Signed by the New York Yankees at age 23 after one season as a baseball and basketball player at UConn preceded by a semester at Texas A&M and four years of service in the United States Air Force, Sheldon experienced a meteoric rise at the outset of his professional career.\n', '

In his first pro campaign, 1960, pitching in the Class D New York–Pennsylvania League, Sheldon won 15 games and lost one (for a winning percentage of .938) with 15 complete games. The following year, he made the 1961 Yankees\' varsity roster out of spring training, survived the May cutdown from 28 to 25 men, and took a turn in the Bombers\' starting rotation in July and August. On July 5 and 9, he tossed consecutive complete-game shutouts against the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox, as the Yankees kept pace with the Detroit Tigers in a heated, two-team pennant race—ultimately won convincingly by the Yankees in September. Sheldon would pitch in 35 games, including 21 starts, and win 11 of 16 decisions in a season dominated by the pursuit by Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle of Babe Ruth\'s single-season home run record. Sheldon, however, did not appear in the 1961 World Series, won by the Yankees in five games over the Cincinnati Reds.\n', '

The 1962 season never saw Sheldon get untracked. He began the year pitching out of the Yankee bullpen, made 34 total appearances (with 16 starts) and posted a 7–8 record and a poor 5.49 earned run average. The Yankees again won the American League pennant, but again Sheldon was not used in the World Series, a seven-game triumph over the San Francisco Giants. He then spent all of 1963 and the first two months of 1964 back in the minors with Triple-A Richmond.\n', '

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