I still have a soft spot in my heart for Celerino Sanchez, who I think also died at an early age. He was a Mexican player who played third base for the Yankees in 1972 and was the backup in 1973, the transition between the awful years and the Graig Nettles era.
His numbers don't look good using current sabermetrics measures of defense, but on the field, and to our eyes hungry to see someone who could do something at all, he seemed spectacular. Does anyone else here remember that 1972 season, THE Sparky Lyle season, when the Yankees were unexpectedly in the middle of the division race with Detroit, Baltimore and Boston down to the last week of the season and Sanchez seemed so good at 3B that Yankees fans for that one season chanted "defense, defense" like football fans? I was 12, and still love that team, though it played way over its head really.
Nettles was actually one of the best ever at third base defensively, and is one of my favorite players, but I have always felt a little bad for Celerino Sanchez, that he got replaced when at least for a brief moment in 1972, he seemed to raise our game to another level after so many terrible third basemen (Jerry Kenney, Bobby Cox - good manager, bad player, Hal Lanier at third base, and an aging Hal Lanier, not the one that was a brilliant shortstop though one of the worst hitters ever, etc.).