June 22, 1975: Dan Quisenberry’s unique journey begins with complete-game win for Waterloo Royals

Side-armer Dan Quisenberry’s 16-season pitching career was known for its unconventional nature, and that pattern was set from his very first professional appearance, on June 22, 1975.

After being baptized in a Waterloo, Iowa, church that morning, the right-hander started the second game of a doubleheader for the Waterloo Royals of the Class A Midwest League. Quisenberry made his pro debut with a seven-inning, complete-game win over the Wausau (Wisconsin) Mets. It was his only start in a career that spanned 850 professional appearances.

An undrafted free agent from a small college, reliant on guile, “Quiz” unexpectedly became a dominant closer for the Kansas City Royals in the first half of the 1980s. He led the American League in saves five times, won five Rolaids Relief Man of the Year Awards, made three All-Star teams, and pitched in two World Series. Off the field, teammates, sportswriters, and fans adored him for his offbeat sense of humor and cerebral yet grounded personality.1

June 1975 found Quisenberry 22 years old and recently graduated from California’s La Verne College with a bachelor’s degree in religion.2 He’d won 19 games his senior season at La Verne and made the NAIA (National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics) All-America team, but his side-arm delivery and underwhelming stuff didn’t generate interest from pro teams.3

Quisenberry got a break when his college coach tipped off Kansas City scout Rosey Gilhousen. Gilhousen, who had previously scouted Quisenberry’s older brother, now signed the younger sibling.4 The pitcher was originally ticketed for the Royals’ Sarasota affiliate in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League. But Waterloo manager John Sullivan called the Royals’ front office to put in a claim on Quisenberry, saying he needed another arm.5

It was Quiz’s good fortune to join a juggernaut. Waterloo entered the June 22 doubleheader with a 47-13 record, 17 games ahead of second-place Dubuque in the Midwest League’s Northern Division.6 The Royals finished the season with a 93-35 record, good enough to earn them a spot on a 2001 list of the 100 best minor-league teams of all time.7

The most notable member of the Waterloo team was probably center fielder Willie Wilson, then a few weeks shy of 20 years old. Wilson had been the Royals’ first-round pick in the June 1974 amateur draft out of a New Jersey high school. He went on to a 19-season major-league career that included an AL batting title, a Gold Glove, two Silver Slugger Awards, two All-Star teams, and a 1985 World Series championship alongside Quisenberry in Kansas City.

Other future big-leaguers who started behind Quisenberry in his first game were second baseman Joe Gates, first baseman Charlie Beamon, and shortstop Germán Barranca. Quiz’s first pro catcher was Roy Tanner, a Florida-bred utilityman in his fourth of six minor-league seasons.8 Tanner’s career peaked at Class A; he later managed for four seasons in the low minor leagues, then became a scout.9 In a sign of Quisenberry’s low profile, the Waterloo newspaper’s game-day story referred to him as “Bob Kuisenberry, a California collegian recently signed.”10

Wausau, managed by former big-league infielder Owen Friend, was holding down the bottom of the Northern Division with a 21-35 record, 24 games behind Waterloo.11 Six members of the 1975 Mets went on to the major leagues, but only one, third baseman Manny Castillo, started in the second game.12

Quisenberry’s mound opponent was righty David Richardson, who entered with a 3-7 record and was appearing in his second and last pro season. Richardson had been chosen by the New York Mets in the 17th round of the June 1974 amateur draft out of high school in California. The umpiring crew consisted of Mark Wicker, who never reached the major leagues, and Tom Lepperd, who did.13

The first game of the doubleheader featured a 6-0, complete-game four-hit victory pitched by Royals lefty Ed Sempsrott. Sempsrott – an aspiring minister who planned to attend Bible college – had accompanied Quisenberry that morning to the Church of Christ on Normandy Street in Waterloo, where Quisenberry received his first baptism. “It took away all my fear,” Quisenberry told a reporter after the game.14

The Royals batters also helped ease any first-game jitters by handing their untested starter a lead in the bottom of the first. Gates drew a leadoff walk and left fielder Darrell Parker reached on an error by third baseman Castillo.15 Wilson’s single scored Gates and moved Parker to third, and Parker scored on Beamon’s groundout to second. Right fielder Karel deLeeuw then singled to right, bringing home the speedy Wilson for a 3-0 lead.16

Batterymates Tanner and Quisenberry manufactured another run in the second. Tanner led off with a single, and when Wausau left fielder Rafael Contreras threw the ball to first base, Tanner kept running to second. An errant pickoff throw by Richardson allowed Tanner to take third. Quisenberry tried a suicide squeeze, and his bunt rolled past charging Mets first baseman Ed Cipot for a single. Tanner scored to make the score 4-0.

Parker began the Royals’ third with a home run to left-center field, one of eight he hit that season, providing Quisenberry with a 5-0 cushion. Richardson lasted five innings for the Mets, giving up five runs – two earned – on five hits and four walks. He struck out one.

Meanwhile, Quisenberry was cruising through five innings. He’d allowed only two hits to the Mets over that span,17 and didn’t walk a batter all night.

Quisenberry landed in his first professional jam in the top of the sixth, when a single and a force play put a runner on first with one out. Castillo grounded to Beamon at first, but Beamon’s throw to second base hit runner Gene Quirk, and Castillo and Quirk were safe. Lefty-swinging Cipot then cranked a home run to right-center field, one of five he hit in 1975, to cut the Royals’ lead to 5-3.

The Mets weren’t done. Contreras hit a broken-bat single, then was forced at second. Catcher Stan Hough poked still another seeing-eye single behind second base – the Mets’ fourth hit of the frame – to put the tying runs on base. After a steadying mound visit from manager Sullivan, Quisenberry got center fielder Craig Skoglund to ground to shortstop, ending the inning.

Quisenberry allowed one more harmless hit, in the seventh, but shut down the Mets without a run to close the 5-3 win. He allowed seven hits and three runs – two earned – and struck out two to claim his first victory. The game ended in one hour and 39 minutes, and 1,231 people watched it.

“I was really relaxed out there. I wasn’t afraid at all,” Quisenberry said afterward. Manager Sullivan praised his pitcher’s control, even during the difficult sixth inning: “He wasn’t having any trouble – all his pitches were down. And when he was high, he was high inside where you would like him to be.”18

The doubleheader sweep enabled the Royals to close the first half of the season with a 49-13 record and a .790 winning percentage, reportedly the best half-season winning percentage in minor-league history, just nosing out the .786 half-season mark (66-18) posted by the 1934 Los Angeles Angels of the Double-A Pacific Coast League.19 The Mets closed the full season with a 51-77 record, 42 games out of first place.

Quisenberry contributed a 3-2 record, four saves, and a 2.45 ERA to Waterloo’s dominant 1975 performance. That began a rung-by-rung climb through Kansas City’s minor-league system, during which the unheralded side-armer fought through periods of disillusionment. He was finally rewarded with a major-league call-up in July 1979, debuting with 2 2/3 shutout innings against the Chicago White Sox on July 8. One of the most colorful and beloved – and effective – players of the 1980s was on his way.

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Harrison Golden and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for general player, team, and season data. Steve Wulf’s SABR Biography Project biography of Dan Quisenberry was also an important source for this story.

Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet do not offer box scores of minor-league games, but the June 23, 1975, editions of the Waterloo (Iowa) Courier and the Wausau (Wisconsin) Daily Herald printed box scores.

Image of unnumbered 1976 TCMA Waterloo Royals card of “Dan Quinsenberry” downloaded from the Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Steve Wulf, the author of the SABR Biography Project’s Dan Quisenberry biography, covered “Quiz” in person for outlets including Sports Illustrated magazine, and Wulf’s biography does a delightful job capturing the pitcher’s personality. “Dan Quisenberry,” SABR Biography Project, accessed June 2025, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/dan-quisenberry/.

2 Don Kruse, “Royals Do It! .790,” Waterloo (Iowa) Courier, June 23, 1975: 13. Since 1977, the school has been known as the University of La Verne.

3 Wulf, “Dan Quisenberry.” The NAIA is a college athletic association for smaller four-year schools in the United States.

4 According to Wulf, older brother Marty Quisenberry injured his arm and became a minister.

5 Kruse, “Royals Do It! .790.”

6 “Midwest League,” Waterloo Courier, June 22, 1975: 50.

7 Specifically, the 1975 Waterloo Royals held the 60th spot on the list. Historians Bill Weiss and Marshall Wright used a variety of factors to rank the teams, including league strength, winning percentage, and win total. “100 Best Minor League Baseball Teams of All Time,” Baseball-Reference BR Bullpen, accessed June 2025, https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/100_Best_Minor_League_Baseball_Teams.

8 Tanner made 97 appearances at second base, 75 in the outfield, 50 at catcher, and fewer than 10 apiece at first base and third base.

9 “Roy Tanner,” Baseball-Reference BR Bullpen, accessed June 2025, https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Roy_Tanner.

10 “Royals Still Have Shot at Record,” Waterloo Courier, June 22, 1975: 49.

11 “Midwest League.”

12 The others were catcher Ned Yost and pitchers Juan Berenguer, Roy Lee Jackson, John Pacella, and Cliff Speck.

13 The Sporting News umpire cards for Mark Wicker (https://retrosheet.org/TSNUmpireCards/Wicker-Mark.jpg) and Tom Lepperd (https://retrosheet.org/TSNUmpireCards/Lepperd-Thomas.jpg), accessed June 2025, as well as Lepperd’s major-league umpiring record on Retrosheet. Lepperd umpired 78 American League games between 1984 and 1986, but was never assigned to a Kansas City Royals game, and thus never worked a game involving Quisenberry at the major-league level. Lepperd later served as Major League Baseball’s director of umpire administration.

14 Kruse, “Royals Do It! .790.” Sempsrott had also arranged a spring-training baptism for teammate Barranca. As of June 2025, Sempsrott was listed online as lead pastor of the First Christian Church of El Centro, California. “Meet Our Team,” First Christian Church website, https://www.fccelcentro.com/leadership.

15 Coverage in the Waterloo and Wausau papers does not specify whether Castillo’s error was a fielding or throwing error.

16 Game action in this story is generally based on “Scoring Summaries,” Waterloo Courier, June 23, 1975: 14, with additional material from Kruse, “Royals Do It! .790” and “Mets Lose Twice, Play Dubious Role in New Pro Baseball Record,” Wausau (Wisconsin) Daily Herald, June 23, 1975: 15.

17 Kruse, “Royals Do It! .790.”

18 Kruse.

19 “Mets Lose Twice, Play Dubious Role in New Pro Baseball Record”; “Royals Still Have Shot at Record.”