Baseball’s Biggest Stage

When New York Yankees pitcher Jake Cousins C’17 was called out of the bullpen for the 10th inning of Game 1 of the World Series on October 25, it was an incredibly high-stakes moment in a matchup between two of Major League Baseball’s most iconic franchises.

It also marked a bit of University history, with Cousins becoming the first Penn alum to play in a World Series in 112 years. The last time had come when Stephen Douglas Yerkes W1909—a shortstop on the Quakers’ 1906 baseball team—scored the winning run in the decisive game of the 1912 World Series, lifting the Boston Red Sox past Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson and the New York Giants.

Cousins’s trip to this year’s Fall Classic wasn’t as dramatic or successful. He was charged with the loss in Game 1 and then pitched an inning apiece in New York’s losses in Game 2 and Game 3 (pictured above) as the Yankees fell to the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games, missing out on their 28th title.

But Cousins helped the Yankees get there with some strong pitching after coming to New York at the start of the 2024 season.

An All-Ivy pitcher who won 20 games for Penn (third in program history) between 2014 and 2017, Cousins was selected in the 20th round of the 2017 Major League Baseball (MLB) Draft by the Washington Nationals—one of four Quakers to be drafted that year. The right-hander bounced around the minor leagues for a few years, along with several other Penn alums [“Sports,” Sep|Oct 2019], before making it to the majors in 2021 with the Milwaukee Brewers.

At that point, Cousins enjoyed another milestone as the first Penn alum to pitch in an MLB game since Steve Adkins EAS’86 did it with the Yankees in 1990. The only other Penn alumni to play in the majors in the last 60 years are Doug Glanville EAS’93 and Mark DeRosa W’97, both of whom had long and successful pro careers despite not playing in a World Series (though DeRosa won a World Series ring, while injured, with the San Francisco Giants in 2010). —DZ

Share Button

    Related Posts

    An Archive for a Visionary
    Wyatt’s World
    Field of Dreams

    Leave a Reply