One of the most interesting pipelines in major sports, especially in baseball, is the transition from player to manager. Although the managerial ranks are always changing, there are plenty who used to play for their MLB teams, with the Yankees consistently having them on the top step of the dugout (Aaron Boone and Joe Girardi are the most recent two to fill the position after putting on pinstripes).
Barry Foote isn’t a name that may resonate with many current Yankees fans, simply for the fact that he was not a Yankee for very long, at least as a player. However, he did find an interesting career after retirement — both on and off the field.
Barry Clifton Foote
Born: February 16, 1952 (Smithfield, NC)
Yankees Tenure: 1981-82
Expectations were high on Foote from the jump in his professional career, as he was quite talented and the son of a minor-league pitcher as well. The Montreal Expos made the Smithfield-Selma High School catcher the third overall pick in the 1970 MLB Draft — just one spot ahead of future Royals/Cardinals standout Darrell Porter. Following a couple of seasons of development in the minors, Foote was raring to go for The Show, and in 1973, he slugged .441 with 22 doubles and 19 homers in 137 games for the Triple-A Peninsula Whips of the International League.
So Foote made his long-awaited debut behind the plate for the Expos against the Phillies on September 14, 1973. At 21 years old, he posted just one at-bat and flew out to center field in his appearance against Steve Carlton. He would go on to play five more games with the ’73 Expos, and in six at-bats, smacked four hits with one triple and an RBI.
The next season, Foote was a regular for the Expos and still an extremely highly-regarded prospect. He was even dubbed “the next Johnny Bench” by general manager Gene Mauch. He played in 125 games and slashed .262/.315/.414 with an OPS+ just slightly below average at 99. Foote was named to the Topps All-Star Rookie team at the end of the season for his work.
However, the sophomore slump for Foote was real. He went from hitting extremely well and being named the starting catcher for the Expos (after eventual Hall of Fame backstop Gary Carter was moved to the outfield in favor of him) to dropping off hard and fast. He finished his second year in the big leagues, slashing .194/.229/.295 with a paltry OPS+ of 43. And, to add insult to his already brutal season, Foote suffered torn cartilage and underwent knee surgery after the season ended.
In 1976, Foote’s numbers got better but were still supremely below average at the plate, putting the onus back on Carter to reclaim his spot, which he did, and it was soon that Foote’s career with the Expos would come to an end. Hall of Fame skipper Dick Williams took over in Montreal, declared Carter his starter, and that was essentially all she wrote.
On June 15, 1977, Foote was traded to the team he debuted against way back when, being sent to the Phillies along with southpaw Dan Warthen (a future Mets pitching coach) for Wayne Twitchell and Tim Blackwell. But Foote only played in 33 games total in 1977, with 18 of them coming as a Phillies backstop, and in 1978, following a devastating loss for the Phillies in the 1977 NLCS against the Dodgers, Foote played 39 games and was still not even a close-to-average player. There was no reason for him to dislodge incumbent All-Star Bob Boone—yes, Aaron’s dad—as the primary catcher.
Foote was then traded again to the Chicago Cubs, where he seemed to find his spark a little bit more with regular time, albeit more in year one than year two. In 1979 and 1980, he appeared in 195 games, generated 2.9 bWAR, and slashed .249/.305/.418 for an OPS+ of 90, which is still below average but far better than anything he had created the previous few seasons. He played in a career-high 132 games in 1979 after immediately being named the team’s starting catcher, and if it weren’t for a back injury, he would have played far more in 1980.
Tim Blackwell had done a nice job in Foote’s absence in 1980, and with future All-Star Jody Davis now in the mix as well for ’81, Foote was deemed expendable. The Yankees traded for Foote with Rick Cerone out with a broken thumb, and he received some playing time in 1980 when he played 40 games for New York. He even hit a home run in his first at-bat for the team, going deep off the Tigers’ Dan Schatzeder. Foote had a nice little power stretch and actually set an obscure Yankees franchise record for the homers in his first seven games with the team: five. Eric Hinske would tie that mark in 2009.
Foote mustered just one more bomb after that, though. Cerone soon returned as the main catcher, with Foote backing him up. A midseason strike made that year a little weird and the Yankees were declared first-half champions, so Foote knew that he at least would likely witness October ball, even if Cerone started. He didn’t get an at-bat in the Division Series win over Milwaukee, but in the ALCS against Oakland, he got to contribute in a pinch-hitting role. With the Yankees leading by a slim 1-0 margin in Game 3, manager Bob Lemon called on the righty Foote to pinch-hit for Oscar Gamble with Tom Underwood on the mound for the A’s. Foote got the better of his former batterymate with a clean single to right:
Foote was removed for pinch-runner Bobby Brown and the dangerous Graig Nettles cashed in the bases-loaded opportunity with a three-run double. That all but sealed the three-game sweep and an American League pennant for the Yankees. Unfortunately, Foote fanned in his lone World Series at-bat and the Yanks lost a six-game heartbreaker to the Dodgers.
That was effectively the swan song for Foote. Back spasms limited him to just 17 bad games in 1982, and at age-31 in ’83, he was released on the last day of spring training. Offered a chance to take on a new off-field role with the Yankees, Foote accepted the assignment. The former No. 3 overall pick retired with 687 career games across 10 seasons, and he never lost his strong defensive reputation.
Foote was the Yankees’ NL scout at first, but he later moved to the minor-league dugout. Foote skippered three different Baby Bomber outfits from 1984-86, starting with Class-A Fort Lauderdale (where he won a league title) and moving up to Triple-A Columbus. He later managed in the Blue Jays’ system and joined the MLB staff for former Yankees coach Jeff Torborg during his stints with the White Sox and Mets from 1990-93, primarily as a first-base coach.
Once Torborg was fired by the Mets however, Foote was out of a job. Unsure of his next possible step and unwilling to go back to the minor-league coaching grind, Foote left pro baseball behind for business pursuits, running oil and gas companies as well as a water treatment enterprise in California. He remained involved in youth sports as well, still able to connect to baseball in a less formal manner. We wish him the best on this, his 74th birthday!
See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.