Eric Yelding
American baseball player
Eric Girard Yelding (born February 22, 1965) is an American former professional baseball player. He played all or parts of five seasons in Major League Baseball with the Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs from 1989-93. Known for his blazing speed and strong arm, he played several different positions, most often at shortstop and in center field.
Minor leagues
Yelding was a star athlete at Fairhope High School in Fairhope, Alabama, and was later drafted in the 1st round of the 1984 MLB amateur draft out of Chipola College by the Toronto Blue Jays. He made an immediate impact with his speed and arm, stealing 93 bases and adding 19 outfield assists in his first 200 games with the Medicine Hat Blue Jays and Kinston Blue Jays.
Because of his strong arm, he was moved to shortstop the following season with the Ventura County Gulls. Although he found success with the bat and on the basepaths, hitting .280 with 41 steals, he made 58 fielding errors. He divided the 1987 year between the Myrtle Beach Blue Jays and Double-A Knoxville Blue Jays, where he stole a combined 83 bases, though his fielding did not improve as he made another 59 errors.
Despite being a liability in the infield, his prowess on the basepaths earned him a promotion to the AAA Syracuse Chiefs where he was moved to second base in an attempt to alleviate his fielding woes. Although his play in the field was still suspect, he did cut his season error total to 35 while hitting .250 and stealing 59 bases for the Chiefs.
The public source identifies “Eric Yelding” as american baseball player. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Eric, Yelding and American.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5387800. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1965, 1989, 1984 and 1987.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eric Yelding” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.