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Archive for the ‘Pitchers’ Category

1967 Cardinals came close to being no-hit victims

Posted in Games, Pitchers on October 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »

If not for the timely hitting of the Cardinals’ Julian Javier, baseball fans would have been talking about the third no-hitter in postseason history, not the second, when Roy Halladay pitched his gem on Oct. 6, 2010, for the Phillies against the Reds.

Javier, St. Louis’ second baseman, doubled with two outs in the eighth inning in Game 2 of the 1967 World Series to break up the no-hit bid of Boston’s 25-year-old ace, Jim Lonborg.

Until Halladay pitched his no-hitter in Game 1 of the National League Division Series, Lonborg had come closest to pitching a hitless game in the postseason since Don Larsen did it for the Yankees against the Dodgers in Game 5 of the 1956 World Series.

Lonborg retired the first 19 batters before Curt Flood walked on a 3-and-2 pitch with one out in the seventh in that second game of the World Series at Boston on Oct. 5, 1967. He then got Roger Maris on a flyout and Orlando Cepeda on a groundout to end the inning.

In the eighth, with anticipation building and a light rain falling, Tim McCarver and Mike Shannon grounded out. Lonborg was four outs from a no-hitter.

Javier, a right-handed batter, stepped to the plate. A .257 career hitter, Javier had produced one of his best seasons in 1967, hitting .281. Lonborg’s first pitch to him was a “high slider that hung up a bit.” Javier ripped it into the left field corner.

Bobby Tolan followed with a groundout, and Lonborg retired the Cardinals in order in the ninth, giving the Red Sox a 5-0 win and evening the series. Boxscore

Lonborg later revealed he achieved the one-hitter despite developing a blister on his right thumb that kept him from getting a proper grip on his breaking pitches. “If I hadn’t gotten the blister, I might have been able to get Javier,” Lonborg told The Sporting News.

Lonborg pitched effectively inside. Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst complained that Lonborg purposely was delivering brushback pitches, a charge Lonborg denied.

Despite Lonborg’s dominance, the Cardinals were reluctant to praise him. “He’s not quick, but he keeps the ball in good spots,” said St. Louis speedster Lou Brock. “He’s no Juan Marichal or Gaylord Perry.”

In Game 5, Lonborg pitched a three-hitter, winning 3-1. The Cardinals got the upper hand in Game 7, winning 7-2 behind Bob Gibson and knocking out Lonborg after 6 innings. The decisive blow: Javier’s three-run home run off Lonborg.

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Bob Shaw made splash with Mets against Cardinals

Posted in Games, Pitchers on September 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »

(Updated Dec. 16, 2019)

Bob Shaw outdueled Sandy Koufax in a World Series game, taught Gaylord Perry how to throw the spitball and frustrated the Cardinals after he joined the Mets.

Shaw started Game 5 of the 1959 World Series for the White Sox and beat Koufax and the Dodgers, 1-0, before more than 92,000 spectators at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Boxscore

Five years later, Shaw was with the Giants and became a mentor to Perry, a future Hall of Famer.

In his book “Me and the Spitter,” Perry said Shaw’s spitball was “one of the best I’ve ever seen.” After seeing how Shaw’s spitball fooled batters, Perry said, “I knew how Tom Edison felt when he discovered the electric light.”

“Bob and I worked for hours,” Perry said. “I studied his every movement. The old dew drop takes total dedication, like any new pitch you learn, only more so.”

On June 10, 1966, the Giants sold Shaw’s contract to the Mets.

Three days, later, on June 13, 1966, he made his Mets debut in a start against the Cardinals in Game 1 of a Monday night doubleheader at Shea Stadium and pitched a five-hitter, beating the Cardinals, 5-2. Shaw allowed one extra-base hit, a triple by Phil Gagliano. Using the bat of teammate Ken Boyer, Shaw also singled twice in three at-bats against Al Jackson. Boxscore

Shaw said he was motivated to pitch a complete game because he had something to prove to the Giants and their pitching coach, Larry Jansen, “who didn’t think I could go more than six innings,” Shaw told The Sporting News.

Eight nights later, on June 21, 1966, in St. Louis, Shaw started against the Cardinals again and beat them, 2-1, on a four-hitter, walking none and striking out nine. Tim McCarver’s solo home run in the seventh cut in half the Mets’ 2-0 lead, but Shaw retired the Cardinals in order in the eighth and ninth. Boxscore

The Cardinals said Shaw threw a spitball and repeatedly asked the umpire to check the ball.

“It’s a psychological advantage,” Shaw said to the New York Daily News. “If you get them thinking that way, it’s the greatest thing in the world.”

Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch “there’s no question that Shaw throws a spitter,” but said, “You just have to learn to hit it, wet or not.”

Cardinals pitcher Tracy Stallard said, “Spitball or not, Shaw pitched quite a game. You’ve got to admire him. He battles you and that’s the name of the game.”

Said Cardinals shortstop Dal Maxvill: “The way Shaw was throwing tonight, he wouldn’t give his own mother a good pitch to hit.”

Shaw went on to post an 11-10 record and 3.92 ERA in 25 starts for a Mets team that finished in ninth-place at 66-95.

The next year he pitched for the Mets and Cubs, ending an 11-year big-league career that began in 1957 with the Tigers.

Shaw became a successful commercial real estate developer and youth baseball coach in Jupiter, Fla. He managed a team from Jensen Beach, Fla., to the American Legion World Series championship in 1986.

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Bake McBride was a menace against Wayne Twitchell

Posted in Hitters, Pitchers, Trades on September 23, 2010| 1 Comment »

The passing of former Phillies pitcher Wayne Twitchell on Sept. 16, 2010, brought to mind one of the most electrifying performances in the career of Cardinals speedster Bake McBride.

In the Phillies’ home opener on April 11, 1975, McBride sparked the Cardinals to a 6-3 victory with a three-run inside-the-park home run to center field against Twitchell. Boxscore

McBride, a left-handed batter, went 4-for-5 with four RBI and two runs scored that night. Against Twitchell, who started and lasted five innings, McBride was 3-for-3.  He singled in the first, homered in the third and singled again in the fifth.

His home run came after Lou Brock singled and Ted Sizemore walked. McBride then drove a Twitchell pitch into center field and circled the bases.

McBride tormented Twitchell throughout his career, hitting .480 (12-for-25) against him.

In a twist of fate, the Phillies made trades involving McBride and Twitchell within minutes of one another on June 15, 1977.

After falling short in an aggressive bid to acquire pitcher Tom Seaver from the Mets (Seaver was dealt to the Reds instead), the Phillies traded Twitchell and catcher Tim Blackwell to the Expos for catcher Barry Foote and pitcher Dan Warthen.

With the trade deadline rapidly approaching, the Phillies then acquired McBride and pitcher Steve Waterbury from the Cardinals for pitcher Tom Underwood and outfielders Dane Iorg and Rick Bosetti.

The deal upset the Cubs, who thought they had a commitment from the Phillies to send them Underwood for outfielders Jose Cardenal and Greg Gross.

McBride became expendable because first-year Cardinals manager Vern Rapp preferred Tony Scott in center field and because the Cardinals were concerned about McBride being slowed by shoulder and knee problems. McBride also had clashed with Rapp over the club’s ban on facial hair and long sideburns.

McBride gave the Phillies an effective leadoff batter. He helped them to division titles in 1977 and 1978, and to a World Series championship in 1980.

Twitchell, a 6-foot-6 right-hander, had been named to the 1973 National League all-star team. Writing about the trades in the July 2, 1977, edition of The Sporting News, Ray Kelly suggested the Phillies “were reluctant to let him (Twitchell) go because he’s one of the hardest throwers around.”

Twitchell went from the Expos to the Mets and then the Mariners.

His last big-league season was 1979 and he finished his career with a 48-65 record.

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Todd Worrell holds elite status as Cardinals rookie

Posted in Pitchers on September 6, 2010| 2 Comments »

(Updated Jan. 13, 2025)

The only Cardinals pitcher to win the National League Rookie of the Year Award is Todd Worrell. He received the honor on Nov. 24, 1986.

Cardinals pitchers who have been runners-up for the award are Harvey Haddix (1953), Dick Hughes (1967), Matt Morris (1997) and Rick Ankiel (2000).

Worrell received 23 of 24 first-place votes (Kevin Mitchell of the Mets got the other) in balloting for the 1986 award. The right-hander established a NL rookie record for saves, 36.

Among those finishing behind Worrell in the rookie award voting that year: Giants first baseman Will Clark (fifth), Pirates outfielder Barry Bonds (sixth) and Reds shortstop Barry Larkin (seventh).

Worrell qualified as a rookie in 1986 even though he played prominent roles in the 1985 National League Championship Series and the World Series.

The relief ace kept his rookie status in 1986 because during the 1985 regular season he pitched fewer than 50 innings (21.2) and was with St. Louis for fewer than 45 days before rosters expanded Sept. 1.

Worrell was a first-round pick of the Cardinals in the 1982 amateur draft from Biola University in La Mirada, Calif. “I wanted him more than anybody I’ve ever drafted,” Cardinals scouting director Fred McAlister told the Cardinals Yearbook in 1988. “I had a good feeling about him.”

A starting pitcher in the minor leagues, Worrell was 3-10 with a 4.49 ERA in 18 starts at Class AA Arkansas in 1984. After Worrell made 17 starts for Class AAA Louisville in 1985, Lee Thomas, a former big-league outfielder and the Cardinals’ director of player development, and scout Hal Smith, a former big-league catcher, suggested he become a reliever. Smith had noticed Worrell’s fastball consistently reached speeds of 92 to 93 mph the first two innings before his velocity dropped to 86 or 87 mph.

The change immediately brought results. “It was almost like a little light went on in my head,” Worrell said in an interview in the Dec. 8, 1986, edition of The Sporting News. “By the time I got through the first month (as a reliever), there was no doubt in my mind that this was what would get me to the big leagues.”

Said Thomas: “He became an offensive pitcher instead of being a defensive pitcher.”

Worrell appeared in 74 games for manager Whitey Herzog’s 1986 Cardinals.

Among Worrell’s most impressive statistics that season:

_ Right-handed batters hit .196 against him.

_ In the 36 games he saved, he had a 1.11 ERA and batters hit .146.

_ With two outs and runners in scoring position, he held batters to a .147 average.

“When I came up to the Cardinals in that (closer) role, Whitey stayed with me and believed in me,” Worrell told Cardinals Magazine. “It’s a major commitment … That went a long way with me in my development as a closer.”

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Cardinals made Cal McLish debut a daunting task

Posted in Pitchers on September 1, 2010| Leave a Comment »

(Updated Oct. 6, 2019)

Cal McLish grew up as a Cardinals fan and nearly began his professional pitching career with them.

Instead, he made his big-league debut as a teenager against the Cardinals in St. Louis. The first batter he faced: Stan Musial.

Cal McLish’s full name was Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish. His father named him after leaders: Calvin Coolidge was president when McLish was born on Dec. 1, 1925, in Anadarko, Okla. Julius Caesar had been emperor of Rome, and “tuskahoma” was a Choctaw Indian word for warrior.

In the October 2005 edition of Indian Ink Magazine, McLish was interviewed by writer Chuck Murr, who told the story of how the pitcher almost started his career with the Cardinals:

“Part Choctaw and Cherokee Indian, McLish played at 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds,” Murr wrote. “He grew up in Oklahoma listening to the St. Louis Cardinals on the radio. In the fall of 1943, the Cardinals invited him to St. Louis for the World Series so that he could be introduced to commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis in order to settle a dispute as to who owned the rights to the young right-hander.

“This was decades before baseball had an annual player draft. Back then, teams had hordes of scouts trying to sign prospects and both the Cardinals and Washington Senators thought they had McLish’s name on the dotted line. In the Senators’ case, there was a signature but no dotted line.

“McLish explained to Landis how he and another young Oklahoma player had signed an agreement to go to Washington for two weeks and work out with the Senators, whose scout tried unsuccessfully to make a binding contract out of a napkin that had been signed by the boys.”

Landis ruled neither club had signed McLish properly. McLish then attended a Dodgers tryout camp and was signed by Brooklyn while still a senior in high school.

With big-league rosters depleted because of World War II, the Dodgers brought McLish, 18, to the majors in 1944. He was introduced by general manager Branch Rickey to reporters at Brooklyn’s Ebbetts Field. Baseball Digest magazine, describing the scene years later, reported that McLish “wore country clothes and looked dazed by his sudden transportation from Oklahoma to the Big City.”

McLish made his big-league debut on May 13, 1944, against the Cardinals at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis before a Saturday afternoon gathering of 2,264. Brought on in relief of starter Rube Melton with one out and the bases loaded in the fifth inning, here is a description of the scene by writer Charles Dexter in a July 1959 profile of McLish in Baseball Digest:

“The first game Cal tossed in the majors was something to remember. Stan Musial was up. Walker Cooper waited in the batter’s circle. And next was Whitey Kurowski … The knees of 34-year-old Cal McLish, bold and brave, still knock when he thinks about it.”

McLish pitched 1.2 innings that day, allowing two runs on three hits and a walk. The Cardinals won, 8-4. Boxscore

He went on to compile a 92-92 record and 4.01 ERA for the Dodgers, Pirates, Cubs, Indians, Reds, White Sox and Phillies in a big-league career that lasted until 1964.

McLish also spent 16 seasons as a major-league pitching coach for the Phillies, Expos and Brewers. He was the pitching coach for Milwaukee in 1982 when the Brewers won the pennant and faced the Cardinals in the World Series.

In a 2019 edition of the Baseball Hall of Fame magazine, “Memories and Dreams,” pitcher Ferguson Jenkins credits McLish with being a mentor.

“I played winter ball for two years in Puerto Rico, 1963 and 1964, and I developed a pretty good slider under the tutelage of Cal McLish,” Jenkins said. “I think that pitch probably got me to the big leagues quicker than any other aspect of learning how to play the game the right way.”

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Al Hrabosky’s last stand tested Dave Duncan, Tony La Russa

Posted in Pitchers on August 5, 2010| 2 Comments »

Al Hrabosky was desperate for a final chance to extend his big-league pitching career. He was released by the Braves on Aug. 30, 1982, and as 1983 spring training was about to begin no team had reached out to the left-handed relief pitcher known as the “Mad Hungarian.”

Hrabosky thought he still had something to offer. He had dropped 15 pounds, shaved his Fu Manchu, cut his hair, added a forkball to his mix and conceded that “some of my off-the-field habits need changing.”

He called Roland Hemond, general manager of the White Sox, and asked for a spring-training tryout. Hemond agreed. When Hrabosky arrived, he went to work trying to impress the White Sox manager and pitching coach: Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan.

In the spring of 1983, it was Duncan’s job to determine whether Hrabosky could help the White Sox. After Hrabosky’s first workout, Duncan said to The Sporting News, “He threw the ball pretty good and he’s in good shape.”

It wasn’t enough. La Russa and Duncan eventually decided to open the season with Kevin Hickey and Jerry Koosman as their left-handed relievers. Hrabosky was signed to a contact on April 8 and assigned to the Class AAA Denver Bears. It was his first minor-league assignment in 10 years.

Hrabosky had pitched for the Cardinals from 1970-78 and was a dominant closer for part of that stretch. At Denver, he joined a staff that included two other former Cardinals: right-handers John D’Acquisto and Steve Mura.

Hrabosky appeared in 26 games for Denver and made 15 starts, but he never got the call to Chicago from La Russa and Duncan. Hrabosky finished the Class AAA season with a 7-6 record and 5.82 ERA, giving up 135 hits in 116 innings.

At 34, his professional playing career was done.

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