Brien Taylor is 34 now, and he lives at the end of the road named for him, with his parents, Willie Ray and Bettie. The trailer he was raised in has been replaced with a two-story brick and frame home, the House that Brien Built with the record $1.55 million bonus he got from the Yankees. He also bought a black Mustang 5.0 back then, a car that is still on the road. Otherwise, evidence of his long-ago windfall is in scant supply on Brien Taylor Lane, where the cab of a tractor-trailer is sunk into marsh grass and vines, and the yard is strewn with old cars and a heap of rusted lawnmowers.

– Wayne Coffey, N.Y. Daily News, via LJWorld.com.

I can’t remember now why Brien Taylor came up in a conversation on Sunday, but it led me to his Wikipedia page, which led me to Wayne Coffey’s 2006 feature on the Yanks’ No. 1 pick from the 1991 draft.

If you’re interested in being depressed, read the whole story. Sounds like Taylor was at peace with all that happened to him as of 2006, at least.

Taylor’s baseball-reference page on its own is pretty tragic. He dominated High A ball at 20, then was very good, albeit wild, in Double-A at 21. Then, after he tore up his arm in the fight Coffey details, he was about as bad as a pitcher can be.