jays’ pitching coach should be overlooked.

Born on May 27, 1949 in Brooklyn, New York, Connor earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Manhattan College in 1972, a year after receiving the Topps Award as a college All-Star. During one game against Columbia University, he fanned 20 batters.

In between college games, Connor began his professional baseball career. In 1971, he was 4-5 with 3 saves for Auburn (the New-York Penn league affiliate for the Minnesota Twins). Starting 3 of the 20 games he appeared in, Connor had a 2.78 ERA with a complete game.

The next year, he made 32 relief appearances for the Wisconsin Rapids and went 3-3 with 5 saves. Unfortunately, he also suffered a career ending arm injury and never played professional baseball again…but his time in baseball was really just beginning.

Connor later attended the University of Tennessee where he earned a Master’s Degree in 1974-75. Even as he completed graduate school at the University, Connor began his career in coaching, working as the school’s pitching coach from 1974-1978, coaching future baseball stars as Rick Honeycutt and Greg McMichael.

In 1978, he became the pitching coach for Paintsville, the Yankees affiliate in the Appalachian League and began to work his way up through the Yankees system, acting as a scout in 1979 and becoming the pitching coach with Greensboro and with the Columbus Clippers (the Yankee’s AAA affiliate).

In 1984, he was named the pitching coach of the Yankees major league team and spent most of the next four seasons in that position (he was sent to Ft. Lauderdale to be the pitching coach for the Yankees team there for part of 1985).

In 1988, he left the Yankees and returned to the University of Tennessee where he served as the head baseball coach for the next two seasons (in 1989,he led the Volunteers to a 23-26 record), before returning to the Yankees in 1990 to serve as their bullpen coach. In 1991-92, he was the Yankees pitching coach and in 1993, returned to the bullpen as a coach.

In 1994, he joined Toronto as the pitching coach for the Knoxville Smokies in the Double-A Southern League. It was there that he worked with prospects such as Edwin Hurtado, Marty Janzen, Brad Cornett and, perhaps most importantly, Chris Carpenter.

With former Yankees manager Buck Showalter being named manager of the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks, Connor was named the pitching coordinator for the team in 1996 and was named pitching coach for the team when they began play in 1998. With the year’s Cy Young winner Randy Johnson as the staff ace, the Diamondbacks finished second in the league in ERA in 1999. (It was that year that past and future Toronto reliever Dan Plesac joined the team -after a trade for Tony Batista- and worked with Connor.)

However, the team finished 6th in the league in the same category in 2000 and at the end of the season, Connor (as well as manager Showalter) were fired. After being courted by the Texas Rangers, Connor decided on November 3rd, 2000, to come to Toronto to become that team’s pitching coach.

Residing in Knoxville, Tennessee, Connor is married to wife Katie and has three children, Jennie, Shannon and Ryan.

John M. Milner firmly believes that Joe Carter's home run in the 1993 World Series was one of the turning points of his life. Discuss this, his columns, baseball or life in general with him at docmilner@yahoo.ca.

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