Researching David West

After graduating from Memphis' Craigmont High School in 1983, West was drafted by the New York Mets in the fourth round of the 1983 amateur draft and signed with the team on June 8, 1983. On July 31, 1989, West was traded by the New York Mets with a player to be named later, Rick Aguilera, Tim Drummond, and Kevin Tapani to the Minnesota Twins for Frank Viola. The Mets sent Jack Savage (October 16, 1989) to the Twins to complete the trade.

For the postseason of 1991, he had a time of ups and downs. In the 1991 American League Championship Series, he appeared in two games against the Toronto Blue Jays, pitching 5.2 innings while allowing just one hit and no runs. In the World Series that year, he appeared in two games, but he recorded no outs, allowing two hits, four runs, four walks in six total batters, having an ERA of infinity.

He also pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series.

West played for Westwey Dynamoes before joining Weymouth as a junior. He progressed to the youth set-up at Bournemouth before joining the youth system at Dorchester Town. He played for Dorchester YMCA and the England Under-18 team before graduating into Dorchester Town's first team.

He was signed by Bob Paisley for Liverpool in 1983 for a fee of £15,000. He played on a pre-season tour of the Netherlands, but had to settle for reserve team football in the Central League, although he did twice make the bench in the European Cup. Disillusioned with reserve team football he asked new Liverpool manager Joe Fagan if he could go out on loan. Fagan's response was to release him.

He had a trial with Bristol City before joining Torquay United in September 1985, making his debut on 14 September in a 3–0 Fourth Division defeat at home to Chester City. He played 21 times in Torquay's struggling side before being released after Torquay had finished bottom of the league at the end of the season. He had a trial with a Belgian league side and was offered a contract, but chose to drop into non-league football with Cheltenham Town.

In December 1986, while driving home to Weymouth from Cheltenham, he was involved in a head-on collision with a milk tanker and suffered a number of injuries. On resuming his football career, he played for Dorchester Town, Bashley and Fareham Town before retiring at the age of just 27 years to concentrate on his new career as an estate agent. West is currently in employment with the estate agent chain Symonds And Sampson and works in the Poundbury branch.

On December 15, 1989, the Memphis Rogues of the American Indoor Soccer Association signed West. In 1990, Memphis moved to the Sunbelt Independent Soccer League. During the 1991 Sunbelt Independent Soccer League season, West and fellow Memphis goalkeeper Daniel Gonzalez were the top rated goalkeeper combo. In 1994, West played for the Houston Hotshots in the Continental Indoor Soccer League. In 1995, he saw not playing time before being placed on the disabled list in August. That fall, he moved to the Tampa Bay Terror of the National Professional Soccer League for one season. In 1998, he played one game for the Dallas Sidekickes in the Premier Soccer Alliance.