RetroSimba

A string bean who slung sinkers with a sweeping sidearm motion, Wayne Granger peered warily from the mound as Hank Aaron took his stance in the batter’s box. It was the ninth inning, two outs, bases loaded, and the 1973 Cardinals led the Braves, 4-3, at Atlanta.

Granger had been in this spot before since getting to the majors with St. Louis in 1968. Aaron would wait for the right-handed reliever’s sinking fastball and bash it if it didn’t dip as it neared the plate.

This time, Granger told himself, he’d do it differently. He’d throw soft instead of hard.

“He was throwing that slow curveball,” Aaron said to Dick Kaegel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “and it just kept getting slower and slower and slower, and slower and slower and slower.”

Aaron took the first pitch for ball one. He fouled off the second, looked at strike two and watched another go by for ball two. Tension building on every pitch, he fouled off seven in a row. Four of the fouls sailed deep into the seats in left.

“I wasn’t about to turn up one notch to his speed,” Granger said to the Atlanta Journal. His offerings to Aaron were “my slop pitch, a sort of slider-curve thrown underhanded,” Granger told the Post-Dispatch

Finally, on Granger’s 12th pitch to him, Aaron lofted a shallow fly to Lou Brock in left for the game-ending out.

“I love that kind of situation _ except he won,” Aaron told the Journal. Boxscore

Finding his form

Granger might have become Aaron’s teammate if not for a scout changing jobs.

Pitching for a semipro team in his home state of Massachusetts, “I was all set to sign with the Braves in the fall of 1964,” Granger recalled to Wilt Browning of the Atlanta Journal. “Jeff Jones, who was the regional scout for the Braves in New England, had made me a good offer, but he asked me to wait until the first of the year. He didn’t say why, but he said it was something good. Then he called me on the first of January and asked me if I’d like to sign with the world champions.”

Jones had jumped from the Braves to the Cardinals, the 1964 World Series champions. The Cardinals agreed to give Granger the $20,000 bonus Jones had offered when he worked for the Braves. Granger, who turned 21 in 1965, followed the money, signing with St. Louis.

At 6-foot-2 and 165 pounds, Granger was a broomstick. “He might be mistaken for Ichabod Crane,” the Tulsa World noted. According to the Post-Dispatch, “He’s so skinny that you couldn’t get three digits on the back of his uniform.”

“Other pitchers complained of sore muscles,” Granger told the Cincinnati Enquirer, “but I didn’t have any muscles to get sore.”

The Cardinals tried him as a starter his first season in their farm system. Granger threw overhand then. Though he totaled 200 innings, “I just didn’t throw with enough velocity to (eventually) get the ball past major league hitters,” Granger told the New York Times, “so I switched from a three-quarter motion to sidearm, where my natural sinker is much more effective.”

Granger broke a thumb on a rundown play at 1966 spring training. When he recovered, Arkansas manager Vern Rapp had Granger work himself into condition in the bullpen. Granger did so well as a reliever that Rapp kept him in that role. Granger responded with an 11-2 record and 1.80 ERA.

Promoted to Tulsa in 1967, Granger came under the guidance of its manager, Warren Spahn.

“The luckiest break I had in my career was when I had Warren Spahn as my manager,” Granger said to Arthur Daley of the New York Times. “He’s to pitching what Ted Williams is to hitting. It’s a pure science to them. They know absolutely everything there is to know about their specialties.

“Spahnie told me about the instructions he once had given Del Crandall, his catcher. ‘When you give a target,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to see the glove. I want to be able to see the pocket of the glove so that I can feel I’m looking down a funnel at the precise target, and that’s where I want to put the ball.’ He taught me concentration. I can’t throw within the six-inch circle he used to target, but I can hit it one out of three times and come close enough on the others.”

Redbirds to Reds

Called up to the Cardinals in May 1968, Granger’s sidearm sinker baffled National League batters. He totaled four wins, four saves and posted a 2.25 ERA in 34 games. Asked what was the best thing about being a big-leaguer, Granger replied to the Enquirer, “Getting up at noon and going to have a steak and then going to the ballpark to play a boy’s game.”

In the 1968 World Series, the rookie made one appearance, mopping up in Game 6 when the Tigers led, 13-0. “Nervous as hell,” Granger recalled to the Orlando Sentinel. After hitting Al Kaline with a pitch in the eighth inning, “I got a lot more nervous,” Granger said. Then he plunked Willie Horton, too. Boxscore

On the day after the Tigers won Game 7, Granger and Bobby Tolan were sent to the Reds for Vada Pinson. One reason Granger was included was the Cardinals didn’t think they could protect him from being taken in the Oct. 14, 1968, National League expansion draft. In addition to their core veterans, the Cardinals had prospects Jerry Reuss and Ted Simmons among the 15 players on their protected list. Rather than lose Granger to the draft, the Cardinals offered him to help land Pinson, a player they coveted to replace Roger Maris, who retired.

(In an unusual twist, Granger and Tolan continued to play for the Cardinals for a while after the trade. The Reds gave permission for Granger and Tolan to participate in the Cardinals’ 18-game goodwill tour of Japan in fall 1968. Granger was 5-0 for the Cardinals against Japanese all-star teams.  “The Japanese baseball is smaller than ours,” Granger told John Hollis of the Houston Post. “I swear I threw a pitch one time that dropped three feet. You can make that Japanese baseball do a lot of funny things.”)

Reds general manager Bob Howsam, who had the same title with the Cardinals when Granger and Tolan were in the St. Louis farm system, was delighted to acquire the pair. “It had to come close to being the worst trade St. Louis ever made,” Arthur Daley of the Times declared.

While Pinson disappointed and lasted one season in St. Louis, Granger and Tolan had breakout years for the 1969 Reds. Tolan batted .305 with 93 RBI and 26 stolen bases. Granger pitched in 90 games and had nine wins, 27 saves and a 2.80 ERA. Enquirer columnist Barry McDermott described the lanky reliever as “a 165-pounder with a 500-pound arm and 1,000-pound heart.”

“He’s the coolest individual I’ve ever seen under pressure,” Reds manager Dave Bristol told the newspaper. “Nothing seems to bother him.”

In 1970, with Sparky Anderson as manager, the Reds won the pennant and Tolan and Granger were key contributors. Tolan hit .316 with 80 RBI and 57 steals. Granger had 35 saves and a 2.66 ERA. “His sidearm ball zings in with whiplash effect,” the New York Times observed.

(Granger did not pitch well, though, in the 1970 World Series. In Game 3, he gave up a grand slam to Orioles pitcher Dave McNally. “”It was probably the worst pitch in baseball history,” Granger told the Enquirer. Boxscore, Video

Turn on the power

The zip began disappearing from Granger’s sinker. As he told the Orlando Sentinel, “From 1971 on, it was a downhill race.” He ended up pitching for seven clubs in nine big-league seasons. The Cardinals reacquired Granger in November 1972 and it turned out to be another bad deal for them. They gave up Larry Hisle and John Cumberland to get him. Granger was 2-4 with five saves and a 4.24 ERA for the 1973 Cardinals before they shipped him to the Yankees.

This post, though, started with a story about Granger and Hank Aaron, so it’s fitting that it ends with a story about a home run.

In a most unlikely scenario, Granger made like Babe Ruth, calling his shot, and swatting the lone home run of his professional career.

On July 9, 1971, Granger retired five Mets batters in a row. With the Reds ahead, 5-3, in the eighth, Sparky Anderson wanted to keep Granger in the game, so he let him bat with two outs, none on, against Ray Sadecki, the former Cardinal.

Granger rarely batted. He’d never produced a RBI or extra-base hit since coming to the majors.

He grabbed a bat belonging to slugger Lee May and went to face Sadecki. Reds pitching coach Larry Shepard yelled out, “Take a good cut, Wayne.” Granger yelled back, “You watch this swing,” and then pointed to the center field stands.

Granger took a big swing at Sadecki’s first pitch and missed it by a foot. He took a similar hack at the second pitch. This time, the skinny man got the fat part of the bat on the ball, and it carried over the wall in left-center for a home run.

As Granger trotted around the bases, his teammate, Jim Merritt, was stretched out in the dugout as though he had fainted, the Dayton Journal Herald reported.

Granger told the Troy Daily News, “I never hit a ball that far before.” Boxscore

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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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In a move more desperate than daring, the Cardinals attempted to bolster their starting rotation by acquiring a retired pitcher who’d been through a bankruptcy, admitted to having been a problem drinker and was thought to have lost velocity on his pitches.

Ron Bryant, a left-hander who followed a 24-12 record for the 1973 Giants with a 3-15 mark in 1974, then went on baseball’s voluntarily retired list, was dealt to the Cardinals in May 1975. Two months later, they released him.

The Cardinals paid a high price to find out Bryant was washed up. A prospect they traded for him, Larry Herndon, developed into one of the National League’s top rookies in 1976, then became a starting outfielder for the 1984 World Series champion Tigers.

Opportunity knocks

In 1965, Giants scout Eddie Montague went to see a California high school infielder, Bob Heise, play for Vacaville. The opposing pitcher, Ron Bryant of Davis, threw a no-hitter.

On Montague’s recommendation, the Giants drafted Bryant in the 22nd round. He signed the day after his graduation but had low expectations for his baseball career. “I just didn’t believe I had the ability to make the big leagues,” he later said to the Atlanta Constitution. “I didn’t think I had the fastball or anything else.”

Bryant didn’t strike out many _ “I can’t. I am just not an overpowering pitcher,” he told the Atlanta newspaper _ but “he pitched cleverly,” Glenn Dickey of the San Francisco Chronicle noted, and made it to the majors with the Giants as a reliever and spot starter.

The Giants’ equipment man, Mike Murphy, nicknamed Bryant “Bear” because of his resemblance to the animal, not the football coach. Bryant was 6-foot and 210 pounds and “looked like a bear, with his chunky build, his way of walking and his curly hair,” Murphy told The Sporting News.

A performance against the Cardinals in April 1971 earned Bryant a spot in the starting rotation. When Frank Reberger developed a shoulder problem and departed after allowing the first two Cardinals batters to reach base, Bryant relieved, pitched nine innings and got the win. “A major turning point,” he told The Sporting News. “If I hadn’t had that opportunity, or hadn’t pitched well, I might have stayed in the bullpen.” Boxscore

Five days later, Bryant pitched a three-hitter against the Pirates for his first shutout. Boxscore

The Cardinals were involved in another pivotal game for Bryant in June 1972. With one out in the eighth inning and the Giants ahead, 3-0, manager Charlie Fox removed Bryant for a reliever. After the Cardinals rallied and won, Bryant criticized Fox for taking him out. Boxscore

In his next start, against the Cubs, Fox left Bryant alone and he pitched a two-hit shutout. As Bryant headed for the dugout after the final out, Fox came onto the field and bowed to the pitcher. Boxscore

Bryant went on a six-game winning streak and finished the 1972 season with a 14-7 record, including four shutouts, and 2.90 ERA.

Good and bad

While Bryant was progressing on the field, he was having trouble away from baseball. The pitcher and his wife filed for bankruptcy in November 1972, the San Francisco Examiner reported.

After a loss to the Cardinals in May 1973, Bryant’s season record was 3-3. Then, while watching game film, he discovered a flaw in how he was releasing the ball. Bryant made a correction and won eight in a row. Video at 9:20

Bryant stacked up wins faster than any pitcher in the league. He won his 20th before September and finished with 24, most for a Giants left-hander since Carl Hubbell had 26 in 1936. The Sacramento Zoo named a 10-month-old sloth bear in honor of the pitcher nicknamed Bear.

It should have been the best of times for Bryant but it wasn’t. He and his wife divorced. Then there was the drinking. Bryant “drank considerably,” Art Spander of the San Francisco Chronicle noted.

During the 1973 season, Charlie Fox found Bryant “lurking in the hotel bar once too often and pushed him out the door,” according to columnist Wells Twombly.

Glenn Dickey of the Chronicle wrote of Bryant’s 24-win season, “There is no question that the attention went to his head. He drank too much and his marriage disintegrated. Nothing he ever did was intended maliciously, but he did a lot of damage to people, including himself.”

“Drinking had been one of my problems,” Bryant told The Sporting News.

Slip sliding away

When Bryant reported to 1974 spring training, “he was desperately overweight,” Wells Twombly reported. “Not only that, he was living from beer to beer and nearly everybody knew it.”

After a Cactus League game in Yuma, Ariz., the Giants took a bus ride across the desert to Palm Springs, Calif. Shortly after 8 p.m., they arrived at the Tropics, a Polynesian-styled resort that featured a coffee shop (regrettably named Sambo’s), two cocktail lounges (The Reef and The Cellar) and a steakhouse (The Congo Room). The place became a celebrity hangout in the 1960s. Victor Mature (who played opposite Hedy Lamarr in “Samson and Delilah”) had a private table in The Congo Room. Elvis Presley and Nancy Sinatra used to relax by the pool.

The pool looked inviting to Bryant. About 11 p.m., the Bear went belly-flopping down a slide, lost control, tumbled off and slammed into the concrete edge of the pool, opening a gash near his right rib cage. Some 30 stitches were required, The Sporting News reported.

Bryant said drinking didn’t cause the mishap (he’d had two beers, the Examiner reported), but that was no solace to Charlie Fox, who called it “an unfortunate, silly accident,” the Examiner reported.

Sidelined for six weeks, Bryant was ineffective when he returned. His 3-15 record included an 0-2 mark against the Cardinals.

“That pool accident threw everything out of whack,” Bryant told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It preyed on my mind. What happened was my own fault, nobody else’s … I have to admit I should have had more dedication.”

Coming and going

In December 1974, Bryant and his wife remarried and he gave up drinking. However, he came to 1975 spring training at close to 220 pounds, The Sporting News reported, and performed inconsistently. “He would pitch well to a couple of batters and then his mind would wander,” the San Francisco Chronicle observed.

Wes Westrum, who replaced Charlie Fox as manager, said Bryant showed “no velocity” on his pitches, The Sporting News reported. Pitching coach Don McMahon concurred, saying Bryant’s “velocity and control were off.”

Just before the season began, Bryant, 27, told the Giants he was retiring.

“I don’t think there’s any chance I’ll change my mind … I’m not really enjoying playing,” he said to the Oakland Tribune.

Two weeks later, Bryant changed his mind. He asked the Giants to reinstate him, but baseball rules required he had to wait until the season was 60 days old before he could pitch in a regular-season game. For Bryant, that meant June 6.

Uninterested in keeping him, the Giants looked to make a trade. To their glee, the Cardinals agreed to give up two prospects, pitcher Tony Gonzalez and outfielder Larry Herndon, to get him. The deal was made on May 9, 1975.

Unsatisfied with the performances of John Denny and 39-year-old Bob Gibson, the Cardinals were looking to revamp their starting rotation. After dealing for Bryant, they acquired Ron Reed from the Braves. Denny was demoted to the minors, Gibson got banished to the bullpen and Bryant and Reed were tabbed to replace them as starters.

To get much-needed work, the Cardinals sent Bryant to extended spring training in Florida. Primarily facing minor-league rookies whose low-level summer leagues hadn’t started yet, Bryant allowed one hit in six innings.

Next, the Cardinals chose him to start in a June 5 exhibition game against their Class AAA team at Tulsa. It was a disaster. Bryant allowed nine runs and 12 hits in 4.1 innings. “Lots of the time, I didn’t have much of an idea of what I was doing out there,” he confessed to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Nonetheless, the Cardinals activated him. Pitching in relief, he faced three batters in his first appearance and allowed three hits. Boxscore

Then came a start against the Pirates. Bryant gave up two home runs _ a two-run wallop by Willie Stargell and a three-run rocket from Rennie Stennett _ and retired just three batters before being relieved by Gibson. Boxscore

Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst saw enough. He removed Bryant from the starting rotation and put Gibson back in.

Given a chance at relief work, Bryant mostly was ineffective. The Cardinals asked him to accept a demotion to Tulsa but he refused. “If he’d have gone down to Tulsa, where he could do some pitching, he could have come back to spring training (in 1976) and helped us,” Schoendienst told the Post-Dispatch.

Instead, the Cardinals released Bryant on July 31, 1975. In 10 appearances covering 8.2 innings for them, he was 0-1 with a 16.62 ERA.

Two years after leading the National League with 24 wins, Bryant was finished as a big-league pitcher.

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