Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle died Wednesday after a small plane he was flying crashed into a high-rise on Manhattan's east side. The media today remembers Lidle as outspoken, a lover of flying, and a family man who was liked by his teammates. But when Lidle last made headlines, as part of a trade bringing him from Philadelphia to New York, it was a different part of his life that dominated: His one inning of spring training in 1995, during the baseball players' strike. That inning marked him as a replacement player—rendered less politely by some teammates as "scab"— and caused him years of grief.

Lidle may also have been the best of active replacement players, though that's hardly an epitaph worthy of a tombstone. He was one of just eight players still on major-league rosters at the end of the season, and had more than twice the wins of any other remaining pitcher. (First baseman Kevin Millar is the other replacement player with a potential claim on this dubious title; retired pitcher Rick Reed was probably the best while he was still playing.)

Throughout his career, Lidle's one inning of work in 1995's spring training cost him a spot in the players' union (though he was entitled to grievance and arbitration representation), a share of licensing ($35,000 to $40,000, according to the New York Post), and an opportunity to appear in baseball videogames. Those replacement players on World Series-winning teams have been left off official merchandise.

He and his fellow replacement players generally claimed that they were low-paid minor leaguers pressured or misled into crossing the picket lines. In 2002, Lidle told the St. Petersburg Times:

I was 23 years old, I didn't know anything. I had already been released once. I didn't want to get sent home. Now, when I look back, I was naive. Even if they had sent me home, they would have eventually brought me back. And if they didn't, someone else would have. If I was a couple of years older or listened to someone else's advice, I might have made a different decision.

But some players never forgot. In 2000, Lidle was riding a bus with fellow members of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays when one singled him out as a scab. "It grew uglier," John Romano wrote in the St. Petersburg Times. "Insults mixed with profanities. Seemingly 24 players turned on one. Explaining himself only would have made it worse. So Lidle picked the next-best option. He challenged the loudest and drunkest to fight." The fight was diffused, but Lidle was a pariah in the clubhouse afterwards.

And just two months ago, Phillies reliever Arthur Rhodes, angered by Lidle's ill-advised comments after the trade that the Phillies seemed not to care about winning, told the Philadelphia Daily News, "He shouldn't say anything like that because he is a scab. He crossed the [picket] line when guys like me, Flash [Tom Gordon] and [Mike] Lieberthal were playing. He is a replacement player."

Lidle's history was again in the news after he arrived in the Bronx. The New York Post reported:

When Lidle was questioned about it at his introductory Yankees press conference, he said, "It's something that happened 10 years ago. It's not something I'm ashamed of because I have my reasons. If anyone wants to know what my reasoning was, they can come up and talk to me and I'll gladly tell them what's going on." Asked for that reasoning six days later, Lidle said it was something he does not want to discuss. "It's a dead issue," he said.