Long Island's Greg Weissert thrilled to get call for Yankees' ALCS roster
New York Yankees relief pitcher Greg Weissert delivers Minnesota Twins during the first game of an MLB doubleheader at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
HOUSTON – Yankees rookie reliever Greg Weissert was in Tampa early Wednesday morning when he got a call from someone with the club at about 3 a.m.
Who called him?
“It was so late, so early in the morning, I don’t even remember, honestly,” the Bay Shore native said on Wednesday evening.
But Weissert surely remembers what the call was about. Weissert was told to head to Minute Maid Park in Houston because he was being added to the Yankees’ roster for the ALCS.
“I got a phone call and they told me to get on a plane,” Weissert said about 16 hours later outside the Yankees dugout before Game 1 against the Astros. “It’s awesome. Real happy to have this opportunity.”
Weissert was added because of a number of factors. The Yankees decided to go with 13 pitchers instead of the 12 they carried in the ALDS. After adding Frankie Montas, the team wanted another righty for the Astros. The Yankees dropped lefty Lucas Luetge and considered another rookie righthander, Ron Marinaccio, who has more big-league experience than Weissert.
But Marinaccio was deemed not quite ready to come back from a stress reaction in his left shin. Manager Aaron Boone said passing over Marinaccio “was one of the toughest decisions that I had, that we had, kind of debating it.”
Once they decided on Weissert, all the 27-year-old had to do was get to Houston. So he hopped on a commercial flight and couldn’t stop smiling before the Yankees opened the series.
Weissert, who was 3-0 with a 5.56 ERA in 12 appearances for the Yankees, said his family wasn’t able to make the trip to Houston on such short notice. But they will be able to attend when the series shifts to Yankee Stadium on Saturday.
“There were so many moving parts. It happened so fast,” Weissert said. “I was just scrambling to get here. Thankfully everything went smoothly.”
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
