Timothy Phillip Burke (born February 19, 1959) is a retired

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

relief pitcher In baseball and softball, a relief pitcher or reliever is a pitcher who enters the game after the starting pitcher is removed because of fatigue, ineffectiveness, injury, or ejection, or for other strategic reasons, such as inclement weat ...

who played for the

Montreal Expos The Montreal Expos (french: link=no, Les Expos de Montréal) were a Canadian professional baseball team based in Montreal, Quebec. The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States. They played in t ...

New York Mets The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major league ...

, and

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...

. He batted and threw right-handed. Between 1987 and 1988, he briefly had the lowest career

earned run average In baseball statistics, earned run average (ERA) is the average of earned runs allowed by a pitcher per nine innings pitched (i.e. the traditional length of a game). It is determined by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number ...

for a relief pitcher, and his career earned run average of 2.72 is lower than all Hall of Famer relief pitchers except for

Mariano Rivera Mariano Rivera (born November 29, 1969) is a Panamanian-American former professional baseball pitcher who played 19 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees, from 1995 to 2013. Nicknamed "Mo" and "Sandman", he spent most ...

and

Hoyt Wilhelm James Hoyt Wilhelm (July 26, 1922 – August 23, 2002), nicknamed "Old Sarge", was an American Major League Baseball pitcher with the New York Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, Cleveland Indians, Baltimore Orioles, Chicago White Sox, California Angel ...

Career

Drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in round two of the 1980 MLB draft, Burke was traded to the Yankees on December 22, 1982, and then after a year in New York's minor league system, was dealt to the Expos for outfielder Pat Rooney on December 20, 1983. Although he was primarily a starting pitcher over his four minor league seasons, he made his major league debut with the Expos on April 8, 1985, in relief. In an eight-season career, he posted a 49–33 record with a 2.72

ERA An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth. Comp ...

and 102 saves in 498 games pitched, all but two out of the bullpen. He led the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

in appearances in 1985, with 78. He was selected to the National League All-star team in 1989.

Personal

Along with his wife, Christine, Burke adopted two orphan children from

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

, one from

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

, and one from Guatemala with the assistance of International Children Services in Eugene, Oregon. A born-again Christian, he retired from baseball in 1993 in order to help raise his four adopted children. In 1994 he authored the book ''Major League Dad: The Moving Story of an All-Star Pitcher Who Gave up Baseball for His Family.'' In 1995, Burke appeared in the Geoff Moore & the Distance

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...

for the song "Home Run". Burke currently resides in

Littleton, Colorado Littleton is a home rule municipality city located in Arapahoe, Douglas, and Jefferson counties, Colorado, United States. Littleton is the county seat of Arapahoe County and is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Stati ...

References

External links

1959 births Living people Alexandria Dukes players American expatriate baseball players in Canada Baseball players from Nebraska Buffalo Bisons (minor league) players Columbus Clippers players Indianapolis Indians players Major League Baseball pitchers Montreal Expos players Nashville Sounds players National League All-Stars Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball players New York Mets players New York Yankees players Sportspeople from Omaha, Nebraska {{US-baseball-pitcher-1950s-stub