Relief pitching is Major League Baseball’s most volatile subdivision, where performance can swing wildly from year to year, month to month, game to game. New arms are called up; old ones get recycled at a quickened pace.

“I’ve seen a lot of guys’ first pitches, and I’ve seen a lot of guys’ last,” said Mike Harkey, the Yankees’ longtime bullpen coach. “And it’s amazing I still haven’t seen his last one yet.”

The pitcher Harkey is referencing is David Robertson of the Mets, who is the last active member of the Yankees’ previous World Series-winning team in 2009, Harkey’s second year on the job. Harkey had been asked how many of his relievers through the years knew their coach was selected fourth overall in the 1987 Draft, three slots down from a guy named Ken Griffey Jr.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Harkey shoots back. “I laughed when David Robertson came up in 2008, and he didn’t even know who Tony Gwynn was. He’s been in the big leagues 15 years, the guy’s made $90 million in baseball, and it’s amazing what he doesn’t know.”

Of course, Harkey laughs good naturedly as he tells that one about Robertson.

“He’s one of my favorites,” Harkey said, and that’s a running theme through Harkey’s tenure in baseball and part of his pinstriped longevity.

The pitchers in Harkey’s charge adore and respect him.

“I always say he’s my favorite coach I’ve ever had,” said Tommy Kahnle, who returned to the Yanks as a free agent after two seasons with the Dodgers.

“He was a big factor in why I came back.”

And the running gag in the bullpen lasts all season long.

“We always joke about, if he goes somewhere, I’m going with him,” Michael King said. “Or, ‘If I’m not here next year, you’re coming with me.’ That kind of thing.

“We’ve got like a family down there.”

***

“I was the first pick for about, probably, 18 hours,” said Harkey, recalling the 1987 Draft. Three years earlier, as a Southern California high school senior, Harkey was selected by the San Diego Padres in the 18th round, but he chose college.

“I had a lot of maturing to do,” said the right-hander, who went to Cal State Fullerton, filled out his 6-foot-5, 220-pound frame and watched the scouts flock to his starts.

“The Mariners called me and told me they were going to make me the first pick, and then they called me the next morning to say they were going in another direction,” Harkey says. “Obviously, the direction they went was a pretty good one."

Griffey Jr. carved out a Hall of Fame career as a sweet-swinging center fielder. Harkey ... well, he made a living across eight big league seasons with five teams, finishing with a 36-36 record and a 4.49 ERA in 131 games, 104 as a starter.

“I loved being with the Cubs,” Harkey said of the team that chose him with the fourth pick, between Jersey City’s Willie Banks and Stanford’s Jack McDowell. “I really didn’t feel anything [negative] about not being the first pick.

“It was still a great experience.”

Reaching the Majors at age 21, Harkey once posted a lower ERA (3.26) in 27 starts than future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux did on the same staff. Harkey usually does not move unprompted into war stories about his career, but there is internet access in the clubhouse.

Yes, King knows Harkey’s playing history. And he’s not alone.

“I forget who it was, somebody recently who was not a reliever just looked him up randomly. He was a stud,” King said. “And now, he’s just like a broken robot with all of the surgeries he’s had and all the random stuff that’s in his body.”

Shoulder surgery, back problems, knee surgeries -- all of it impacted Harkey’s pitching ability and ushered him toward a big league coaching career, one that had its roots in a Minor League friendship.

***

Mike Harkey and Joe Girardi met in Spring Training of 1988, at the Chicago Cubs’ camp.

“We became friends instantly, and our wives hit it off immediately,” said Harkey, who roomed with Girardi at two Minor League stops and later formed a battery with him at Wrigley Field.

“We’ve been close ever since. I even followed him to Colorado, like an idiot,” Harkey said with his infectious loud laugh, mentioning the time when Girardi landed with the Rockies in the Expansion Draft.

A year later, Harkey was a free agent and had an offer to pitch for the Angels. It was more money and a chance to pitch closer to home, Harkey recalls, “and I said, ‘No, I’m gonna play with Joe.’” He posted a 5.79 ERA in his one year in Denver, the strike-shortened 1994 season.

“I still blame him to this day,” jokes Harkey. “At least he brought me here.”

Later in their careers, according to Harkey, Girardi told him: “If I ever become a manager, you’re coming with me.” The subject came up again when Girardi was Joe Torre’s bench coach in the Bronx. Harkey was finishing his sixth year as a pitching coach in the Padres’ Minor League system when Girardi landed the managing job with the Marlins in 2006.

They lasted one year together in Miami.

“He got fired at 9 a.m., and I got fired at 9:05,” said Harkey, who then spent the ’07 season as the Cubs’ Triple-A pitching coach.

By 2008, Girardi was managing the Yankees -- and Harkey was his bullpen coach again.

***

Remember The Joba Rules? Harkey can probably recite them in his sleep, and any trip down bullpen memory lane includes the echoing sounds of the old Stadium during that final season in 2008.

That Yankees bullpen contained the likes of Joba Chamberlain, the unpredictable Kyle Farnsworth and the rail-thin Edwar Ramirez.

Phil Hughes would make a huge difference in that ’pen a year later, helping propel the team to a championship.

Of course, the one constant was Mariano Rivera, who began his warmup rituals long before the bullpen phone rang.

“The six years I had Mo, I did not teach him one stinking thing,” Harkey said. “He probably taught me more than I taught anybody. There was nobody more confident in his ability, and we became very, very close and are still close to this day.”

Above all, their trust was their bond.

“I could tell him something and know that he was either going to take it and run with it, or just toss it to the side,” Harkey said of the greatest closer of all time. “And there’s no hard feelings either way.”

More than most, Harkey was privy to Rivera’s rare less-than-ordinary moments.

“He’d go through his one stretch, probably around June or July, when he stunk,” Harkey said. “But when he stunk, it was ‘blow two saves and then run off 30 more in a row.’ Nobody was more consistent. He trusted himself to do the job every day. And if he didn’t do it that day, he’d trust it the next day.”

***

When the Arizona Diamondbacks offered Harkey a pitching coach position, he left the Yankees for two seasons -- 2014 and ’15 -- that were forgettable in the NL West standings but personally valuable.

“It was an experience I needed to go through,” said Harkey, whose staffs were plagued by injuries and subpar performances. “It was definitely hard, but I think it made me a better pitching coach to this day.”

A reunion on Girardi’s Yankees staff lasted two seasons, and Harkey was uncertain of his coaching future in the weeks before Aaron Boone’s hiring in December 2017. While golfing at Pebble Beach with CC Sabathia, Harkey received a call from Boone moments after he had accepted the Yankees’ managerial post asking if he’d be part of his staff.

“I was touched by that,” said Harkey, who hadn’t known Boone beyond a passing acquaintance. “And Boonie and I have become very close.”

“I didn’t know Hark well, but I knew him a little bit,” the manager said. “But obviously, coming in and knowing he was Joe’s best friend and knowing Hark’s reputation, I wanted him to be a part of it. When he said yes, I was thrilled, and now he’s one of my best friends.

“He’s just become such an important person for me in this job, but in my life, too. He’s someone I admire and is a great sounding board for me. He’s probably who I hang out with the most on this staff, between him and Mendy [bench coach Carlos Mendoza]. His experience is just so valuable, and I lean on him a lot.”

In Cincinnati, a young Boone played under Jack McKeon. As a Cub, Harkey broke in with Don Zimmer. Both were old-school baseball men who left an impression, though Boone and Harkey share an inquisitive side about the new-age nature of baseball.

Does Harkey view himself as a survivor in this game?

“Yeah, I definitely do,” he said. “One of the things I really didn’t want to be was that bitter old player or coach who said, ‘Once this change comes, I can’t deal with it,’ and pack it up and go home and do something else.

“I’ve always been fascinated with what goes into change, what goes into decision making. Do I think that sometimes it gets too much? Yes. But that’s with anything. Even back in the ’90s and the 2000s, we gave too much information. And then sometimes we didn’t give enough. There still has to be that balance of knowing when to coach and when not to coach.”

***

“The best thing that a good reliever has is a short memory,” Harkey says.

And as one of his relievers is about to enter a game, Harkey keeps it simple.

“He’s giving you like a quick bullet point on the hitters you’re about to face, the situation you’re about to come into, and obviously his experience plays into that,” King said. “He gives you that refresher just as you go out there.”

Kahnle appreciates how Harkey keeps things professionally calm, “especially when you have to pitch in a critical situation.

“He knows I’m going to pitch with heart and power stuff,” so Harkey keeps those pre-entry bullet points to a minimum with Kahnle.

Mostly, their communication is Harkey telling Kahnle to pipe down, which both of them naturally laugh about.

“Tommy is very, very energetic, and I’m not afraid to tell him to shut up,” Harkey said. “But he’s got a great heart, and I know that. It’s easy for us to get along because he knows whatever I say to him is coming from a good place.”

There’s a lot of downtime in a big league bullpen, and Harkey “knows when to have fun, knows when guys can kind of mess around, because it’s tough to be locked in there for nine innings and possibly not pitch,” King said.

“But as soon as he knows your situation is going to come up, he’ll be like, ‘Hey, King. Let’s get some movement going here. Your name’s going to get called.’ Things can change kind of quickly, so you’ve got to know when to snap back in. Hopefully, every starter that we have is going to go five-plus innings. So, you have the first four or five innings to really just kind of enjoy a baseball game.

“But then as soon as you see the tiring effect of the pitcher, or the pitch count going up, or the game starts to turn, then it’s like, ‘We’ve got to lock back in.’”

With each season, Harkey sees his responsibilities grow, which he appreciates. “Because bullpen coaches are not the same now as they were back in the day, a guy who just threw batting practice and answered the phone,” Harkey said. “It’s evolved. It’s just different.

“And I’m saying this with complete humility, but the reason I’ve been able to stay with the Yankees so long is that I’ve been willing to accept the changes and try to get better at learning how to manage within these changing times.

“There’s a whole lot more people involved in how we run the bullpen.”

And here we are, on that fine line between analytics and traditional sensibilities in baseball’s iPad Age.

“I see a lot of guys who pitch well five in a row then have a stinker, and all of a sudden the next day they’re trying to fix it," Harkey said. "Well, what are you trying to fix? That comes with this day and age of info and technology. These kids are always looking to be better, and you can’t fault them for that.”

***

Harkey has that last Yankees World Series ring, and memories of the parade, riding on a float up the Canyon of Heroes, with his then-12-year-old daughter at his side.

“I’d like to go to another one,” Harkey said with some whimsy. “No, it doesn’t seem that long ago, but it seems like an eternity for Yankee fans and people who’ve been in this organization. You have to have a lot of things go right through the course of the year, and you need to be really hot at the end."

Every now and then, “I’ll tease the guys, ‘This is my last year,’” said Harkey, and the bullpen chorus comes back: “You say that every year!”

But Harkey has already moved past being a baseball survivor; quietly, he has become a humble Bronx fixture.

“As long as Cash [general manager Brian Cashman] and Mr. [Hal] Steinbrenner keep wanting me to do it, I’ll do it."

Pete Caldera covers the Yankees for The Bergen Record/USA Today. This story appears in the June 2023 edition of Yankees Magazine. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.