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Yankees Don Mattingly: A Not So Typical 19th Round Draft Pick

In 1979, the Yankees drafted 29 players in the June amateur draft. Of those, six made it to the major leagues. Their first pick in the draft, Todd Demeter, is not one of those six.

Freddie Toliver, Stefan Wever, Pete Filson, and Keith Smith all had brief and very anonymous careers in the big leagues. Greg Gagne, a name you probably will recall, was a fifth round pick and he played extensively as a shortstop, mostly for the Minnesota Twins.

The one thing all of these players have in common, though, is that each was selected by the Yankees before the team took the 493rd player in the draft in the nineteenth round.