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Archive for the ‘Pitchers’ Category

Cardinals batters got a sinking feeling facing Frank Linzy

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers, Trades on March 10, 2026| 13 Comments »

A right-handed sinkerball specialist, Frank Linzy pitched for and against the Cardinals. During his prime, as a Giants reliever, some of his most noteworthy achievements came versus St. Louis. He was on the backside of his career when he joined the Cardinals in 1970.

In 11 seasons with the Giants (1963, 1965-70), Cardinals (1970-71), Brewers (1972-73) and Phillies (1974), Linzy totaled 110 saves, 62 wins and a 2.85 ERA. He led the Giants in saves for five years in a row (1965-69). “The first five years were fun,” Linzy told the Tulsa World. “The next five were a struggle.”

Country boy

Linzy was born “out in the bushes” near Fort Gibson, Okla., according to the Tulsa newspaper. His father farmed cotton and soy beans. The family moved to Porter, Okla., when Frank was 5. One of his boyhood friends was Jim Brewer, who, like Linzy, would become a relief pitcher in the majors. “Jim and I played basketball under the street lights by the hour,” Linzy recalled to the Tulsa World.

While in school, Linzy helped his father chop cotton. He also played baseball and basketball, fished for crappie and hunted for quail. Linzy developed into a standout baseball and basketball player at Porter High School. As a senior, he averaged 20 points per game in basketball and posted a 12-2 pitching record.

The Reds offered him a $10,000 bonus, according to Bob Broeg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, but Linzy instead took a basketball scholarship offer from famed coach Hank Iba at Oklahoma State. He lasted one semester. “I couldn’t make my grades,” Linzy told the Tulsa World. “I never studied before. I took recess more than anything else (in high school) and they didn’t have recess (in college).”

Linzy tried another semester at Northeastern State in Tahlequah, Okla., then returned home. He was playing baseball for a town team when offered a contract (but no signing bonus) from Giants scout Bully McLean, a former minor-league outfielder with the Chickasha Chicks and Henryetta Hens.

The Giants assigned Linzy to a farm club in Salem, Va., in July 1960. He wanted to be an outfielder because his favorite player was Duke Snider, but Salem manager Jodie Phipps, a former Cardinals prospect who totaled 275 wins in 19 seasons as a minor-league pitcher, told Linzy he’d do better on the mound.

As a starting pitcher, Linzy advanced through the Giants’ system. With Springfield (Mass.) in 1963, he was 16-6 with a 1.55 ERA. Impressed, the Giants called him to the majors in August 1963 and he joined them on the road.

“All I had were Levis and just plain old shirts, and I walked into the hotel lobby and there’s all these guys with sport coats on and dress pants,” Linzy recalled to the Tulsa World. “The only time I felt equal was when we were on the baseball field and I had the same kind of clothes on as they did.”

Super sinker

Linzy made his Giants debut in a start against the Reds. (One of just two starts in 516 big-league appearances.) He struck out the first batter he faced, Pete Rose. In his second appearance, against the Cardinals, Linzy came in with the bases loaded, one out, and fanned Bill White, then got Stan Musial to pop out. In Linzy’s third game, he struck out Hank Aaron. Boxscore  Boxscore Boxscore

After another season in the minors, Linzy stuck with the Giants in 1965, beginning his five-year run as their closer.

Linzy threw two pitches _ a heavy sinker and hard slider. “I didn’t have enough pitches,” he said to the Tulsa World. “That’s why I couldn’t have been a starter.”

The sinker was his specialty. Linzy said he gripped the slick part of the ball rather than the seams to make it spin. Catcher Ed Bailey told the San Francisco Examiner, “He’s holding an overlap grip with a back reverse and a flat flipper finger.” Or, as Linzy’s fellow pitcher, Bobby Bolin, put it, “The backspin on the ball, overlapping with the downspin, makes it sink.”

Linzy focused on getting grounders instead of strikeouts. He was durable and effective, but also “I was scared to death,” he told the Post-Dispatch. “… I could throw crooked. That’s about all I can say for what I did.”

Asked to describe the keys to being a reliever, he told the Tulsa newspaper, “You’ve got to have a strong back and a weak mind.”

Linzy earned his first big-league win on May 5, 1965, with two scoreless innings at St. Louis. Two months later, he got his first hit _ a home run into the wind at Candlestick Park versus the Cardinals’ Ray Washburn. “I’m strong enough to hit the ball out,” Linzy told the Examiner. “I just never connect.” Later in the game, he lined a single against Ray Sadecki. Boxscore  Boxscore

Linzy was 3-0 with two saves and a 1.08 ERA versus the 1965 Cardinals. Overall for the season, he won nine and converted 20 of 25 save chances.

The Cardinals were a club Linzy continued to do well against. For his career, he was 5-2 with nine saves and 1.65 ERA versus St. Louis. He never gave up a home to a Cardinals batter. In 1967, when the Cardinals were World Series champions, Linzy pitched 9.2 scoreless innings against them. When the Cardinals repeated as National League champions in 1968, Linzy faced them over 11.1 innings and posted an 0.79 ERA.

Career batting averages against Linzy among players on Cardinals championship clubs included Orlando Cepeda (.105), Ken Boyer (.167), Dick Groat (.143), Julian Javier (.167), Roger Maris (.000), Tim McCarver (.192) and Mike Shannon (.182).

Ups and downs

Linzy bought a 10-acre spread across a gravel road from his father-in-law’s cattle ranch near Coweta, Okla. The pitcher spent winters picking pecans from the trees on his property. Before heading to spring training in 1969, Linzy laid the foundation for his house. Using a blueprint he sketched on cardboard, his in-laws built Linzy and his wife their brick dream house, the Tulsa World reported.

Though he had 14 wins for the 1969 Giants, Linzy converted only 52 percent of his save chances. His sinker too often was staying up in the strike zone. Linzy noticed his right arm lacked the elasticity of his best seasons.

He looked terrible with the 1970 Giants (7.01 ERA in 25.2 innings), but the Cardinals, desperate for quality relievers, decided to take a chance. On May 19, 1970, the Giants sent Linzy to the Cardinals for pitcher Jerry Johnson.

The Cardinals hoped Linzy’s sinker would induce ground ball outs on their new artificial surface, but batters had other ideas. Linzy posted a 4.08 ERA in home games for the 1970 Cardinals. In 47 games overall for them that year, he walked more than he fanned and gave up more hits than innings pitched. Right-handed batters hit .298 against him.

Brought back by the Cardinals in 1971, Linzy rewarded them with a return to form early in the season. In April, he was 1-0 with three saves and a 1.88 ERA. He added two more saves in May, allowing no earned runs for the month.

On June 9, 1971, with his ERA for the season at 2.10, Linzy collided with first baseman Bob Burda as both pursued a ball bunted by the Braves’ Ralph Garr. Linzy suffered multiple fractures of the left cheekbone. Boxscore

The Cardinals swooned in June, with an 8-21 record for the month, and got only one save (from Don Shaw) during the nearly 30 days Linzy was sidelined.

After his return, Linzy pitched in 25 games but didn’t get many save chances. He finished the season with six saves, four wins and a 2.12 ERA. In 23 home games covering 30 innings, his ERA was 1.50. Overall, batters hit .226 against him in 1971, but he allowed 48 percent of inherited runners to score.

Dealt to the Brewers in March 1972 for pitching prospect Richard Stonum, Linzy spent two seasons with Milwaukee (totaling 25 saves) and one with the Phillies.

“I played as hard as I could as long as I could,” Linzy told the Tulsa World. “I didn’t ever quit. They just sent me home.”

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How Roy Face discovered Stan Musial still was The Man

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers on February 28, 2026| 9 Comments »

Roy Face had Stan Musial’s respect, but Musial had his number.

In his book “Stan Musial: The Man’s Own Story,” the Cardinals standout named Face the relief pitcher on his all-time team of players he saw during his 22 years in the majors.

A pint-sized right-hander with an exceptional forkball, Face “had confidence, courage and control,” Musial said.

In 16 seasons with the Pirates (1953 and 1955-68), Tigers (1968) and Expos (1969), Face totaled 191 saves and 104 wins. He led the National League in saves three times, posted an 18-1 record in 1959 and had three saves in the 1960 World Series for the champion Pirates.

Musial, though, had a .472 career on-base percentage (15 hits, 10 walks) against Face, according to retrosheet.org. The most noteworthy of those hits was a walkoff home run in the heat of the 1960 National League pennant chase.

Face, who remains the Pirates’ franchise leader in saves (186) and games pitched (802), died on Feb. 12, 2026, at 97, eight days before his 98th birthday.

Sandlot sensation

Elroy Face was from Stephentown, N.Y., near the Massachusetts state line. The town was named for Stephen Van Rensselaer, a founder of the Albany (N.Y.) public library and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), a private research university.

Face grew up in a working-class household. In the book “We Played the Game,” he told author Danny Peary, “My father was a carpenter by trade, but at times worked in the woods cutting logs and in a factory. My mother was a homemaker, but worked briefly gathering eggs at a chicken farm.”

At age 5, Face had rickets and his “bones were soft and bent” and his “body was racked with pain,” according to The Pittsburgh Press.

During his childhood, “I wasn’t a baseball fan and couldn’t have named 10 players in the big leagues, but I was the first in my family to play ball,” Face said to Danny Peary. “We didn’t have Little League, so I just played pickup ball.”

In high school, Face experienced two years of varsity baseball, pitching and playing short and second. “I realized I had special talent when I was 8-1 and pitched a shutout to give us our first league title,” Face told Danny Peary.

Face quit high school at 18 and spent a year and a half in the Army as a mechanic. After his discharge, he got a job in an Oldsmobile garage and played sandlot baseball for a town team in New Lebanon, N.Y.

During Labor Day weekend 1948, Phillies scout Fred Matthews was vacationing in the Berkshires when he went to see a sandlot game. Face pitched and Matthews offered the 20-year-old a contract for $140 a month.

Assigned to the Class D Bradford (Pa.) Blue Wings, Face primarily started and was 14-2 in 1949 and 18-5 in 1950, but the Phillies exposed him to the minor league draft and the Dodgers selected him. After two years in the Dodgers’ farm system, including a 23-9 mark for Class A Pueblo (Colo.) in 1951, Face was plucked by the Pirates in the December 1952 Rule 5 draft.

During the winters, Face studied carpentry and became a union carpenter. “Swinging that hammer, I figure, gives me more strength in my right arm,” Face told the Associated Press.

Fork in the road

Baseball’s rules required that the Pirates pitch Face in the big leagues in 1953 or offer him back to the Dodgers. The Pirates had little to lose in keeping him. Relying on two pitches, fastball and curve, the rookie appeared in 41 games, including 13 starts, and was 6-8 with a 6.58 ERA for a club that finished 50-104.

At 1954 spring training, Joe Page, the former Yankees closer who hadn’t pitched in the majors in four years, was attempting a comeback with the Pirates. Face watched how Page threw a forkball and learned to throw the pitch, a forerunner of the split-fingered fastball.

“To throw a forkball, you hold the ball between your (index) and (middle) fingers and let it slide through,” Face told Danny Peary. “I had long fingers and just wrapped them around the ball. You wouldn’t get the rotation you got on a fastball. On the fastball, you had your fingers behind the ball, giving it force. Page would move the ball so that one of his fingers would catch on one of the seams and he’d get a little pull on the seam to break it in or break it out. I’d throw it with the same delivery as my fastball. I’d throw it three-quarters speed so batters couldn’t tell it apart from the fastball. Usually it would sink, but sometimes it moved in and out, (or) would shoot upward. I didn’t vary it on purpose. I threw it the same way every time, aiming for the middle of the plate, and let it take care of itself.”

Face was sent to the minor-league New Orleans Pelicans in 1954 to work on developing the forkball for a team managed by Danny Murtaugh. Brought back to the majors in 1955, Face was a workhorse. He relieved in nine consecutive Pirates games in September 1956, going 3-1 with a save in that stretch. Face also started occasionally until Murtaugh became Pirates manager in August 1957 and made him a fulltime reliever.

“I was often asked how I could stand the pressure of going into a game in late innings with men on base and a one-run lead,” Face said to Danny Peary. “I always felt the pressure was on the batter. I had eight guys helping me and he was all alone. He not only had to hit the ball, but hit it where someone wouldn’t catch it. My philosophy was to throw strikes and let them hit the ball and have my teammates do their jobs. I never felt scared on the mound.”

On a roll

Face led the league in saves for the first time in 1958. He was successful on 20 of 23 save chances.

“By now I had four pitches: a 90 mph fastball, a curve, the forkball and a decent slider, which I developed in 1957 and 1958,” Face told Danny Peary. “Because I had good control, I threw all pitches on all counts. I’d throw harder stuff to a breaking-ball hitter and more breaking stuff to a fastball hitter. If a guy had me timed on the fastball, I might throw my slider at the same speed and the little bit of movement took the ball to the end of the bat instead of the sweet part.”

His money pitch, though, was the forkball. In “We Played the Game,” Face said, “There was no such thing as a good forkball hitter. Some batters would swing a foot over it. I was hurt by hanging curves and sliders, but not with the forkball if it broke properly.”

In describing Face’s forkball to The Pittsburgh Press, Dick Groat, who batted against him after being traded from Pittsburgh to St. Louis, said, “Coming at you, it looked exactly like a fastball. Then when it got to the plate, it absolutely died.”

Face became famous in 1959 because of his 18-1 record. He won his last five decisions in 1958 and his first 17 in 1959, giving him 22 consecutive wins. Face lost to the Braves on May 30, 1958, and didn’t lose again until Sept. 11, 1959, to the Dodgers. He made 98 appearances in a row without a loss.

(Rube Marquard holds the record for most consecutive wins in a season, with 19 for the 1912 Giants. The mark for most consecutive wins over two seasons is held by Carl Hubbell, who won 24 straight for the 1936-37 Giants.)

In “We Played the Game,” Face said, “1959 wasn’t my best season … I had my share of luck … I could easily have gone something like 12-7.”

Face blew nine of 19 save chances in 1959 and allowed 53 percent of inherited runners to score, but Pirates batters rescued him with runs, setting up wins.

Big blasts

On Aug. 26, 1960, the Pirates were in St. Louis to open a three-game series with the Cardinals. First-place Pittsburgh (75-46) had a 6.5-game lead over the Braves (67-51) and was 8.5 ahead of St. Louis (66-54). Face, who would be successful on 24 of 29 save opportunities in 1960, was a big factor in the Pirates’ success.

Batting third in the Cardinals’ order for the Friday night series opener was Stan Musial. It had been a strange, stressful year for the 39-year-old seven-time National League batting champion. In May, during a slump, manager Solly Hemus benched Musial indefinitely. Frustrated, Musial told Bob Broeg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he would accept a trade to Pittsburgh and end his career near his hometown of Donora, Pa. The deal didn’t develop and, after a month on the bench, Musial was restored to the lineup.

On Aug. 11 at Pittsburgh, Musial slammed a two-run home run in the 12th inning against Bob Friend, propelling the Cardinals to victory.

Two weeks later, Friend was the starter in the series opener at St. Louis. Musial beat him again, with another two-run homer that gave the Cardinals a 3-1 win.

On Saturday night, for Game 2 of the series, a standing-room crowd of 30,712, the Cardinals’ largest at home since July 22, 1956, came out. With two outs and the score tied at 4-4 in the bottom of the ninth, Musial batted against Face. Musial fell behind in the count, 1-and-2, then walloped Face’s next pitch over the pavilion roof in right for a game-winning homer.

As the ball fell out of view behind the lights, the roar of the crowd reached a crescendo and left no doubt “that Mr. Musial is the most popular thing in St. Louis since tap beer,” Hank Hollingworth noted in the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Boxscore

Musial watched the finale on Sunday afternoon from the shade of the dugout, but the Cardinals won, 5-4, against Harvey Haddix, sweeping the series and moving within 5.5 games of the Pirates. Boxscore

“I don’t get a particular kick out of beating the Pirates,” Musial said to The Pittsburgh Press, “but I do my best. If we can’t win the pennant, naturally I want the Pirates to win because it’s my hometown (team).”

Pittsburgh prevailed, winning the pennant for the first time since 1927. In the World Series against the Yankees, Face saved Games 1, 4 and 5.

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Free spirit Rube Waddell became a St. Louis sensation

Posted in Games, Pitchers, Trades on February 22, 2026| 9 Comments »

Before Grover Cleveland Alexander or Dizzy Dean or Bob Gibson, the St. Louis pitcher who enthralled the hometown fans was Rube Waddell.

United Press described the eccentric left-hander as “the Peter Pan of the game, a boy who never grew up.”

Waddell had his prime (1902-07) with the Philadelphia Athletics, winning 131 and leading the American League in strikeouts each year. He spent his last three big-league seasons with the St. Louis Browns.

Facing his former team, Waddell struck out 16 Athletics, then an AL single-game record. As an encore, he dueled for 10 innings with Walter Johnson and fanned 17 Washington Senators.

A natural

George Edward Waddell was from Bradford, Pa., near the New York state border. The town is closer to Buffalo (78 miles) than it is to Pittsburgh (154 miles).

According to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Waddell got the nickname Rube because “he was a big, fresh kid.”

He was a stud, too. A “magnificent physique,” Tigers manager Hughie Jennings told the Detroit Free Press.

According to Harry Grayson of Newspaper Enterprise Association, “Rube’s hand wrapped itself around a baseball as though it were a marble.”

John Wray of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote, “He had an arm like Hercules.”

Waddell used those physical gifts to pitch with velocity and movement. His fastball was exceptional, and he also spun an assortment of curves, drops and shoots.

At 20, Waddell got to the majors with Louisville of the National League in 1897, becoming a teammate of fellow rookie Honus Wagner. He went on to pitch for Pittsburgh and Chicago in the National League and had stints in the minors, including at Milwaukee, where Connie Mack was manager.

In 1901, Mack took over the Athletics and acquired Waddell a year later.

Special stuff

With the A’s, Waddell had 21 wins or more in four consecutive seasons (1902-05) and topped 300 strikeouts two years in a row (1903-04). No other pitcher had consecutive 300-strikeout seasons until Sandy Koufax (1965-66). In a July 1902 shutout of Baltimore, Waddell became the first American League pitcher to strike out the side on nine pitches, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Boxscore

The A’s were American League champions in 1902 and 1905. The pennants “were won mainly through the efforts of the Rube,” Mack told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Waddell won 24 for the 1902 A’s after joining them in June. In 1905, he was the American League leader in wins (27), ERA (1.48) and strikeouts (287). In a July 4, 1905, doubleheader at Boston, Waddell won in relief in Game 1, then started Game 2 against Cy Young. It lasted 20 innings. Both starters went the distance, with Waddell prevailing. After the last out, he turned cartwheels from the mound to the dugout. “Rube Waddell was the best left-hander of all time,” Cy Young said in 1943, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Boxscore and Boxscore

Nap Lajoie, a five-time American League batting champion who totaled 3,243 hits, said of Waddell to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “I never faced a better southpaw … I believe he had more speed than any other left-hander I ever batted against.”

Generous heart

Waddell was kindly, carefree, foolhardy, gullible and an inveterate carouser.

“He was entirely without inhibitions, and he acted on any impulse,” baseball author Mac Davis wrote in the Inquirer. “He disappeared for days to go fishing. Often he vanished in the middle of a game to chase fire engines, march in town parades or play marbles with children.”

Columnist Harry Grayson noted, “Waddell loved to pitch, but baseball rated fifth on his list of passions. Ahead of the game, in the order named, came fishing, drinking, tending bar and running to fires, with or without a fireman’s hat.”

Waddell’s “greatest delight was to assist in fighting fires,” the St. Louis Star-Times reported. “When not playing baseball, he loitered about fire engine houses and was always one of the first to find a seat in the hose van or to climb onto the engine when an alarm sounded.”

When the A’s had a day off in Washington, Connie Mack and a friend heard bells as fire engines raced to answer an alarm. “We pulled up in front of the building and I couldn’t help but admire the bravery of one fireman who perched on the window of the second story and poured water into the flames from a hose,” Mack said to Arthur Daley of the New York Times. “I watched him for a while, looked a little closer and, by golly, it was Rube Waddell.”

Waddell wrestled an alligator during spring training in Florida and was bitten on the hand while clowning with a circus lion in Chicago.

One of his favorite stunts was to enter a saloon flourishing a baseball and touting it as the one used in the 20-inning win against Cy Young. “It was a different ball every occasion,” Mack told Arthur Daley, “but it always was good for a few drinks.”

Having cashed a paycheck, Waddell liked to visit a saloon, buy drinks for himself and rounds for the house until his pockets were empty, then go behind the bar, don an apron and serve customers, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported.

Waddell likely was an alcoholic. According to the Globe-Democrat, “He had been known to consume a quart of whiskey before breakfast.”

According to The Sporting News, “Friends and admirers kept him full of alcohol from morning until night.”

Connie Mack told Arthur Daley, “I often had him arrested for his own good.”

As Hughie Jennings, the Tigers’ manager, noted to the Detroit Free Press, “If he hadn’t possessed superhuman strength and a constitution of iron, he wouldn’t have lasted as long as he did.”

Money meant little to Waddell. He spent it, or gave it away, as soon as he got some. Browns owner Robert Hedges resorted to doling out a dollar or so at a time to Waddell rather than pay his salary in lump sums. “Waddell hardly knew from one year to the other what his salary was,” The Sporting News noted. “The club paid his board bills and gave him a daily allowance of spending money, $1 or $2.”

The top salary Waddell got was $3,000. According to the Globe-Democrat, “Waddell had no realization of the value of money and was always so deeply in debt and so greatly in need of funds that he was willing to sign for any salary offered him provided he could get a few dollars in advance when he needed.”

While acknowledging that Waddell “was his own worst enemy,” Connie Mack told the Inquirer, “He was the best-hearted man on our team … When a comrade was sick, Rube was the first one on hand to see him and the last to leave. If he had money, it went for some gift or offering to the sick man.”

In a game at Boston on July 1, 1904, a Jesse Tannehill fastball hit A’s batter Danny Hoffman just above the eye. Hoffman fell to the ground in a heap. According to the Post-Dispatch, “Rube was the first man to his side. He lifted the unconscious player from the ground in his powerful arms as though Hoffman were a mere boy and carried him from the field … He spent the entire night by the (hospital) bedside of Hoffman.” Boxscore

Bound for Browns

Connie Mack was Waddell’s most ardent supporter but even he lost patience with the pitcher. In February 1908, the A’s sold Waddell’s contract to the Browns for $5,000. “Carousing with his Philadelphia friends caused Waddell to be (dealt),” the St. Louis Star-Times reported.

Waddell, 31, still was a top pitcher. He’d won 19 with a 2.15 ERA for the 1907 A’s.

In going to St. Louis, Waddell was reunited with his former A’s teammate, Danny Hoffman, who recovered from the beaning in Boston and joined the Browns.

On April 17, 1908, Waddell made his Browns debut in a start against the White Sox at Chicago and pitched a one-hit shutout in a 1-0 victory. Boxscore

A week later, in the Browns’ home opener, Waddell beat the White Sox again, with a four-hitter. Boxscore

The first time Waddell faced the A’s he beat them with a five-hitter at Philadelphia. Boxscore

A record and a comeback

On July 29, 1908, the A’s were in St. Louis and, oh, how the tables had turned. The Browns (53-38) were in second place, seven games ahead of the A’s (44-43), and Waddell again was starting versus his former club.

The A’s looked helpless early on, striking out often. The Browns led, 1-0, through five innings, but they encountered trouble in the sixth.

The umpire, 5-foot-7 Tommy Connolly, had his view of the plate obscured by Browns catcher Tubby Spencer. The first two A’s batters in the sixth drew walks. “Possibly Rube’s curves were too sharp for Little Tom standing behind Big (Tubby) Spencer,” the Post-Dispatch reported. “Connolly looks like a midget. He has to peek around, or under, (Tubby’s) arms to see the ball coming.”

The rejuvenated A’s scored three times in the sixth. Then, in the seventh, Waddell zoned out. With a runner on third and two outs, Eddie Collins topped a grounder to first baseman Tom Jones, who moved in, gloved the ball and turned, looking for Waddell to take the toss at first. Waddell, however, stood frozen on the mound as the runner from third streaked home, extending the A’s lead to 4-1.

Trying to cover his gaffe, Waddell dropped to one knee and pretended he had something in his eye. “The pretext was so palpable that not a teammate came near him to inquire what was wrong,” John Wray noted in the Post-Dispatch. “Tom Jones approached within 10 feet and threw his handkerchief on the ground in front of the kneeling pitcher, walking back to first base without a word to him.”

According to the Globe-Democrat, “A large number of persons left the park in disgust, thinking that the Browns stood no chance of winning.”

More drama, though, was still to come.

In the ninth, Waddell fanned Topsy Hartsel for the record-setting 16th strikeout of the game, but the pitcher didn’t stick around to watch his teammates bat in the bottom half of the inning. Waddell went to the clubhouse and began to undress. He took off his shoes and socks, then heard a roar. The Browns were threatening.

“Barefooted, Rube rushed to the fence between the grandstand and bleachers,” James Crusinberry reported in the Post-Dispatch. “From his place behind the fence, he madly waved a towel,” urging his teammates on.

A combination of five hits and an error resulted in four runs, lifting Waddell and the Browns to a 5-4 triumph. Boxscore

High speed

According to Connie Mack and Nap Lajoie, the only pitcher of that time with more velocity than Waddell was a right-hander, Walter Johnson of the Senators. On Sept. 20, 1908, Johnson and Waddell were the starters in a game at St. Louis.

Waddell whiffed 14 in nine innings but the score was tied and he and Johnson had more work to do. Waddell fanned three more in the 10th, the last one with the bases loaded, giving him 17 strikeouts. In the bottom half, Danny Hoffman lined a single, scoring Tom Jones from second for a 2-1 Browns victory. “Rube Waddell had more sheer pitching ability than any man I ever saw,” Johnson said, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Boxscore

Waddell completed the 1908 season with a 19-14 record, a 1.89 ERA and 232 strikeouts. That remains the Browns/Orioles franchise record for most strikeouts in a season. Also, no other Browns/Orioles pitcher has matched Waddell’s 17 strikeouts in a game or his 16 whiffs in nine innings.

The 1910 Browns season was Waddell’s last in the big leagues. He totaled 193 wins with a 2.16 ERA. Waddell struck out 19.8 percent of all batters faced. The major-league average is 9.3, according to baseball-reference.com. In 1946, Waddell was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

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Paying it forward: How Marty Marion helped Luis Aparicio

Posted in Games, Hitters, Managers, Pitchers on January 26, 2026| 12 Comments »

On his way to becoming the first Venezuelan to get elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, shortstop Luis Aparicio received a big early boost from a former Cardinals standout at the position.

Marty Marion was the White Sox manager who brought Aparicio to the major leagues and made him the starting shortstop as a rookie in 1956.

Nicknamed “Mr. Shortstop,” Marion was the starter on four Cardinals pennant winners in the 1940s and the first shortstop to win the National League Most Valuable Player Award.

Aparicio merely had two years of minor-league experience when Marion picked him to be the White Sox shortstop. It was an astute decision. Aparicio won the American League Rookie of the Year Award and went on to have a stellar career. He earned the Gold Glove Award nine times, led the American League in stolen bases for nine years in a row (1956-64) and totaled 2,677 hits. Video

Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1984, Aparicio is one of several Venezuelans who have achieved prominence in the big leagues. Others (in alphabetical order) include Bobby Abreu, Ronald Acuna Jr., Jose Altuve, Miguel Cabrera, Dave Concepcion, Andres Galarraga, Freddy Garcia, Ozzie Guillen, Felix Hernandez, Magglio Ordonez, Salvador Perez, Johan Santana, Manny Trillo, Omar Vizquel and Carlos Zambrano.

The first Venezuelan to play in the majors was pitcher Alex Carrasquel with the 1939 Washington Senators. The first Venezuelan to play for the Cardinals was outfielder Vic Davalillo in 1969. Besides Davalillo and Andres Galarraga, other Venezuelans who were noteworthy Cardinals included Miguel Cairo, Willson Contreras, Cesar Izturis, Jose Martinez and Edward Mujica.

Baseball genes

Aparicio was from the seaport city of Maracaibo in northwestern Venezuela. According to the encyclopedia Britannica, “Until petroleum was discovered in 1917, the city was a small coffee port. Within a decade it became the oil metropolis of Venezuela and South America. It has remained a city of contrasts _ old Spanish culture and modern business, ancient Indian folklore and distinctive modern architecture.”

Aparicio’s father (also named Luis) was a standout shortstop in Latin America and was known as “El Grande,” the great one. When the father retired as a player during a ballpark ceremony in 1953, he handed his glove to his 19-year-old son and they embraced amid tears.

While playing winter baseball in Venezuela for Caracas, young Luis Aparicio got the attention of White Sox general manager Frank Lane and scout Harry Postove. Cleveland Indians coach Red Kress also was in pursuit of the prospect. After the White Sox paid $6,000 to Caracas team president Pablo Morales, Aparicio signed with the White Sox for $4,000, The Sporting News reported.

The White Sox sent Aparicio, 20, to Waterloo, Iowa, in 1954. The Waterloo White Hawks were a Class B farm club managed by former catcher Wally Millies. Aparicio “couldn’t speak a word of English,” according to Arthur Daley of the New York Times, but language was no barrier to his ability to play in the minors. Before a double hernia ended his season in July, he produced 110 hits in 94 games for Waterloo and had 20 stolen bases. Wally Millies filed a glowing report to the White Sox: “Aparicio has an excellent chance to make the big leagues.”

On the rise

Returning to Venezuela for the winter, Aparicio hired a tutor and learned English. The White Sox invited him to their 1955 spring training camp. That’s when Marty Marion got a look at him.

After managing the Cardinals (1951) and Browns (1952-53), Marion was a White Sox coach in 1954. He became their manager in September 1954 after Paul Richards left to join the Orioles.

Marion liked what he saw of Aparicio at 1955 spring training and it was he who suggested the shortstop skip the Class A level of the minors and open the season with the Class AA Memphis Chickasaws.

Aparicio responded to the challenge, totaling 154 hits and 48 steals. He dazzled with his range and throwing arm. David Bloom of the Memphis Commercial Appeal deemed Aparicio “worth the price of admission as a single attraction.”

Memphis had two managers in 1955. Jack Cassini, who was the second baseman and manager, had to step down in early August after being hit in the face by a pitch. Retired Hall of Fame pitcher Ted Lyons, the White Sox’s career leader in wins (260), replaced Cassini. Both praised Aparicio in reports to the White Sox.

Cassini: “He does everything well.”

Lyons: “Aparicio plays major league shortstop right now … Can’t miss.”

Lyons, who played 21 seasons in the majors and spent another nine there as a manager and coach, told The Sporting News, “The kid’s quick as a flash and has a remarkable throwing arm. He’s dead sure on a ground ball and makes the double play as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He’s one of the greatest fielding shortstops I have ever seen.”

Ready and able

Based on the reports he got on Aparicio during the summer following his firsthand observations in spring training, Marion urged the White Sox front office to trade shortstop Chico Carrasquel so that Aparicio could step into the job in 1956. Carrasquel was sent to Cleveland for outfielder Larry Doby in October 1955.

The move was bold and risky. A Venezuelan and nephew of Alex Carrasquel, Chico Carrasquel was an American League all-star in four of his six seasons with the White Sox, and the first Latin American to play and start in an All-Star Game.

Marion and others, however, became disenchanted with Carrasquel’s increasingly limited fielding range. “I was amazed when I watched Carrasquel (in 1955),” White Sox player personnel executive John Rigney told The Sporting News. “He had slowed up so much he didn’t look like the same player.”

Marion said to reporter John C. Hoffman in January 1956, “I know Luis Aparicio is a better shortstop right now than Carrasquel was last year … I saw enough of him last spring during training to know he’s quicker than Chico and a better hustler.”

Aparicio showed at 1956 spring training he was ready for the job. As Arthur Daley noted in the New York Times, Aparicio “has extraordinary reflexes as well as the speed afoot to give him the widest possible range. He breaks fast for a ball and his hands move with such lightning rapidity that his glove smothers the hops before they have a chance to bounce bad. He gets the ball away swiftly to set up double plays and ranks as probably the slickest shortstop in the business.”

Marion was impressed by all facets of Aparicio’s game and his ability to mesh with second baseman Nellie Fox. (Aparicio and his wife Sonia later named a son Nelson in honor of Fox.)

“I’m certain now that he’ll be twice the shortstop that Carrasquel was last year,” Marion told The Sporting News in March 1956.

Rookie sensation

Marion considered putting Aparicio in the leadoff spot, but instead batted him eighth. “He has all the physical equipment for becoming a wonderful leadoff man, but at the moment he still lacks the ability to draw walks,” Marion explained to The Sporting News. “Once he gets that, he’ll be one of the best. Drawing walks is something that comes with experience. He has to sharpen his knowledge of the strike zone and then develop the confidence to lay off those pitches that are just an inch or two off the plate.”

Once the season got under way, the rest of the American League joined Marion in voicing their admiration of the rookie. Aparicio played especially well versus the powerhouse Yankees. He hit .316 against them, including .395 in 11 games at Yankee Stadium, and fielded superbly.

“He is not only the best rookie in the league; we’d have to say he was the best shortstop,” Yankees manager Casey Stengel exclaimed to the Chicago Tribune.

Yankees shortstop Phil Rizzuto, in the final season of a Hall of Fame career, said to The Sporting News, “As a fielding shortstop, Aparicio is the best I ever saw.”

Rizzuto said Aparicio’s superior range reminded him of Marty Marion with the Cardinals. Marion, though, told The Sporting News, “He has to be better than I was. He covers twice the ground that I did.”

In August 1956, Marion moved Aparicio to the leadoff spot. Aparicio batted .291 there in 31 games, with a respectable .345 on-base percentage. “We frankly didn’t think he would come along quite this fast,” Marion told the Chicago Tribune.

Aparicio completed his rookie season with 142 hits and 21 stolen bases. He batted .295 with runners in scoring position and .412 with the bases loaded. He made 35 errors, but also led the league’s shortstops in assists and putouts.

Changing times

The 1956 White Sox finished in third place at 85-69, 12 games behind the champion Yankees. On Oct. 25, White Sox vice-president Chuck Comiskey summoned Marion to a meeting. When it ended, Marion no longer was manager.

“The White Sox called it a resignation and Marty, always agreeable, went along with this label,” Edward Prell of the Chicago Tribune noted. “Marion’s official statement of resignation, however, sounded like one of those Russian confessions,” departing “in the best interest of the club.”

According to the Tribune, “It was known that Marion’s insistence on keeping Aparicio eighth in the batting order did not set well with some of the White Sox officials. They thought Marty should be … having him lead off.”

Days later, the White Sox hired Al Lopez, who led Cleveland to a pennant and five second-place finishes in six years as manager. In the book “We Played the Game,” White Sox pitcher Billy Pierce said Marion “did a very good job with us. I didn’t know why he didn’t stay with us longer, other than that Al Lopez was available.”

Marion never managed again.

With Aparicio the centerpiece of a team that featured speed, defense and pitching, Lopez led the White Sox to the 1959 pennant, their first in 40 years.

Traded to the Orioles in January 1963, Aparicio joined third baseman Brooks Robinson in forming an iron-clad left side of the infield. In “We Played the Game,” Robinson said, “Luis was just a sensational player … He was the era’s best-fielding shortstop. He had so much range that I could cheat more to the (third-base) line.”

With their pitching and defense limiting the Dodgers to two runs in four games, the Orioles swept the 1966 World Series.

Aparicio was traded back to the White Sox in November 1967. He spent his last three seasons with the Red Sox.

Tradition of excellence

When Ozzie Guillen was a boy in Venezuela, he idolized Luis Aparicio. Guillen became a shortstop. In 1985, he reached the majors with the White Sox and won the American League Rookie of the Year Award. He eventually became an all-star and earned a Gold Glove Award, too.

In 2005, as White Sox manager, Guillen led them to their first pennant since the 1959 team did it with Aparicio. Before Game 1 of the World Series at Chicago against the Astros, Guillen got behind the plate and caught the ceremonial first pitch from Aparicio.

The White Sox went on to sweep the Astros, winning their first World Series title since 1917.

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Cardinals nemesis Mickey Lolich got assist from ex-Redbird

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers, Prospects on December 29, 2025| 19 Comments »

Mickey Lolich was at a crossroads in his pitching career when a former Cardinals ace came to his rescue.

A left-hander with a stellar fastball he couldn’t control, Lolich, 21, was an unhappy prospect in the Tigers system when he was dispatched to Portland (Ore.) in 1962. The pitching coach there, Gerry Staley, 41, served a dual role as reliever.

Staley had been a big winner for the Cardinals before becoming a closer for the White Sox. Perhaps his biggest save came later with the work he did on Lolich. Staley taught him how to make a fastball sink. Lolich became a pitcher instead of a thrower, a winner instead of a loser. The sinkerball made all the difference.

Six years later, Lolich earned the 1968 World Series Most Valuable Player Award for beating the Cardinals three times, including in the decisive Game 7.

In his 2018 book “Joy in Tigertown,” Lolich suggested Staley deserved a 1968 World Series share for helping him become a success. “Meeting him was one of the great breaks of my career,” Lolich said. “Maybe the most important one.”

Wild thing

Two-year-old Mickey Lolich was pedaling a tricycle as fast as he could in his Portland (Ore.) neighborhood when he lost control and slammed into the kickstand of a parked motorcycle. The big bike crashed down on the tyke, pinning him to the ground. His left collarbone was fractured.

“Well, back in 1942, they just sort of strapped your arm across your chest and waited for it to heal,” Lolich recalled to Pat Batcheller of Detroit Public Radio (WDET, 101.9 FM) in 2018. “When they took the bindings off, I had total atrophy in my left arm. It wasn’t working at all.”

Though Mickey was right-handed, a doctor advised the Lolich family to encourage him to use his left hand and arm as much as possible to build strength. His parents “tied my right arm behind my back and made me use my left hand,” Lolich told Detroit Public Radio. “I wanted to throw those little cars and trucks, so I threw them left-handed … and that’s how I became a left-handed pitcher.”

The kid learned to throw with velocity, too. In his senior high school season, Lolich struck out 71 in 42 innings. He was 17 when the Tigers signed him in 1958 and told him to report to training camp the following spring.

Lolich’s first manager in the minors was fellow Portland native Johnny Pesky, the former Red Sox shortstop whose late throw to the plate enabled Enos Slaughter to score the winning run for the Cardinals in Game 7 of the 1946 World Series.

When Braves executive Birdie Tebbetts saw Lolich’s fastball in April 1959, he told Marvin West of the Knoxville News-Sentinel, “I’d give cold cash for this Lolich boy.”

The problem was control. In a four-hit shutout of Asheville in May 1959, Lolich walked nine but was bailed out by five double plays. A month later, in a two-hitter to beat Macon, he walked 11 and threw four wild pitches.

Lolich began each of his first three pro seasons (1959-61) with Class A Knoxville and was demoted to Class B Durham each year. In June 1961, after Lolich gave up no hits but nine walks and four runs in a five-inning start, Knoxville manager Frank Carswell told the News-Sentinel, “I’ve seen some strange games, but I can’t remember seeing one pitcher give away a decision without a hit.”

Headed home

After a strong spring training in 1962, Lolich was assigned to Class AAA Denver, but he was a bust (0-4, 16.50 ERA). In late May, the Tigers demoted him to Knoxville, but Lolich refused to return there. Instead, he went home to Portland. The Tigers suspended him.

Portland had a city league for amateur and semipro players in conjunction with the American Amateur Baseball Congress. Lolich showed up one night in the uniform of Archer Blower, a maker of industrial fans, faced 12 batters and struck out all of them, the Oregon Daily Journal reported.

Blown away by the performance, the Tigers quickly reinstated Lolich and arranged for him to pitch the rest of the summer for the Portland Beavers, the Class AAA club of the Kansas City Athletics. That’s when Gerry Staley got a look at him. In the book “Summer of ’68,” Lolich told author Tim Wendel, “He (Staley) asked if I’d give him 10 days to let him try and turn me into a pitcher. All I was then was a thrower, really. I’d stand out there and throw it as hard as I could.”

Lolich agreed to the proposal.

Starting and closing

Gerry Staley went from Brush Prairie, his rural hometown in Washington state, into pro baseball as a rawboned right-handed pitcher who “looks as if he could whip a wounded bear,” Dwight Chapin of the Vancouver Columbian noted.

When he was with a Cardinals farm club in 1947, Staley was throwing warmup tosses to infielder Julius Schoendienst, brother of St. Louis second baseman Red Schoendienst. “He noticed I had a natural sinker when I threw three-quarters overhand,” Staley recalled to United Press International. “He said my sinker did more than my fastball. So I stuck with it.”

Using the sinker seven out of every 10 pitches, Staley became a prominent starter with the Cardinals. He had five consecutive double-digit win seasons (1949-53) for St. Louis. His win totals included 19 in 1951, 17 in 1952 and 18 in 1953.

In explaining to Al Crombie of the Vancouver Columbian how he threw the sinker, Staley said, “You have to release the ball off one finger more than the other, and then I roll my wrist to get a little more of the downspin on the ball.”

Staley threw a heavy sinker. According to the Vancouver newspaper, “It breaks down at the last second, and as the surprised hitter gets his bat around on it, most of the ball isn’t there. Most of the time it dribbles off harmlessly to an infielder and is made to order for starting double plays.”

Traded to the Reds in December 1954, Staley went on to the Yankees and then the White Sox, who made him a reliever. In 1959, Staley got the save in the win that clinched for the White Sox their first American League pennant in 40 years. He appeared in 67 games that season and had eight wins, 15 saves and a 2.24 ERA. The next year also was stellar for him (13 wins, nine saves. 2.42 ERA).

Released by the Tigers in October 1961, Staley snared an offer to coach and pitch for Portland.

Soaring with a sinker

Mickey Lolich became Staley’s star pupil. As author Tim Wendel noted, “After a week or so, Lolich caught on to what Staley was trying to teach him _  how it was better to be a sinkerball pitcher, with control, than a kid trying to throw 100 mph on every pitch. The new goal was to keep the ball low, often away from the hitter, consistently hitting the outside corner.”

Staley also taught Lolich to extend his pregame warmup time. The extra pitches tired his arm a bit and gave more sink to his sinker.

The results were impressive. In 130 innings for Portland, Lolich struck out 138 and yielded 116 hits. The next year, he reached the majors with Detroit. “Gerry Staley changed my whole life,” Lolich told Tim Wendel. “It’s as simple as that.”

In the 1968 World Series, Lolich won Games 2, 5 and 7. He went the route in all three, posting a 1.67 ERA.

Lolich had double-digit wins 12 years in a row (1964-75), including 25 in 1971 and 22 in 1972. He pitched more than 300 innings in a season four consecutive times (1971-74).

In 16 seasons in the majors with the Tigers (1963-75), Mets (1976) and Padres (1978-79), Lolich earned 217 wins and had 41 shutouts. He is the Tigers’ career leader in strikeouts (2,679), starts (459) and shutouts (39).

The 1962 season with Portland was Gerry Staley’s last in professional baseball. He became superintendent of the Clark County (Washington) Parks Department. “It was time I went to work,” he told the Vancouver Columbian.

After retiring in 1982, Staley enjoyed gardening and fishing for steelhead trout. Once a week, he would take time to carefully autograph items mailed to him by baseball fans. “There are some people who won’t sign unless they get paid for it,” Staley said to the Vancouver newspaper. “What the heck. I’ve got enough to live on. It’s nice to be remembered.”

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Randy Jones reached lofty heights by staying grounded

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers on December 8, 2025| 20 Comments »

To get batters out in the big leagues, Randy Jones needed to make them hit the ball on the ground.

That’s what the Padres left-hander did when he pitched his most impressive game _ a 10-inning one-hitter to beat the Cardinals in 1975. Twenty-two of the 30 outs were ground balls.

When batters lifted the ball in the air against Jones, bad stuff often happened _ like the game at St. Louis when Hector Cruz and Lou Brock hit inside-the-park home runs to beat him in 1976.

A 20-game winner the season after he lost 22, and recipient of the 1976 National League Cy Young Award, Jones was 75 when he died on Nov. 18, 2025.

Portrait of a prospect

Randy Jones grew up in Brea, Calif., near Anaheim. Another prominent big-league pitcher, Walter Johnson, spent his teen years there after his family moved from Kansas. Looking to cash in on an oil boom, the Johnsons settled in the village of Olinda, now a Brea neighborhood.

Jones liked baseball and followed the Dodgers (his favorite players were Sandy Koufax and Tommy Davis). He showed promise as a pitcher. In 1963, when Jones was 13, his school principal asked a friend, Washington Senators left-hander Claude Osteen, to give the teen a pitching lesson. Osteen emphasized to Jones the importance of throwing strikes and keeping the ball down in the zone.

“He had a good sinker, even at 13,” Osteen recalled to The Sporting News, “but he threw sidearm. I advised him to throw more overhanded, or three-quarters.”

Jones went on to pitch in high school and at Chapman College, but arm ailments caused him to lose velocity. In explaining why he’d offered Jones only a partial baseball scholarship in 1968, University of Southern California (USC) coach Rod Dedeaux told columnist Jim Murray, “He’s only got half a fastball.”

Padres scouts Marty Keough and Cliff Ditto saw enough to recommend Jones. The Padres picked him in the fifth round of the 1972 amateur draft. Keough (who later scouted for the Cardinals) told Dave Anderson of the New York Times, “He threw strikes … and he got people out.”

Welcome to The Show

Duke Snider and Jackie Brandt, the former Cardinal, were Jones’ managers in the minors, but the person who had the biggest influence on him there was pitching instructor Warren Hacker. A former Cub and the uncle of future Cardinals coach Rich Hacker, Warren Hacker “taught me to throw a better sinker,” Jones told the New York Times. “He showed me how to place my fingers differently and how to apply pressure with them.”

The sinker became the pitch that got Jones to the big leagues just a year after he was drafted. His debut with the Padres came in June 1973 versus the Mets. The first batter to get a hit against Jones was 42-year-old Willie Mays, who blasted his 656th career home run over the wall in left-center at Shea Stadium. Boxscore

A week later, Jones made his first start, at home versus the Braves, and Hank Aaron, 39, became the second player to slug a homer against him. It was the 692nd of Aaron’s career. “The home run came off a fastball outside,” Aaron told United Press International. “The kid got it up. Had it been down a little, I probably would have popped it up.” Boxscore

Facing Aaron and Mays, who were big-leaguers before Jones started kindergarten, wasn’t the end of the rookie’s storybook experiences. His first big-league win came in the ballpark, Dodger Stadium, where Jones’ father took him as a youth to cheer for the home team. Jones beat them, pitching a four-hitter and getting 18 outs on ground balls. Dazed, he told The Sporting News, “I finished the ninth inning and didn’t realize the game was over.” Boxscore

Reconstruction project

Based on Jones’ seven wins as a rookie, including a shutout of the 1973 Mets (who were on their way to becoming National League champions), the Padres had high hopes for him in 1974, but Jones instead posted an 8-22 record. Though the Padres scored two or fewer runs in 17 of those losses, lack of support wasn’t the sole reason for the poor mark. Jones’ pitching deteriorated as the season progressed (4.46 ERA in August; 6.23 in September.) “My confidence was completely shot,” he told The Sporting News.

After the season, the Padres hired pitching coach Tom Morgan. As Angels pitching coach, Morgan turned Nolan Ryan into an ace by getting him to alter his shoulder motion. “If you ask me who had more influence on me than anybody in my career, I’d have to say Tom Morgan,” Ryan told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Morgan did for Jones what he’d done for Ryan. “He said I was opening up too soon with my right shoulder, that I wasn’t pushing off the rubber with my left foot, that I was pitching stiff-legged and that I was throwing all arm and no body,” Jones said to The Sporting News.

In short, Jones told the Los Angeles Times, Morgan “basically reconstructed my delivery … He gave me the fundamentals to be consistent.”

The turnaround was immediate. Jones was 20-12 with a league-best 2.24 ERA in 1975. He won two one-hitters _ versus the Cardinals and Reds.

Luis Melendez (who batted .248 for his career, but .571 against Jones) singled sharply to open the seventh for the lone St. Louis hit. The Cardinals managed just two fly balls. “It was the best game of my career because of all the ground balls the Cardinals hit,” Jones told the Associated Press. Boxscore

Two months later, facing a lineup featuring Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Tony Perez, Jones gave up only a double to Bill Plummer and beat a Big Red Machine team headed for a World Series championship. He got 20 outs on ground balls. Boxscore

After Jones induced 22 ground-ball outs in a three-hit shutout of the Braves, pitcher Phil Niekro said to The Sporting News, “You get the feeling he can make the batter ground the ball to shortstop almost any time he wants to.” Boxscore

Location and movement

Jones basically relied on a sinker and slider. Roger Craig, who became Jones’ pitching coach (1976-77) and then manager (1978-79), said Jones threw a sinker 60 to 70 percent of the time, and a slider the other 30 to 40 percent. “Craig estimates that Jones’ sinker breaks down five to 10 inches and breaks away up to six inches from a right-handed batter,” the New York Times reported.

Jones’ fastball was clocked at about 75 mph. Foes and teammates alike kidded him that it was more like 27 mph.

In rating pitchers for the Philadelphia Daily News, Pete Rose said “the two who gave me the most trouble were Jim Brewer and Randy Jones.”

Rose was a career .183 hitter versus Jones. “Randy had him crazy,” Padres catcher Fred Kendall told the New York Times. Kendall recalled when Rose stood at the plate and yelled to Jones, “Throw hard, damn it, throw hard.”

Cardinals first baseman Ron Fairly told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1975, “He has a sinker. That’s all it is, and not a very hard one at that.”

Fairly’s teammate, Keith Hernandez, saw it differently. In his book “I’m Keith Hernandez,” the 1979 National League batting champion said of Jones, “Anyone who dismissed him as a soft tosser missed the point. With a hard sinker and a wicked hard slider, much like Tommy John’s, Randy threw his fastball hard enough to keep hitters off-balance.”

As Jones told The Sporting News, “My fastball is good enough that I can come inside on right-handed hitters and keep them honest.”

Jones also put batters out of synch by working fast. A game with Jones and Jim Kaat as starting pitchers was completed in one hour, 29 minutes. Jones finished a two-hitter versus Larry Dierker and the Astros in one hour, 37 minutes. Boxscore and Boxscore

Six of Jones’ 1975 wins came in games lasting less than one hour, 45 minutes.

Ups and downs

Jones followed his 20-win season of 1975 with a league-leading 22 wins and the Cy Young Award in 1976. He also was first in the league in innings pitched (315.1) and complete games (25), and had a stretch of 68 innings without issuing a walk.

Though the Cardinals were a mess (72-90) that season, they played like the Gashouse Gang when facing Jones. He was 1-3 against them.

On June 18, 1976, the Cardinals snapped Jones’ seven-game winning streak with a 7-4 victory at Busch Memorial Stadium.

In the fourth inning, with Ted Simmons on second, Hector Cruz (hitless against Jones in his career) drove a high pitch deep to left-center. Willie Davis leapt and got his glove on the ball, but, when he hit the wall, the ball popped free and shot toward the infield. Cruz circled the bases for an inside-the-park home run.

An inning later, with Don Kessinger on first, Lou Brock (a career .190 hitter versus Jones) punched a pitch to right-center. The ball hit a seam in the AstroTurf, bounced over Davis’ head and rolled to the wall. Brock streaked home with the second inside-the-park homer of the game. “The odds are real strong on that not happening again,” Jones told the Post-Dispatch. Boxscore

In October 1976, Jones had surgery to repair a severed nerve in the bicep tendon of his left arm. He never had another winning season, finishing with a career mark of 100-123.

Terrific tutor

Back home in Poway, Calif., Jones placed an ad in a local newspaper, offering private pitching instruction. Joe Zito signed up his son, 12-year-old Barry Zito, at a cost of $50 per lesson. “We had it,” Joe Zito recalled to the New York Times. “It was the food money.”

The lessons took place in the backyard of Jones’ hilltop home. Getting pitching tips from a Cy Young Award winner was something “I would kind of marvel at,” Barry Zito told the Associated Press.

According to the New York Times, Jones tutored Zito, a left-hander, once a week for more than three years and videotaped their sessions. Jones used a tough-love approach. One time, after Zito kept throwing pitches into the middle of the strike zone, Jones yelled, “We’re not playing darts. Never throw at the bull’s-eye.”

Zito recalled to the Associated Press, “When I did something incorrectly, he’d spit tobacco juice on my shoes, Nike high-tops we could barely afford.”

Reminded of that, Jones told the wire service, “I had to get his attention, and that worked with Barry. He didn’t focus really well when we first started. By the time, he got into his teens, he locked in. He just kept getting better.”

In 2002, two years after reaching the majors with Oakland, Zito was a 23-game winner and recipient of the American League Cy Young Award.

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