Jaffe: Baseball mourns the loss of ‘One Tough Dominican,” Joaquin Andujar
From SABR member Jay Jaffe at SI.com on September 8, 2015:
The baseball world lost “One Tough Dominican” and one of its more colorful personalities on Tuesday, when Joaquin Andujar died at the age of 62 following a lengthy battle with diabetes. Hot-tempered, demonstrative on the mound and eminently quotable, the four-time All-Star and hero of the 1982 World Series blazed a trail from the Dominican Republic to the mound that the likes of Ramon and Pedro Martinez and Bartolo Colon would follow, leaving an indelible mark on the game during his 13-year major league tenure.
For his career, which ran from 1976 to ’88 with the Astros, Cardinals and Athletics, Andujar went 127–118 with a 3.58 ERA (99 ERA+), 4.3 strikeouts per nine and 16.8 WAR. However, those numbers hardly capture his flair, his capacity for intimidation on the mound, his unpredictability or his humility when it came to his path from sugar cane country to big-league stardom.
“My favorite word in English, and I love this word,” Andujar told Sports Illustrated’s Steve Wulf for a memorable 1983 profile, “is ‘youneverknow.’”
Read the full article here: http://www.si.com/mlb/2015/09/08/joaquin-andujar-obituary-pitcher-dominican-republic
Originally published: September 9, 2015. Last Updated: September 9, 2015.