Matt could handle the bat and almost any position. However, he was in the field in just 138 games, while pinch-running some 271 times. In that role, he holds the major-league records not only for appearances but also for stolen bases (91) and runs scored (89). Unfortunately for him, he was pigeonholed. Pittsburgh sportswriter Phil Musick got Alexander’s views on this subject in spring training 1979.

“No one’s ever given me the time to show what I can do,” he says, a lean, tightly-muscled sprinter’s body slipping into uniform. “What people don’t understand is that it’s never a lack of opportunity, just time. I could hit .260 if I played every day up here. Maybe .270, .280 with a good hitting instructor. But a lot of the time, when a player’s called up, it’s those first few weeks that count. If you don’t get in the lineup, you become an extra man the rest of your career.”1

Although Alexander was an observer most of the time, he turned this position to his advantage. “It taught me a lot about the game,” he said in an interview with the author in 2009. “All aspects: hitting, fielding, staying focused, paying attention. I got so I could tell when I was going to be used. A couple of times, I got caught off guard in early innings, but it would always be a situation where it was important to the game.”2

Matthew Alexander Jr. was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, on January 30, 1947. He was the baby among four children. Along with his older brother, Lloyd Joiner, and sister, Barbara McMillian, he also had a half-sister, Mathis Lee Robinson. Matthew Sr. worked in construction as a cement finisher, while mother Gertrude Wooten Alexander worked in private homes.

“Sonny” came to baseball at an early age. “I always loved the game from childhood,” he remembered. “I was swinging a stick or bat from the time I was 4 years old. We used to play a game called ‘straight base’ as kids — it was home and just one other base in a straight line. Then when I was older, in downtown Shreveport, we used to play baseball on Sundays.”

“My stepdad used to take me to the Shreveport Sports games on Saturdays and Sundays. Back then, blacks had to enter at the side [at the stadium then known as Texas League Park].” In 1957, the African-American citizens of Shreveport launched a boycott against the Sports franchise and the state of Louisiana’s recently imposed ban on interracial sports. In response to plunging attendance (among both black and white fans), Sports owner Bonneau Peters — who had openly stated that no black would ever play on his team3 — sold the club after that season.4 Alexander, who was then only 10, does not remember the boycott — but he does remember Peters’ statement. “I had a vision that one day I’d play at that field,” he said, “and I did, with Midland in 1972. It was a dream come true.”

At Bethune High School, Matt made the all-city basketball team as a guard. “I was short but quick. I averaged 14 points a game and I was the captain. I played football too, I was a running back and quarterback, but I was too small.” Despite his speed, Alexander never ran track except to satisfy a phys ed requirement. One surprising note is that in all his years as an athlete, nobody ever clocked him with a stopwatch.

At that time, Matt was a pitcher in baseball. “I always had a strong arm,” he said. Bethune won the Louisiana State AAA championship during his senior year, and one of Matt’s two playoff wins came against his future teammate with the Oakland A’s, Vida Blue of DeSoto High in Mansfield. When they met again in 1975, “Vida would bring it up, but I didn’t. I wasn’t a guy to rub things in. I liked to stay calm and collected.”

Matt earned a scholarship to Grambling State University, a historically black institution about 65 miles east of Shreveport. Although best known for its football program, Grambling has produced 12 big-league baseball players over the years. Tommie Agee and Ralph Garr were the most successful of these men; Alexander was a year behind Garr. Another big-league outfielder who played for the Tigers, fellow Shreveport native John Jeter, inspired Matt to follow him. “I had other scholarships, including Southern University, but I always wanted Grambling. It was down the road and I could come home weekends.”

A profound influence on Matt and many other Grambling alumni was Ralph Waldo Emerson “Prez” Jones, who served the university for 51 years (1926-1977). Jones was Grambling’s president for the last 41 years of that time; he formed the baseball and football teams and was baseball coach throughout his tenure. “I want to really thank him,” Alexander said. “He was good — really good. He had his own way of teaching you about the game, and he gave me a chance to further my education.”

Longtime Pirates scout Lenny Yochim, a New Orleans native who would later help save Matt’s career, also tipped his cap to Jones. “I enjoyed scouting Grambling,” Yochim said. “[Jones] had clout, his players were sharp, humble, courteous, attentive, well schooled in baseball and obedient to their leader. His teams conducted infield drills that would outshine major-league clubs. When they were finished a scout could leave there satisfied he saw what a player could do. Does he have arm strength, body control, agility, quick reflexes, can he come in on a slow hit ball and make the body control play, catching the ball on the run and throwing with accuracy. The coach was well respected in baseball and as a person.”5

Matt, who had switched to the infield, made the Southwest Athletic Conference’s all-conference team twice in three years. He hit .377 in both 1967 and 1968. “I’m glad I didn’t pitch,” he said in 2009. “We had guys who could really throw.” One was Jophery Brown, who pitched one game for the Cubs in 1968 and then went to Hollywood as a bit-part actor and top stuntman. “We didn’t realize how good we were — we just went out and played. Scouts came out, and then we’d realize. There was a lot of good raw talent. Six guys signed off the ’67 team.”

“I didn’t know Ralph Garr before Grambling, but I got to know him real well. He was the first player I met who could talk trash and then go out and back it up on the field. He taught me a lot about confidence.”

During the summer of ’67, Alexander played for the Liberal (Kansas) Beejays in the Jayhawk League. This summer collegiate baseball league boasts a high caliber of play; since their inception in 1955, the BeeJays alone have sent 165 alumni to the majors, as of 2008.

On June 7, 1968, after Matt’s junior year, the Chicago Cubs selected him in the second round of the amateur draft. The scout who recommended him was legendary Negro Leaguer Buck O’Neil, who found a lot of young African-American talent in the Deep South for the Cubs. “He’d call you ‘lad,’” Matt remembered. “He had a really deep voice. He was the ‘cleanest’ man I’ve ever seen — he could really dress! He always looked sharp and wore nice shoes. If he wore sandals, those were some sandals.”

“Buck told me, ‘Keep on playing hard,’ and I did. The draft, that just shocked me. I thought I’d be drafted, but low. I was parking cars in Shreveport when a friend told me I went in the second round. I quit the job right on the spot and ran home. All I could think was, ‘I’m in the game. I’m going to get some money!’”

Matt signed on July 9 after some negotiating. “Ralph Rickey, the top pick, got $50,000, and I held out for $30,000. The Cubs offered $20,000 because there was a question on my arm. I’d gotten hurt and wasn’t showing velocity. Buck needed to work me out again. I wouldn’t sign until I got $25,000.” Within the week after signing, he married Rose Marie Williams, whom he had met at Grambling, where she worked in the cafeteria. “We were engaged at that time. Once I knew I had money and could support her, we went ahead.”

Alexander then reported to rookie ball with the Caldwell (Idaho) Cubs in the Pioneer League. His respectable showing (.261 average, one homer, 10 RBIs) won him a berth on the league’s All-Star team at second base. Matt then had to weigh a tradeoff. “I went back to Grambling for one semester in the fall of 1968, but I never graduated. At first, I thought going back to school was a good thing, and it was, but I missed Instructional League. Another guy Buck signed kept playing and made Double-A the next spring [rising to the majors the same year]. That was Oscar Gamble.”

Alexander was promoted to the Class-A Midwest League in 1969. With the Quincy Cubs, the switch-hitter hit .274 with 8 home runs and 32 RBIs and then jumped to the San Antonio Missions in the Double-A Texas League (.303-1-13).6 It appeared that he was moving briskly up the ladder with the Cubs, but then he missed two full seasons in military service.

“When I left college, my draft status changed to 1A. I was drafted in the Army, but George Freese [then a Cubs scout] knew some people in the Navy. I was told to go volunteer, then they’ll work it out so I could get in Special Services and play some ball.” In both 1970 and 1971, Alexander was with the Hawaii SubPac Raiders, a Navy team out of Pearl Harbor. Among other opponents, the Raiders traveled to Fairbanks to face the Alaska Goldpanners.

When asked if his time in the service threw a wrench in his pro career, he said, “It slowed me down, I was going at a good pace. But I look back and I’m glad. I matured as a man and got to travel.”

After his discharge, the Cubs sent Alexander to the Arizona Instructional League in 1971 and invited him to spring training with the big club in 1972. He made it to the last round of cuts. His initial assignment was Triple-A Wichita, but before playing a game there, he went back to Double-A. He spent the entire season with the Midland Cubs (.270-5-45) and then played winter ball for the first time. He went to Ciudad Obregón, Mexico, in La Liga Mexicana del Pacífico (LMP).

The manager of the Obregón Yaquis in the winter of 1972-73 was Dave García, then a coach with the San Diego Padres. “Obregón needed speed,” Alexander recalled. “Dave García looked in the Texas League stats and saw me leading the league in steals.” The Yaquis were league champions that winter, led by the native-born Romo brothers, Enrique — Matt’s future teammate with the ’79 Pirates — and Vicente. Other big leaguers on the squad included Johnny Grubb, Derrel Thomas, and Dave Hilton from the Padres system, as well as veteran Jim Campanis. The Yaquis went on to compete in the Caribbean Series in Venezuela, but went just 1-5; Alexander collected 6 hits in 27 at-bats.

Alexander followed up with a promising season at Wichita in 1973 (.309-2-51). On August 23, he made his big-league debut at Wrigley Field. It was a sign of things to come — he pinch-ran for Ron Santo in the 10th inning and scored the tying run as the Cubs pulled out a 4-3 win.

With Ciudad Obregón once more in the winter of 1973-74 (.245-2-19), Alexander got to play in another Caribbean Series. Mexico fielded two teams in the tourney that year, as the second-place Yaquis replaced Venezuela, whose players were striking. Alexander went 7-for-27 as his team split its six games. He followed up by making the Chicago roster out of spring training in 1974. In the middle of May, after Bill Madlock had sprained an ankle, Alexander got a trial of roughly three weeks as the Cubs’ starting third baseman, including several games as the leadoff man. When Madlock returned, though, Alexander (who was also slowed by a pulled leg muscle) was left with spot duty. The Cubs sent him down to Wichita in late July and outrighted him there after the season. (He recalled playing in Mexico again that winter, but there may be a gap in the records.)

On April 28, 1975, the Cubs traded Alexander to the Oakland A’s for pitcher Howell “Buddy” Copeland in a minor-league deal. Oakland was about to end its experiment with track star Herb Washington as pinch-runner deluxe. Despite his world-class speed, Washington did not know or have instincts for the game, and he was simply too limited. The club needed a true ballplayer to fill the specialist role — in fact, it added two. Reggie Jackson said, “We’ve got these two new guys — Alexander and [Don] Hopkins — and they can do other things, plus they run the bases better than Washington.” Even A’s owner Charlie Finley, the original proponent of “designated runners,” concurred. “We’ve got to have pinch-runners who can steal bases and also do other things.”7

Somehow manager Alvin Dark found a way to get Hopkins into 82 games and Alexander into 63 that season. Between them, they totaled 19 plate appearances. Unfortunately, Alexander suffered a shattered eye socket in early June from a batting-practice grounder, but he won the respect of his teammates as the more complete player. “He’s the best,” said Gene Tenace. “Definitely. The other two can’t compare with him.”8

When the A’s met the Red Sox in the playoffs, however, they kept both Hopkins and Alexander on the roster. Between them, Hopkins got the lone appearance that Dark found necessary; oddly enough, it was as a pinch-hitter.

Alexander also acquired his nickname — “The Scat” — courtesy of Oakland announcer Monte Moore. “At first, I didn’t understand it,” he remarked. “But it stuck, and I thought it was perfect.”

In 1976, the A’s — under new manager Chuck Tanner — stole 341 bases, a record in the post-Deadball era. They kept two specialist runners. Hopkins was sent down, though; former Expo and Cardinal Larry Lintz took his place. Alexander remained with Oakland the entire season, while Lintz played briefly at Triple A. Alexander did not lack confidence: In 1976, he once challenged Thurman Munson, “You better make a perfect throw,” but the Yankees’ captain gunned him down. Perhaps the missing edge was his golf spikes, which he had worn throughout 1975 and early ’76, until Rangers manager Frank Lucchesi blew the whistle.

“I’d say, ‘You better get ready’ as a psych game with the catchers,” Alexander recalled. “The best I faced was Jim Sundberg. He was quick and had a strong, accurate arm. He could throw it in a small square box over second base. Outside that box, it was going to be tight, but I’d usually win. Who was going to make a mistake? That’s who’d lose.” It was like a chess match. Along with Sundberg, Alexander put Steve Yeager and Gary Carter in his top three opposing catchers. “Munson had a quick release, but he would often throw sidearm, so his ball would tail.”

The A’s roster showed much the same pattern in 1977, although Lintz was sent down for a longer stretch in midseason. Over those two years, the two men played in vastly more games than they had plate appearances. However, one of Charlie Finley’s odder experiments took place on a road trip from May 23 through June 2, 1977. Finley and new manager Jack McKeon (who would be fired on June 10) had Alexander lead off eight games and listed him as the starting shortstop. Yet each time they pulled Matt after his first at-bat for Rob Picciolo.

“Charlie Finley had some brilliant ideas,” said Alexander. “He made the lineup out himself every day. Alvin Dark and them just wrote the lineup down. The idea with me was to try to produce a run in the very first inning. I would look to get on base any way I could, then play my role without wasting a player.”

“There was a lot of pressure in Oakland. You [as a pinch-runner] had to go on the first or second pitch or get fined. But I’ll tell you what Finley was doing, he was giving the batter more of a chance to hit.”

Alexander stole a major-league career-high 26 bases in 1977, though he was caught 14 times, and also batted .238. “When I hit, Finley thought I’d put pressure on him to start! He told me not to get ideas.” Alexander didn’t make waves — “I’d seen him release guys on the spot. There was one guy who hurt his Achilles playing flag football, and when Finley found out, he was gone. I also remember John Jeter fell short [getting released by the Indians in 1975] because he was talking trash about not getting playing time for Frank Robinson.”

Back in Mexico during the winters, Alexander was the Liga Mexicana del Pacífico’s top base stealer in both 1976-77 (17 for the Guaymas Ostioneros) and 1977-78 (20 for the Hermosillo Naranjeros). In February 1978, though, he came down with a case of hepatitis in Mexico. “It wasn’t the contagious kind. I was taking medications for an ailment I had, and my liver reacted badly to the chemical toxin.” He never made it to spring training, and on March 31, Finley — in a move that could well have been illegal — released him.

He returned home, attended barber college “with a little money from the GI Bill,” and played with a local team called the Shreveport All-Stars on Sundays. “He thought about needing just 24 more days in the major leagues to get his pension, and how there aren’t any pensions for barbers.”9

“The phone hadn’t rung in early August, so Alexander did something uncharacteristic. He got impatient and called Pirates scout Lenny Yochim. The word got to Chuck Tanner [who had become Pittsburgh’s manager in 1977].”10

Lenny Yochim expanded: “I asked him if he was in playing shape and he said yes. I asked him if he was in running shape and he said yes. I asked him to be honest with me because he would have to come off the bench running. In all probability he wouldn’t be asked to pinch-hit. He assured me he was ready. Matthew was a good person and I trusted him in what he gave me.

“I told him to call Chuck Tanner. I told him that Chuck liked what he could do to help the club and that our club didn’t have anyone to fill the role as an extra as well as Matt. Matthew was very instrumental in the success of the Pirates in 1979. He called Chuck and they connected. I sure was happy for Matthew.”11

Alexander responded, “I’m still grateful to know Lenny.” He remembered, “I got called in for a workout [at Three Rivers Stadium], and I was running from pole to pole.” There wasn’t going to be a spot right away, but on September 1, when the rosters expanded, the Pirates added the free agent as Tanner had promised. On September 21, Alexander showed how he could influence a game. In the top of the 14th inning against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, he stole second and scored as Dave Rader’s throw went into center field and center fielder Bobby Murcer’s throw hit him in the back as he took third. “‘I’m still a little peaked [from the illness] but I can do the job. It’s not how fast you run. It’s how you do the job,’ said Alexander.”12

“I was just grateful for the pension time,” Alexander said in 2009, “but it turned out to be so much more. Pittsburgh was the best highlight of my life and career. With the Cubs, I couldn’t see the whole picture. I was lost. I think I was hid because if I was in the minors somebody else would have wanted me. With the A’s, I was wanted, but there was pressure. With Pittsburgh, it was, ‘We respect your talent. You’re a ballplayer.’ It was a joy, a relaxation. It brought the best out of me.”

In 1979, Alexander spent a couple of stretches at Double-A Buffalo. The Pirates faced some temporary roster needs, and as the 25th man, he was “on the bubble.” In fact, he was outrighted to Buffalo in July. He had to pass through irrevocable waivers in August before the Pirates could recall him. There was a good explanation, though. “Chuck didn’t send me to the Triple-A club, which was Portland, because he didn’t want to make me move my family across the country. They kept me close, they knew they were bringing me back.”

Alexander occasionally spelled center fielder Omar Moreno, who was early in a streak of 503 consecutive games played, as well as Dave Parker in right. He went 7-for-13 (.538), which partly offset his 1-for-30 showing with Oakland in 1976. That fall, Time magazine described the intangible spirit Matt brought to the club:

“He developed baseball’s equivalent to spiking a football: Whenever he reached home plate, he would turn around and dance across it backward.

“Each time he earned applause from his teammates and an understanding smile from Tanner. ‘Just because you play baseball for a living doesn’t mean it has to be a job,’ he says. ‘You ought to have fun playing in the big leagues just like you did when you were a little kid, because the more you enjoy it, the better you play.’”13

Everything broke right for the Pirates that year. Alexander recalled how the manager won games with some unorthodox tactical maneuvers. He pointed to a game at Three Rivers Stadium on August 5. Steve Nicosia had gone 4-for-4 that afternoon, but Tanner lifted him for pinch-hitter John Milner with the score tied 8-8, the bases loaded, and two out in the ninth inning. Phillies manager Danny Ozark then pulled righty Rawly Eastwick in favor of southpaw Tug McGraw. Even so, Tanner stuck with the lefty Milner. Chuck kept his reasons close to the vest with the newspapers, but as Alexander told it in retrospect, the skipper knew that McGraw’s screwball would break away from “The Hammer.” Milner then won the game with a grand slam as McGraw eschewed his out pitch for a fastball.

Alexander made one appearance in the National League Championship Series against the Reds. Running for Tim Foli in Game One, he scored the go-ahead run in the 11th inning as the Pirates won, 5-2. An Associated Press photo shows him leaping with joy as Willie “Pops” Stargell’s three-run homer off Tom Hume left Riverfront Stadium.

Rain postponed the start of the 1979 World Series, but Alexander put the skills he’d learned the previous year to use. “Matt Alexander, the Pirates’ running specialist, was . . . engrossed in his role as resident barber, cutting the hair and trimming the beards of Dave Parker, John Milner, Bill Madlock, Manny Sanguillén, and Mike Easler.”14 A UPI photo captured Alexander wielding his electric clipper as Parker relaxed with a cloth around his neck.

Alexander also appeared just once in the World Series; Orioles catcher Rick Dempsey caught him stealing in the ninth inning of Game Two. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted, “You could almost hear Matt Alexander turn feverish for another chance to try. . . . ‘Dempsey was the first catcher to throw me out this year. I was going against the elements. It was raining and the basepaths were wet. I do respect Dempsey, but it will only be after this Series that I can say whether he’s good, average, or great.’”15 Alexander stayed in to play left field for the remaining half-inning of the game but saw no further action after that.

In 2004, Chuck Tanner looked back on his champion club after a quarter-century. He said, “We had 25 MVPs on the team because everyone contributed to the cause.”16 There were many different sides to that team, and one of them was spiritual. Catcher Manny Sanguillén said, “I think our club has the most Christians.” Alexander added, “We act like fools but we worship together and play ball together.”17

Alexander, who attends the club’s reunions every five years, emphasized the family atmosphere as he reminisced 30 years later. “It was guys who hung out together, guys that could communicate together. It was wild and crazy, like a zoo. You had to be there. But when it was time to go play, it was serious business. And when we won, it was such a release of pressure.”

He also provided insight on the leadership of captain Willie Stargell — “a great person,” said Alexander, and it’s not a word he throws around lightly. “I caught him on the downside, he had bad knees and couldn’t run so good. I helped him stretch his hamstrings and back, I used to sit on his back. But his presence made you feel good. He could talk to you and you would listen. He was funny. He showed us what it was like to play hurt. And he could still hit. The sound of the ball off his bat, it was like a shotgun.”

“Pops” would also award stars to deserving players to affix to the old-timey pillbox caps the team wore in those days. “You’d be looking forward to getting a star. You had to earn it, do something real good. I got a few, for stealing ‘the money base.’” That wasn’t the only reward Alexander got from Stargell. “One time in L.A., we went to this little town, and there was a tailor shop. He told me to pick out a suit, any fabric. It was a $600 suit back then. I still got it!”

Alexander was with another Liga Mexicana del Pacífico champion in the winter of 1979-80, Hermosillo. He played only 15 games that winter, though, as he injured a hamstring. He remained with the Pirates throughout the 1980 season, maintaining both his specialty roles: pinch-runner and clubhouse barber. “Alexander charges $5, $10, and $15 for haircuts. ‘The price depends on the size of the head and how much hair the player has.’”18 At the end of the year, Pittsburgh sent him to Triple-A Portland, which he accepted, although he had a right to refuse the assignment.

In 1979, he had stated, “Young guys coming up need to play. I wouldn’t want to block a young guy’s chance to get to the major leagues.”19 Two years later, though, it was different. “Being a champion and having a ring,” said Alexander in 2009, “it was taking a step back. But I knew I was a professional, I knew I needed to make a living. I got my pension time and I got my ring, and I wasn’t playing a major role.” Alexander got into 27 games at Portland, which also used mainly veterans such as Rusty Torres and Dave Augustine. He returned to Pittsburgh for part of May and September 1981.

That winter he played ball in a new nation: Venezuela. In 31 games with Navegantes del Magallanes, he stole 15 bases while batting .230 with one home run and 9 RBIs. “It was tough,” he said, “a better league than Mexico, a higher level of competition. I didn’t play well, and they released me. They are serious there. But I’m still glad I went.”

At the end of spring training in 1982, on March 29, the Pirates sold Alexander’s contract to the Mexico City Tigres. He remained there for the next two seasons, setting a league record in steals with 73 in 1983 (since surpassed) while batting .312. “Mexico City also had a nice park, like the big leagues, and drew well,” he says. Even so, he wound up leaving after the ’83 season, for a most unusual reason.

“We made the playoffs, but the owner’s son, who ran the club, got killed in a helicopter crash. The owner [Alejo Peralta] was superstitious and thought all the Americans his son [Eduardo] had brought in were bad luck. He got rid of the imports.”

Alexander split 1984 between Veracruz and Toluca and then retired before the 1985 season. “I was kind of burned out,” he said in 2009. “I was trying to pay on both ends, home and Mexico, and the money’s not that great. I was 38, it’s hot, and I like to play hard. And even though we had a custom bus with six or seven beds, there was the travel. It took a toll. I had an offer with the Mexico City Reds, but I turned it down.”

In 1986, he noted some other pros and cons of playing in Mexico. Positive memories included “breaking the record, learning Spanish and learning to live in another culture.” On the flip side, he observed, “Make sure you get everything in your contract, and be sure the contract terms are understood by everyone.”20

Alexander “was offered a coaching position in Mexico, but turned it down in order to continue his search for a position as an instructor, coach, or minor-league manager with a major-league organization.”21 He had shown initiative in this area with the A’s, helping Vida Blue with his pickoff motion and Mitchell Page with stealing bases. “I never got one [a coaching spot],” he said. “I think I went the wrong way — I tried the front door. I sent a résumé to all the organizations and thought I’d get a bite. But I never heard anything. In baseball, it’s who you know.”

After retiring from baseball, Alexander returned to Shreveport. In 1989, at age 42, he came back for one appearance with the Winter Haven Super Sox of the short-lived Senior Professional Baseball Association. True to form, he scored as a pinch-runner. “The Senior League was amazing because guys could still play!” He recalled. “I worked out at second base, but turning a double play in practice, I came down wrong and pulled a calf muscle. It never got right. I went home for a month and then they called me back, but I hurt it again. So I never got a chance to do much.”

“I worked odds and ends for several years, and then I got a job at Libbey Glass in Shreveport in 1992. I stayed there 15 years and then retired. In 2008, I got a job driving a van for the handicapped, dropping them off to medical appointments and things like that. I’ll have to quit that when I start drawing Social Security, though.”

Matt and Rose Marie were divorced around 1990; they had two children, Yolanda and Matthew III. Matt married Andrea Faultry in 2002 and has two stepsons named Kiera and Cameron.

Alexander remained involved with baseball in Shreveport after his playing days ended. In recent years, he served as an assistant coach at Huntington High, where Albert Belle starred in the 1980s. He has also been coaching American Legion ball in his local district. When asked about the declining trend among African-Americans in baseball, he offered a varied analysis.

“It’s a combination. There are so many other avenues, basketball and football. And computers — the kids are getting soft. They don’t want to go out when it’s hot and play hard, which is what I did when there weren’t as many things to do. The kids who do play, they’re not getting good instruction in the fundamentals. Now colleges are looking for five-star players who can do everything already, not kids who have to learn — and who have fear.” Finally, he noted, “There’s no more sandlot ball on Sundays, like blacks used to play.”

In 1995, the Southwest Athletic Conference inducted Matt Alexander into its Hall of Fame. It didn’t work out that way in the majors, but this good-humored man said he believes that life unfolds as it does for a reason. He summed up his career this way: “I scuffled for it, but I wound up in the right place at the right time. In baseball, somebody’s got to like you. Another thing: You got to produce.”

Last revised: July 24, 2015

Acknowledgments

Grateful acknowledgment to Matt Alexander for his memories (telephone interviews, June 28 and July 19, 2009). Thanks also to SABR members Lenny Yochim; Cliff Blau, whose research provided additional information (notably from the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s clippings file); and Alfonso Tusa (Venezuelan winter statistics). Further thanks to Alfonso Araujo (Mexican winter statistics).

Sources

Blau, Clifford. “Leg Men.” Baseball Research Journal, Society for American Baseball Research, 2009.

http://www.retrosheet.org

Professional Baseball Players Database V6.0

Treto Cisneros, Pedro, Editor, Enciclopedia del Béisbol Mexicano. Mexico City, Mexico: Revistas Deportivas, S.A. de C.V., 1998.

Araujo Bojórquez, Alfonso. Series del Caribe: Narraciones y estadísticas, 1949-2001. Colegio de Bachilleres del Estado de Sinaloa, 2002.

http://www.paperofrecord.com (various pieces of information from The Sporting News)

Notes

On October 8, 1956, a pregnant Carmen Berra sat in the Yankee Stadium stands for the fifth game of the World Series. When public-address announcer Bob Sheppard introduced pinch-hitter Dale Mitchell of the Brooklyn Dodgers, she thought how Dale might be a name for her unborn child, especially since it could be used for either a boy or a girl. When Dale Mitchell struck out to finish the only perfect game in World Series history, she exclaimed to those around her, “Dale is going to be my baby’s name!”1

On December 13, 1956, Carmen and Yogi Berra became the proud parents of Dale Anthony Berra.

Dale grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, with a legendary surname. He admitted that sometimes he took being the son of a Yankee legend for granted. He was always around baseball his whole childhood, never realizing that his experiences might be a dream for others his age. When he was a teenager, his father was a New York Mets coach and then their manager, which meant Dale spent a lot of time in Shea Stadium. At times he was the team’s batboy.

Athletics and the Berra family were synonymous. Dale’s older brother, Larry, was a catcher in the low minors in 1971 and 1972; his other brother, Tim, played a season as a wide receiver/kick returner for the 1974 Baltimore Colts.2

Yogi supported him, never pushed him toward an athletic career. Berra remembered asking his father to play catch with him. Yogi’s typical response would be, “That’s what you have brothers for.”3

Dale Berra was a three-sport star at Montclair High School. He earned 11 varsity letters in football, hockey, and baseball. But he did not want a fuss made over his name: “I was just plain Dale.”4  

Dale was a first-round draft pick by the Pittsburgh Pirates (20th overall) in 1975. He felt there was more pressure being a first-round pick than there was being Yogi’s son.

Dale broke in with the Niagara Falls Pirates of the Class-A short season New York-Penn League in 1975. His manager was Glenn Ezell. Berra was the only nonpitcher on the roster to reach the major leagues. (Future major-league pitchers Bryan Clark and Al Holland were on the team.) He hit .257 with three home runs.

In 1976 Berra played for the Charleston (South Carolina) Patriots in the Class A Western Carolinas League. His manager, Mike Ryan, was a catcher for 11 years for the Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, and the Pirates. Berra felt Ryan instilled a strong work ethic in his players; he expected them to play hurt.5 Berra played in all 139 games, batting .298 with 16 home runs, and in 1977 he moved up to the Columbus Clippers of the Triple-A International League, where he batted .290 with 18 home runs.

On August 21 of that season, in a game against the San Francisco Giants at Three Rivers Stadium, Pirates second baseman Rennie Stennett, running from first base on a groundball by Ed Ott, slid hard into second, and broke his leg, and was lost for the season. The Pirates immediately called up Berra from Columbus.6 “I felt I was ready,” Berra said. “At the time, I was the best player they had at Triple A.”7

Berra made his major-league debut the next night, playing third base against the San Diego Padres. To accommodate him, Phil Garner moved from third to second.8 Berra batted sixth and went hitless in three at-bats as the Padres’ Bob Shirley beat Jim Rooker, 1-0.

Berra was adequate in the field but he batted just .175 during his short stay with Pirates. One of his seven hits was a game-winning single in the 11th inning against the Philadelphia Phillies on September 6. Berra was only 20 years old, and he felt that the experience was a lot of fun. Since it was a big jump from playing at Columbus, Berra returned there for more Triple-A seasoning in 1978. He was called back to the Pirates in late July. Before leaving for Pittsburgh, Berra was the top vote-getter for the International League’s All-Star Game. He had been playing shortstop for the Clippers, and was batting .280 with 18 home runs and 63 RBIs when called up.

Big-league reality intruded. Berra was 0-for-24 upon his return to Pittsburgh and batted .207 in 56 games. He hit his first major-league home run off Tom Dixon of the Houston Astros in the fourth inning of a 7-6 victory on August 20. His fourth homer of the season was a three-run game winner off Gene Garber to beat the Atlanta Braves on September 3. On September 28 the Pirates were 3½ games behind the Phillies before hosting Philadelphia for the last four games of the regular season. They swept a twi-night doubleheader to cut their deficit to 1½ games but they lost the third game of the series, 10-8, and their postseason hopes were extinguished when a ninth-inning rally fell short. Pittsburgh won the final game of the season, 5-3, and Berra hit a home run in his last at-bat of the season. Berra finished his season in Pittsburgh with 6 home runs, 14 RBIs, and a .207 average in 56 games. The Pirates finished second in the National League East, 1½ games behind the Phillies.

The Pirates wanted Berra to learn how to play the outfield at Bayamon in Puerto Rico’s winter league. He did not last long; he quit, returning home to Montclair. General manager Harding Peterson was not upset, saying, “We had to persuade him to go in the first place. He wasn’t happy and he said he couldn’t put his mind on baseball under those circumstances if he remained, it may have done more harm than good.”9

Berra opened the 1979 season in Pittsburgh, but when the team traded for two-time NL batting champion Bill Madlock on June 28, Berra, hitting just .196 with one home run, was optioned to Triple A, this time the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League. He spent July and August playing there batting .324 in 56 games.

When Pittsburgh shortstop Tim Foli needed a rest, Berra was brought back on August 26. The Pirates wanted him eligible for the possible postseason. He flew to Los Angeles where the Pirates were playing. “As soon as I got off the plane, there was a message for me to call (Peterson). He said that he was sorry, but he could not call me up until the end of the Triple-A season.” The problem was red tape involving player recalls.10 When Berra’s call-up was finally approved, he played in 10 of the remaining 30 games at shortstop to give Foli a breather. He hit a two-run homer in his first game back, in a 5-3 victory over the San Francisco Giants on September 1. The Pirates went on to win 20 of their final 30 games and capture the NL East division title by two games over the Montreal Expos.

Although Berra was ineligible for postseason play, he was invited to sit in Pittsburgh’s dugout in the NLCS against the Cincinnati Reds, and the World Series against the Baltimore Orioles. However, Frank Cashen of the commissioner’s office stepped in and rescinded his bench-seat invitation for the World Series, along with that of Joe Coleman. Cashen told them, “You might pass on information that could influence the outcome of a game.”11 Berra’s teammates voted him a full share of the team’s World Series earnings and a ring.

Berra remained in Pittsburgh for the 1980 and ’81 seasons as a utility infielder. The limited playing time thwarted his hitting consistency and effectiveness. In 1980 he played in 93 games, hitting six home runs, driving in 31 runs while batting .220. Then in the 1981 strike-shortened season, he played in 81 games and batted .241 with 2 home runs and 27 RBIs.

After Pittsburgh traded Foli to the California Angels for utilityman Brian Harper in December 1981, Berra was the Pirates’ starting shortstop in 1982. He batted .263 with 61 RBIs and tied Atlanta’s Rafael Ramirez for the most home runs by a National League shortstop (10). His partner in the middle of the infield was rookie Johnny Ray.

During the early stages of the season, fans started booing Berra for mistakes in the field. But his play steadied and he succeeded in turning the fans’ boos into cheers. Berra attributed his turnaround to manager Chuck Tanner. He played eight years for Tanner and said Chuck was the best manager he ever played for, with his ability to instill confidence in his players. “Even if you struck out three times with the bases loaded or made an error to lose a game, he’d pat you on the back and say, ‘Hey, there aren’t many guys in the world who can make an error and lose a major-league baseball game. You’re good enough to be in a position to do that.’”12 

Berra put up similar offensive numbers in 1983 — 10 home runs, 52 RBIs, and a .251 batting average. Pittsburgh ended up in second place in the NL East, six games behind the Phillies. But in 1984 Berra’s offense took a slide and the fans began to demonstrate their disfavor, so forcefully that it essentially forced the Pirates to move him out of town. After the 1984 season, the team realized the need for a power-hitting outfielder and Berra’s job was in jeopardy. 

On December 20, 1984, the Pirates traded Berra, pitcher Alfonso Pulido, and minor-league outfielder Jay Buhner to the New York Yankees for outfielder Steve Kemp, former Pittsburgh shortstop Tim Foli, and cash.13 Yogi and Dale became the second father-son manager-player combination in major-league baseball history after Connie and Earle Mack of the Philadelphia Athletics.

With the Yankees, Dale would compete with Mike Pagliarulo for the third-base job. “At the ballpark, he’s just another player to me. If he can play, he plays. If he doesn’t, he sits,” Yogi said.14

Dale grasped the chance to show his father what he could do. That chance did not last long. Yogi was fired after the first 16 games, and replaced by Billy Martin. Dale played in only 10 games for his father. After Yogi was fired, Dale’s performance dipped. He batted .229 and .231 with a total of three home runs during less than two seasons in New York.

Around this time the biggest blight to Dale Berra’s career occurred. At the end of the 1985 season, he testified in federal court that he used cocaine from January 1979 into 1984. Berra was the fourth player to testify the he bought the drug from Curtis Strong, a 38-year-old caterer who was charged with 16 counts of cocaine distribution. The players who testified were granted immunity from prosecution.15

Looking back on his major-league career, especially 1983 and 1984, Berra said he should have improved progressively. Instead, he regressed. “I made some bad choices and bad judgments and it cost me my career!” he said.16

The Yankees released Berra, on July 27, 1986. He signed with the Houston Astros a week later. Yogi was an Astros coach at the time. Dale played for Houston’s Triple-A team in Tucson for the remainder of 1986, and until mid-August 1987. He then appeared in 19 games with the Astros, batting .178, and was released on October 13, 1987. Berra took one more shot at the game, during the 1988 season with Rochester of the Triple-A International League, but batted just .181 in 69 games for the Baltimore Orioles’ affiliate. Berra’s 11-year career in the majors was over. His career statistics included 49 home runs, 278 RBIs, and a batting average of .236.

In 2016 Berra was living in Montclair with his wife, Jane, and their three daughters. He and his brothers, Larry and Tim, operate a family business called LTD (the first letter of their names). They handled Yogi’s affairs until he died on September 22, 2015. “We’ve taken agents out of dad’s life. We’re the third party,” Dale said before Yogi’s death. “Anything that dad does is done through our company. We control his autograph shows, corporate appearances, and functions. It’s all Yogi’s stuff.”

The brothers’ company was also responsible for the Yogi Berra Museum, on the Montclair University campus, a celebration of Yogi’s illustrious career.17 Yogi Berra Stadium is its neighbor, where the independent minor-league New Jersey Jackals play. Dale said he has been clean and sober for over 20 years.

Dale never felt he needed to measure up to his father’s career; not to be as good as him was not an insult. But in describing them both, he came up with a “Yogi-ism” of his own: “Our similarities are different.”18

Sources

In addition to the sources reflected in the Notes, the author also consulted:

Appel, Marty. Pinstripe Empire:The New York Yankees From Before the Babe to After the Boss (New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2012).

Skirboll, Aaron. The Pittsburgh Cocaine Seven: How a Ragtag Group of Fans Took the Fall for Major League Baseball (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2010).

Notes

1 Dale Berra, telephone interview, January 9, 2016.

2 The Sporting News, August 9, 1982.

3 Doug Kennedy, “Son of a Legend,” Pittsburgh Sports Report, pittsburghsportsreport.com/2009-Issues/psr0905/09050116.html.

4 Ken Rodriguez, “Like Father, Like Some Sons: M’s Griffey an Exception Rather Than Rule of Success,” Knight Ridder News Service, July 4, 1990.

5 Dale Berra, telephone interview.

6 Stephen Mulligan, Were You There? Over 300 Wonderful, Weird, and Wacky Moments from Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium (Pittsburgh: Rose Dog Books, 2013), 87.

7 “Son of a Legend.”

8 The Sporting News, September 3, 1977.

9 Charley Feeney, “Decision on Pirate Infield Hinges on Stennett’s Ankle,” The Sporting News, December 30, 1978: 40.

10 Vic Debs, That Was Part of Baseball Then (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2002), 52.

11 Dick Young, “Young Ideas,” The Sporting News, October 27, 1979: 16.

12  Debs, 53.

13 Moss Klein, “Pirates Send Yogi’s Son to the Yankees,” Newark Star Ledger, January 7, 1985: 40.

14 Ibid.

15 Michael Goodwin,“Dale Berra Admits Cocaine Use,” New York Times, September 10, 1985.

16 Dale Berra, telephone interview.

17 “Son of a Legend.”

18 Sports Illustrated, August 9, 1982

The burly righthander didn’t make it to the majors until he was nearly 28. He was wild, and it took him time and effort to harness his ability. His development was also delayed because he missed three full seasons in the minors — two in Vietnam and one after a back operation. Yet eventually he won 111 games as a big-leaguer (against 101 losses). He was an important part of the staff for the World Series champions of 1979, the Pittsburgh Pirates “Fam-a-lee.” He followed up with his career year in 1980, at the age of 35.

After his big-league career ended in 1984, Bibby spent 16 years as a minor-league pitching coach — 15 of them in Lynchburg, Virginia, the area where he lived much of his life. He also pitched in the Senior Professional Baseball Association in 1990. Upon his death, the Lynchburg Hillcats issued a statement saying, “Bibby was a foundation for baseball in the Lynchburg area, an institution in the Carolina League and his #26 is the only retired number in Lynchburg baseball history. Anyone who knew Bibby would tell you, you could not find a more jovial soul.”5

James Blair Bibby was born on October 29, 1944 in Franklinton, North Carolina. This small town is in Franklin County, in the north-central part of the Tar Heel State. Jim was one of three brothers in a family headed by Charlie Bibby and his wife, Evelyn Stallings Bibby. After Frederick and James came Henry Bibby, who went on to fame in basketball. In college at UCLA, under the great coach John Wooden, Henry was the point guard for three straight NCAA championship teams from 1970 to 1972. As a rookie in the NBA, he was a reserve for the New York Knicks, who won the 1973 championship. His playing days ended in 1981 after nine seasons, and he then went on to a long career as a coach. Henry Bibby’s son Mike played in the NBA from 1998 through 2012.

In 1981, Rick Telander of Sports Illustrated wrote an in-depth feature about Jim and Henry, providing much detail about their early lives and subsequent careers. They and Fred grew up on a farm in Franklinton.6 Bibby described it in his own words the previous year, talking with Dan Donovan of The Pittsburgh Press. “My dad owns his own farm and it’s 150 acres. The three boys, we all had a lot of work to do with the tobacco, corn, cotton, the animals. There was no need to lift weights. Farm work’s terrible — I hate it — but we were never poor. We had everything we wanted — we never had to make ends meet. We had everything you buy at the store now, only it was better.

“We always had time to play baseball and basketball. Some of the other kids didn’t have time because of all the work we had to do. But whenever it was time to play baseball, my dad would always say, ‘Go ahead.’” 7

Jim went to Franklinton High School, which “wasn’t big enough to field a football team,” he told Donovan. “We graduated 26 people my senior year. We had all the grades, elementary school through senior high, in one building. We were small, but we always had good sports teams in both baseball and basketball.”8

Bibby then followed brother Fred to Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, about 90 miles from home. Fred was a basketball star at FSU, eventually becoming a member of its athletic Hall of Fame. He helped Jim obtain a basketball scholarship too.9 Yet while Jim had great size, his true talent was not on the hardwood. As Henry Bibby told Rick Telander in 1981, “Jim was a hot dog, the 11th man. He’d get in a game, look up in the stands, score two points and think it was a big deal.”10

During the 1965 summer break from FSU, Bibby was told about a New York Mets tryout camp near his home town. He got to throw only a few pitches before the rain came and he was sent home. Yet later he got a call to come to the club’s rookie-league team in Marion, Virginia, where he signed for no bonus but started his career.11 That team included another fireballing righty, Nolan Ryan. “I just threw one fastball after another and I was always wild,” said Bibby in 1981. “Neither one of us knew a damn thing about baseball. We were both ungodly wild.”12 In 13 games that season, Bibby walked 27 batters in 24 innings, fueling an 11.25 ERA.

At the end of Bibby’s first pro season, the U.S. Army drafted him and shipped him to Vietnam, where he served as a truck driver. Returning in 1967 to Fort Lee, Virginia, he picked up with his second love, basketball, playing on the post team with NBA star Lou Hudson. Discharged in January 1968, Bibby returned to baseball with the Mets’ Carolina League team (Class A) in Raleigh-Durham. In 23 games (19 starts), he posted a 7-7 record and improved his control to a degree (74 walks in 131 innings). He had 118 strikeouts and a 2.82 ERA.

Bibby’s showing with Raleigh-Durham was impressive enough for him to attend spring training with the big club in 1969. He impressed manager Gil Hodges and pitching coach Rube Walker with his strength, staying power, and stuff. Walker also thought that control would come over time. Jim himself said, “I don’t really know how good I am — or if I’m any good at all. I’ve never pitched against really tough competition.”13

The Mets assigned their prospect to Double-A Memphis. After a 3-5 start, he finished 10-6 with a 3.32 ERA for the Blues, striking out 115 and walking 57 in 122 innings. As he had hoped in camp, the hot streak won him promotion to the Mets’ top farm club, Tidewater in the International League, in July 1969. He went 4-4, 3.48 in 11 starts for the Tides, who won the IL regular-season pennant but then lost in the first round of playoffs to Columbus.

The Mets then called up Bibby, and though he didn’t get to appear in a game for the eventual World Series champions, he was part of the celebration as the team clinched the National League East. Video footage shows an exuberant Jim and teammate Amos Otis up on the interview platform along with Mets broadcaster Lindsey Nelson. Bibby remained with the club as a batting-practice pitcher while they beat Atlanta in the playoffs. For his services, he received $100.14

During spring training with the Mets in 1970, Bibby’s “back, weakened by a congenital bone spur, gave out one day as he was covering first base.”15 The injury was initially reported as a “strain” or “sprain” but it was a lot more serious. Spinal fusion surgery was required, and “he was given a 50-50 chance of playing again.”16

After his surgery, Bibby missed the entire 1970 season with the Mets. Rehabilitation and hard work enabled him to come back strong with Tidewater in 1971 with 15 wins and 6 losses (and an ERA of 4.04 due to 109 walks in 176 innings). That August, The Sporting News featured Bibby as he hoped for another call-up to the majors. He said, “I wonder what more the Mets want me to do or show. I feel I’ve proved myself down here, and remember I’ve already had my share of waiting.”17

Although the Mets did recall Bibby again that September, he never did get into a game with them. On October 18, 1971, he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in an eight-player trade, which was dismissed at the time as a minor deal. Out of all the players involved, in retrospect Bibby clearly had the most upside. Perhaps the Mets — at that time viewed as a pitching-rich organization — thought they could afford to deal a player who was nearly 27, unproven and with control problems. At the time, beat writer Jack Lang said, “The sale of Jim Bibby came as no surprise. The big guy throws hard but that’s about all.”18

Yet as Lang pointed out that November — even before the Mets made the infamous Nolan Ryan trade — the club’s pitching depth was not actually that great. Jerry Koosman was then battling injuries and Jon Matlack was the lone prime prospect.19 One wonders if Bibby was included in the trade over the objections of Whitey Herzog, then the farm director for New York.

In the winter of 1971-1972, Bibby played his only season of winter ball in Puerto Rico. He spent most of the 1972 season with the Cardinals’ top farm club, Tulsa, Oklahoma in the American Association. He had a very good year, going 13-9 with a 3.09 ERA, while striking out 208 (and walking just 76) in 195 innings. The Cardinals called him up after the rosters expanded in September, and he made six starts, winning his debut — which was actually his least impressive performance — but losing his last three.

The Cardinals used Bibby just six times with poor results in the early part of the 1973 season before dealing him to the Texas Rangers on June 6 for Mike Nagy and John Wockenfuss. Whitey Herzog, who had become the manager in Texas after leaving the Mets organization, was instrumental in the deal. In his fifth outing for the Rangers, Bibby threw a one-hit shutout at home against Kansas City. The only hit was a sixth-inning double off the wall by Fran Healy. Herzog said after the game, “I’ve known Bibby for four or five years and he has never lacked talent. I thought he was a good risk when I picked him up. I didn’t give up anything and I was desperate for pitching help.”20

Yet the righty’s best outing of the year was a no-hitter (the first in Rangers history) in Oakland on July 30. Bibby threw 148 pitches in his gem, nearly all fastballs, as he struck out 13 and walked six. “You couldn’t dig in against him because he was wild,” said Reggie Jackson. “He’s close to Nolan Ryan.” Sal Bando concurred, saying, “That’s the first time I’ve seen Bibby and I hope it’s the last.” A’s manager Dick Williams added, “Damn he was quick. He was conveniently wild. He did a heck of a job. I can’t get upset.”21

The last out was a looper into right center, which Texas beat writer Mike Shropshire called “a ball that I had seen the Rangers misplay with numbing frequency.” Yet while Vic Harris did ram into second baseman Dave Nelson, Nelson hung on to preserve the no-hitter. Catcher Dick Billings said, “The big guy was absolutely unbelievable. I don’t think there is a man in baseball who could have touched some of those pitches. I’ve never seen smoke like that.”22

Bibby — who was known for sweating buckets when he pitched — said afterward, “I bet I lost ten pounds by the time it was over. But I’m gonna get it all back in the clubhouse with some of that good cold beer and I’m ready for it right now.”23 As another reward, club owner Bob Short gave him a $5,000 raise on the spot.

The big man finished the season at 9-10, 3.24 for the Rangers, a dreadful club that got Whitey Herzog fired in early September. In 1974, Billy Martin (who had taken over as skipper) lifted the Rangers to second place. Bibby posted a 19-19 record in 41 starts, though his 4.74 ERA was a sign of inconsistency — he still didn’t have much besides his fastball. Author Joe Posnanski broke down the extremes of hot and cold in his Bibby retrospective of February 2010. “In his 19 victories, he had a 2.50 ERA and the league hit .194 against him. In his 19 losses, he had a 9.23 ERA and the league hit .359 against him.”24

Posnanski added, “The rest of his career was not quite so up and down, not quite the same blend of brilliant and disastrous. But Jim Bibby always seemed to carry a part of 1974 with him. It seemed like most days when he went out there to pitch, a team would say ‘Oh man, we don’t stand a chance tonight.’ Trouble is, you never knew which team.”25

Bibby’s social awareness was on display in a July 1975 article in Texas Monthly. Writer Paul Burka, who followed the Rangers for a week earlier that season, got into a conversation with Jim on a bus ride. “Baseball, Bibby said, is a white man’s game — not on the playing field, but in the stands. Black people don’t come to the ballpark, and it bothers him.” They went on to exchange various theories about how this came to be.26

After a 2-6, 5.00 start, Bibby was traded that June (along with Jackie Brown, Rick Waits and $100,000) to the Cleveland Indians for Gaylord Perry. As the Cleveland Indians Encyclopedia noted, “The financially strapped Indians. . .also cleared the air in the clubhouse, as Perry did not get along with manager Frank Robinson.”27

During his two-plus seasons with the Indians — who were then actually mediocre, not terrible on the field — Bibby won 30 and lost 29 with a 3.36 ERA. He was a swingman, starting 61 games and relieving in 34 others. Indians pitching coach Harvey Haddix helped him greatly with his delivery. As Haddix told Rick Telander, “It’s very hard for a big man to be coordinated. Jim was never in control of himself. For someone like Jim, with hands that size. . .well, it’s like you or me trying to throw a golf ball accurately.”28

Joe Posnanski said, “Bibby pitched his guts out for the Indians, especially in ’77. I loved Bibby. Big, wild, overpowering, frustrating, scary, larger than life.”29 In August 2011 Posnanski also told another funny anecdote that he heard from Duane Kuiper, Bibby’s Cleveland teammate. Kuiper was furious with Rod Carew of the Twins after Carew had slashed him while breaking up a double play. “Don’t worry,” Bibby said. “I’ll get him for you.” However, the opportunity did not arise until years later — in an exhibition game in Japan. Bibby drilled Carew in the ribs with his fastball, flexed, and said, “That was for Duane Kuiper.”30

Bibby’s time as an Indian was also productive off the field. He went back to school at Lynchburg College and obtained a degree in physical education, graduating with the class of 1977.

Bibby left Cleveland for the same reason he arrived. The Indians Encyclopedia said, “Lack of ready cash also cost the Indians the service of Jim Bibby, which was then unfairly blamed on [general manager Phil] Seghi. Because the team was late in paying Bibby a $10,000 incentive bonus he’d won in 1977, he was declared a free agent and was lost to the Tribe.”31 Cleveland sportswriter Terry Pluto added, “Bibby had to continually bug the front office for the bonus he was owed from the 1976 season, so this time he was really running out of patience.”32

On March 15, 1978, nine days after arbitrator Alexander Porter upheld Bibby’s breach of contract grievance, the pitcher signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He had other offers, but even though the money in Pittsburgh wasn’t the best — an estimated $700,000 over an unspecified multi-year contract — he liked the Pirates because they were not too far from his home in Virginia. He also rightly noted, “The team has good potential and can go places.”33

Manager Chuck Tanner continued to use Bibby as a swingman. In 1978, he started 14 games out of 34 appearances, and in 1979 he started 17 games and relieved in the same number. Harvey Haddix had come over from Cleveland starting in 1979 and he helped keep Bibby’s delivery smooth. Haddix said, “If he hadn’t wanted it real bad, he’d have been a goner. You don’t hang on in the big leagues because you look good in uniform.”34 Bibby was 12-4 with a 2.81 ERA for the ’79 champions. He also hit two of his five career home runs that year; Big Jim hit only .148 in the big leagues, but as The Pirates Encyclopedia put it, he could drive a ball a long way when he connected.35

The “Fam-a-lee” clubhouse was a boisterous place, and as Rick Telander observed, Bibby “fit in nicely, giving and taking insults with the best.” He’d also shown his fun-loving side in Texas, where he used the stage name “Fontay O’Rooney.”36 Yet he was also a serious man who sincerely cared about his teammates’ personal well-being.37

In the playoffs against Cincinnati, Bibby started one game. He then started two more in the World Series against the Orioles, including Game Seven. He had no decisions but pitched effectively, allowing just four earned runs in 17 1/3 innings.

That was the only time Bibby ever got to the postseason, though. The Pirates fell back to third in the NL East in 1980 — despite his best year ever. Moving back into the starting rotation (he relieved just once all year), he tied his career high with in wins with 19, and since he lost just 6, his .760 winning percentage led the NL. Jim was named to the All-Star team for the only time in his career; he finished in third in the voting for the Cy Young Award (behind Steve Carlton and Jerry Reuss). “I’m not raring back and throwing hard all the time,” he said that May. “I only do it when I have to.”38

The 1981 season featured another of Bibby’s most brilliant performances — he thought it surpassed his no-hitter. On May 19, he threw his other big-league one-hitter, and it was nearly a perfect game. At Three Rivers Stadium against Atlanta, Terry Harper’s bloop single to right led off the game — but after that, not another Brave reached base. “I was more consistent tonight than in my no-hitter,” said Bibby, who threw just 93 pitches that night.39

However, Bibby’s year was interrupted not only by baseball’s strike but also by injury. He made only four starts after the strike ended. He underwent surgery for a slight tear in his rotator cuff on April 21, 1982 — bone fragments were also removed from his shoulder. He missed the entire season, though he was able to throw on the sidelines in September. In January 1983, he expressed optimism about his comeback.40 As it turned out, though, he had a poor year: 5-12, 6.69 in just 78 innings pitched. He got into the seventh inning in just two of his starts. As Chuck Tanner noted that May, “Bibby was throwing hard. It was just a matter of location.”41

In November 1983, the Pirates allowed Bibby to become a free agent. He signed with the Rangers in early February 1984, again sounding upbeat. “I feel that I’m 100 percent right now. I don’t know if I’m going to throw as hard as I did when I was a rookie in Texas but I’m more of a pitcher now. I have a repertoire of pitches that I can put over the plate. I felt good physically last year. My mechanics were a little off.”42

Bibby made the club out of spring training, but relieved in just eight games before Texas released him on June 1. Eight days later, he signed as a free agent with the St. Louis organization. He appeared in two games for Louisville, their top farm club, but even though he allowed just two hits in five innings and did not give up any runs, the Cardinals released him on July 1. The U.S. Olympic squad had also hit him hard in a game on June 17. “I saw a lot of good players on that team,” said Jim.43 The hitters included Mark McGwire, Will Clark, Barry Larkin, and B.J. Surhoff.

That wasn’t quite Bibby’s last professional action on the mound, though. During the fall and winter of 1989-90, when the Senior Professional Baseball Association held its only full season, he joined the Winter Haven Super Sox. He pitched 54 2/3 innings in 11 games, going 2-4 with a 4.12 ERA.

In July 1984, Bibby went directly into coaching, starting with the Durham Bulls in North Carolina. He learned of a vacancy for the 1985 season in Lynchburg, near his home in Madison Heights, Virginia, which he pursued. He thus could enjoy full-time family life while still working and giving to his love, baseball. From 1985 through 1999, he was pitching coach for Lynchburg. The franchise was affiliated with the Mets (1985-87), Red Sox (1988-94), and thereafter the Pirates. Among the notable future major-leaguers he coached were Aaron Sele, Kris Benson, and Frankie Rodriguez. In 2002, after Lynchburg retired his number, he said, “When I see guys make it to the bigs and have success there, that’s more gratifying to me than anything else.”44

In 2000, Bibby stepped up to Pittsburgh’s top affiliate, Nashville in the Pacific Coast League. After that season, his contract was not renewed, he underwent double knee replacement surgery, and so retired. Though his knees weren’t up to throwing BP and hitting fungoes after more than 30 years on the field, he still often got out to games in Lynchburg.45

Among his other leisure pursuits, golf was Bibby’s favorite. In October 2011, his wife Jackie (they were married in 1968) and daughters Tanya and Tamara staged the first Jim Bibby Golf Classic at his club, Colonial Hills Golf Course in Forest, Virginia. The tournament was under the aegis of the James “Jim” Bibby Memorial Foundation, the non-profit organization that his family created “to continue Jim’s initiatives for supporting organizations and programs promoting fitness and health and wellness.” Proceeds of the tournament went to benefit two of his favorite causes, the YMCA of Central Virginia and the Children’s Miracle Network.46

Bibby was a longstanding member of First Baptist Church of Coolwell in Amherst. He was also active in his community. In addition to serving on the board of the Lynchburg YMCA and acting as an ambassador for the Children’s Miracle Network, he was an advocate for the Sickle Cell Foundation. He was also a loyal supporter of both the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethons and the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life.47

After battling bone cancer, Jim Bibby died on February 16, 2010. At his memorial service, his friend Susan Landergan, CEO of the Lynchburg YMCA, said, “Big heart, big body, big talent, big personality, big hands, big humor, big hugs. Bibby lived life big.”48

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Tamara and Jackie Bibby for their help and input.

Sources

www.baseball-reference.com

www.retrosheet.org

www.lynchburg.edu

Notes

In his most productive campaigns, Blyleven was overshadowed by Jim Palmer, Tom Seaver, Catfish Hunter, and Nolan Ryan while toiling for small-market and primarily mediocre teams in Minnesota, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland. Critics pointed unfairly to Blyleven’s 250 losses and an unfounded reputation for losing big games as reasons for his Hall-unworthiness, while overlooking his championship with the Pirates in 1979 and the Twins in 1987. Blyleven’s oft-times prickly relationship with his teammates, managers, and sportswriters didn’t help his cause.

In his first year of eligibility for the Hall of Fame, in 1998, Blyleven garnered only 17.5 percent of the necessary 75 percent of the vote required for enshrinement. Over the course of the next 13 years the case for Blyleven grew, as advanced statistical metrics, such as WAR (wins above replacement), ERA+ (ERA adjusted to a player’s ballpark and league), FIP (fielding independent pitching), and a rejection of won-loss records in favor of hits, strikeouts, and walks per nine innings, offered new lenses to analyze a pitcher’s effectiveness.1 These modern metrics revealed Blyleven as not just one of the best pitchers of his generation, but also one of the best in baseball history. In 2011 Blyleven was elected to the Hall of Fame with 79.7 percent of the vote.

In his Hall of Fame induction speech, Blyleven attributed his “stubbornness and determination” throughout his big-league career to his immigrant parents, who fled war-torn Europe in search of a better life.2 Netherlands natives Johannes Cornelius and Jannigje Blijleven married when the country was under Nazi occupation. Three years after the birth of their third child, Rik Aalbert, on April 6, 1951, the Blijlevens emigrated from Zeist, Netherlands, to Saskatoon, (Saskatchewan) Canada, and eventually settled in Garden Grove in Southern California in 1957. With their names anglicized, Joe and Jenny Blyleven raised their family which grew to seven children (four girls and three boys) with Dutch values of diligence, integrity, and commitment in a household of limited means.

Bert began playing baseball at the age of 9, having been introduced to the game by his father, a carpenter by trade, who became a fan of the American pastime by listening to Dodgers games on the radio. The youngster was quickly converted from catcher to pitcher when the coach discovered the strength of the right-hander’s arm. After that conversion, Blyleven’s father built a pitcher’s mound in their backyard so Bert could practice. Bert described his parents as his “mentors,” who were regulars at his games, where the elder Blyleven often drew the ire of umpires and spectators for his constant arguing of balls and strikes.3 Well aware of Sandy Koufax’s chronic arm pain, Joe forbade Bert to throw the curveball until he was about 14 years old, leaving his son to envision Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully vividly describe Koufax’s devastating pitch.

The 6-foot-3, 160-pound Blyleven began to attract big-league scouts by the end of his junior year at Santiago High School in Garden Grove and in the local American Legion league. The author of at least two no-hitters and a 21-strikeout performance in his prep career, Blyleven earned all-league honors as a senior in 1969, and participated in several contests showcasing promising prospects in Southern California. The Minnesota Twins selected Blyleven in the third round with the 55th overall pick in the 1969 amateur draft. Team scouts Jesse Flores Sr. and Dick Wiencek offered an estimated $15,000 bonus and signed the 18-year-old hurler at the Blyleven residence.

According to Blyleven, Flores told the elder Blyleven that Bert would be in the majors in less than two years. Flores’s bold prediction was off by about a year. Just weeks after graduating from high school, Bert commenced his 24-year career in professional baseball by progressing rapidly through the Twins’ affiliate in the Rookie Gulf Coast League and wining all five of his decisions for the Orlando Twins in the Class A Florida State League. That fall he exceeded expectations by emerging as the best pitcher (7-0, 1.50 ERA) in the Florida Instructional League, where he was selected as an all-star by both scouts and managers.

Just 18 years old, Blyleven participated in the Twins’ spring training as a non-roster invitee in Orlando in 1970. “I fell in love with him right away,” said Minnesota skipper Bill Rigney, who recognized that the youngster with just 25 starts in his first season of pro ball needed more seasoning.4 Blyleven was assigned to the Evansville (Indiana) Triplets in the Triple-A American Association, but his tenure in Triple A lasted only seven starts, one of which was a sparkling 10-inning complete-game shutout with 17 strikeouts against Iowa on May 15, 1970.

When their right-handed starter Luis Tiant, who was 6-0 at the time, was sidelined with a fractured right shoulder in late May, the Twins promoted Blyleven. Team scout Early Wynn thought the teenager was ready for prime time. “With his live fastball and marvelous coordination,” said the former 300-game winner, “[Blyleven] reminds me of Herb Score.”5 On June 5, 1970, Blyleven debuted against the Washington Senators at RFK Stadium. The youngest player in the majors, as well as the first in major-league history to be born in the Netherlands, the 19-year-old hurler surrendered a home run on a 3-and-2 fastball to the first batter he faced, Lee Maye, but settled down to yield just five hits while striking out seven in seven innings to earn the victory, 2-1. Pitching consistently for the AL West Division champions, Blyleven fanned 12 in a complete-game victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on August 4 to set a new Twins record for strikeouts by a rookie, and tied an AL record by whiffing the first six California Angels batters he faced in a 5-1 loss on September. “His curveball,” said Blyleven’s batterymate George Mitterwald, “is, well, fantastic.”6

Blyleven finished with a 10-9 record, becoming just the 25th pitcher to reach double digits in victories as a teenager, and posted a 3.18 ERA in 164 innings. The Sporting News named him the AL Rookie Pitcher of the Year. Despite AP reports that Blyleven would start in the best-of-five ALCS versus the Baltimore Orioles, Rigney chose a different young hurler, Tom Hall (11-6), with only 11 starting assignments for the season, to make a crucial postseason start after Cy Young Award winner Jim Perry (24-12) lost Game One.7 In relief of veteran starter Jim Kaat, who was on the ropes in the third inning of Game Three, Blyleven tossed two innings in Baltimore, yielding two hits and an unearned run in the Twins’ third straight loss, which eliminated Minnesota from the postseason.

Essentially a two-pitch hurler (curveball and fastball) thus far in his career, Blyleven developed an off-speed pitch during spring training in 1971, and the results were immediate. He blanked Milwaukee on four hits in his first start, followed by a three-hit shutout at Kansas City five days later. “I’m holding the ball differently and it’s moving in on the hitters,” said Blyleven. “When I throw the fastball I hold the ball the same way I do on a changeup.”8 Minnesota beat reporter Bob Fowler also noticed another change in the 20-year-old “man-child.”9 Blyleven had packed on an estimated 20 pounds to his frame; at 210 pounds Blyleven seemed stronger and more durable. “He’s the most coachable pitcher I’ve ever handled,” said pitching coach Marv Grissom, who lauded Blyleven’s unparalleled work ethic.10

On a staff that finished 11th of the 12 teams in ERA (3.81) in 1971, Blyleven emerged as the club’s best pitcher, overtaking graybeards Perry (35 years old) and Kaat (32), yet his record stood at a misleading 10-15 after a 6-3 loss in Baltimore on August 22. In 12 of those losses, Blyleven received only three or fewer runs of support from an otherwise above-average offense, and thus acquired the reputation as a tough-luck loser that stuck with him for the remainder of his career.

While the Twins stumbled to a disappointing fifth-place finish (74-86), Blyleven concluded his first full campaign on a tear, winning six straight decisions, including two shutouts and a 10-inning scoreless no-decision, and carving out a 1.69 ERA in 69⅓ innings. He finished fourth in the AL in strikeouts (224) and fifth in ERA (2.81), and led the circuit in strikeouts-to-walks ratio (3.80).

Blyleven’s biggest moment of 1971 was probably when he married Patricia Ann Whitehead in July. They had four children, Todd, Tim, Kimberly, and Tom. Todd followed his father’s footsteps. In 1990 he was drafted out of Villa Park High School by the California Angels in the 39th round, and in 1991 he was selected out of Cypress College by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 90th round. The big (6-foot-5) right-handed pitcher spent his five-year professional career primarily in the low minors for three organizations.

In 1972 Blyleven picked up where he had left off the previous season, winning his first four decisions to set a new Twins record with 10 consecutive victories, as the club got off to a hot start and occupied first place as late as May 20. But those successes proved to be short-lived. The team took a nosedive in June. Rigney was fired on July 5 and postseason aspirations faded quickly. Blyleven slumped, too, losing 12 of 15 decisions to fall to 10-15 on August 19. “I was throwing across my body,” said Blyleven of his pitching woes. “I was landing on the heel on my left foot.”11 Working closely with new skipper Frank Quilici and pitching coach Al Worthington to improve his mechanics, Blyleven found his groove over the last five weeks of the season, posting a 1.45 ERA in his final nine starts covering 74⅔ innings. Despite a team-record 2.84 ERA, the Twins finished in third place (77-77). Blyleven’s 17-17 record failed to tell the story of his success. The Twins scored three runs or less in all but one of his losses. He posted a robust 2.73 ERA in 287⅓ innings, and once again ranked fourth in punchouts (228).

The unequivocal ace of the staff, Blyleven got off to a rough start in 1973, losing six of his first eight decisions with an ERA north of 4.00 as he struggled once again with pitching mechanics. “He wasn’t following through,” said pitching coach Worthington. “He was releasing the ball too soon.”12 With the aid of film (a novelty at the time), Blyleven adjusted, and subsequently won 10 of his next 14 starts and posted a 1.48 ERA in 121 innings in one of the most dominating stretches in his career. Seven of those victories were shutouts, including the first of his five career one-hitters, against Kansas City on May 24. The spree of whitewashes cast the 22-year-old hurler with his trademark pronounced high leg lick and his tongue sticking out of his mouth into the national spotlight. “[Blyleven] makes the baseball dance and twist on the way to the plate,” wrote the AP after his 4-0 victory over the Angels and their speed-baller, Nolan Ryan, on June 29.13 “He is the best curveball pitcher I’ve ever seen,” said Boston’s DH, Orlando Cepeda, who had battled Koufax as a member of the Giants in the 1960s.14

Blyleven fashioned the best season ever by a Twins hurler, setting team records in shutouts (a major-league-leading 9), complete games (25), innings (325), and strikeouts (258), while winning 20 games and posting a career-low 2.52 ERA. Despite those gaudy numbers, he finished a distant seventh in Cy Young Award voting, hurt by his 17 losses and playing for a third-place team that finished at 81-81, 13 games behind first-place Oakland. Sportswriters might have overlooked Blyleven, whose teammates scored three runs or fewer in 16 of his losses (28 total runs), but fellow pitchers did not. “The best pitcher in the league is Bert Blyleven,” said Oakland ace Catfish Hunter. “He’s got the best stuff.”15 By one contemporary metric (WAR), Blyleven was not just the best pitcher in the league, but the most valuable player.16 His only blemish was his performance in the All-Star game in Kansas City, where he yielded two hits and walked two in just one inning and was charged with the loss.

Emboldened by his success, Blyleven demanded that the Twins double his salary in 1974, leading to tensions with club owner Calvin Griffith, who was notoriously tight-fisted and the last major-league owner who derived his income solely from the team. Though he received a substantial raise to a reported $55,000, Blyleven’s relationship with the front office was in a free-fall. Playing through occasional lower back pain, Blyleven split his 34 decisions, finished a distant second once again to Ryan in strikeouts (249 to 367) and posted a stellar 2.66 ERA, but few saw him as the Twins finished last in attendance. Griffith rejected Kansas City’s offer to buy the hurler for a million dollars, but Blyleven’s days with the Twins nonetheless seemed numbered.

After losing a contentious salary arbitration, Blyleven received another blow when he came down with a sore shoulder to start the 1975 season. Eventually diagnosed with a torn muscle, the 24-year-old hurler landed on the 21-day DL in early June. Blyleven seemed as strong as ever upon his return, completing 15 of 22 starts with a sturdy 2.62 ERA. He pitched at least 10 innings on three occasions, including an 11-inning shutout with 13 strikeouts against Milwaukee at County Stadium on August 27. It was his 24th career shutout, breaking Kaat’s team record. Described as “enigmatic” by the AP, Blyleven’s stellar season (15-10, 3.00 ERA, 20 complete games, and 233 strikeouts) barely registered on the national radar for the fourth-place Twins, who once again finished last in attendance.17 And for the second straight season, Blyleven failed to receive even one vote for the Cy Young Award.

With his frustrations mounting, Blyleven formally asked for a trade after the 1975 season. Firebrand Gene Mauch, hired to replace Quilici, did not take kindly to his outspoken hurler, deriding him as a “pattern pitcher” whom batters had long figured out.18 Despite desperately needing a cash infusion for his club, Griffith refused to sell Blyleven and rejected multiple trade offers. It was a contentious time in baseball. Under the leadership of Marvin Miller, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, pitchers Andy Messersmith of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Dave McNally of the Montreal Expos successfully challenged baseball’s century-old reserve clause, effectively ushering in free agency with arbitrator Peter Seitz’s ruling in December. Armed with this freedom, Blyleven, as well as many other big leaguers, decided to play out their option by not signing a contract for the 1976 season in order to become free agents.

With trade rumors swirling, Blyleven’s seven-year tenure with the Twins came to a close after a forgettable outing on May 31 in front of 8,379 at Metropolitan Stadium. As Blyleven left the mound in the ninth inning of an eventual complete-game 3-2 loss to California, he gave the jeering and booing crowd a three-finger salute. “I couldn’t care less about the fans,” he said after the game.19 AL President Lee MacPhail subsequently fined the hurler and ordered him to issue a public apology.20 One day after his unsportsmanlike exit, Blyleven was traded along with infielder Danny Thompson to the Texas Rangers for shortstop Roy Smalley III (nephew of Mauch), pitchers Bill Singer and Jim Gideon, infielder Mike Cubbage, and an estimated $250,000. (Thompson, battling leukemia, died that December.)

In his debut with the Rangers on June 5 at Arlington Stadium, Blyleven tossed an 11-inning complete game with 10 punchouts, but lost 3-2 to Detroit’s Mark “The Bird” Fidrych. After Blyleven was clobbered for 14 earned runs on 19 hits (including four home runs) in 15⅓ innings during his next two outings, critics lampooned the trade for a hurler who was not under contract and who was widely expected to play elsewhere the next season. Turning a deaf ear to criticism, Blyleven worked out his kinks with Texas pitching coach Sid Hudson, who suggested that he throw a sinker. On June 21 Blyleven tossed a sparkling 10-inning, one-hit shutout to beat Oakland, 1-0, pick up his first win with his new club, and reach the 100-victory plateau for his career. Five days later Blyleven hurled another 10-inning, 1-0 shutout, scattering 10 hits against Chicago. In his return to Minnesota on July 26, Blyleven took no pity on his former teammates and a small weeknight crowd at Metropolitan Stadium, blanking them on two hits. While Texas finished in fourth place in the AL West (76-86), Blyleven’s cumulative 13-16 record overshadowed his 2.87 ERA in 297⅔ innings and 219 strikeouts.

Blyleven returned to the Rangers in 1977 on a one-year-contract in an injury-plagued season. A groin pull forced the 26-year-old pitcher to miss starts on at least three occasions, and Blyleven’s campaign seemed to be over on September 6 after a “roughed-up” loss (five runs, six hits, three walks in 3⅔ innings) at Minnesota. Defying odds, he returned on September 22 to toss what proved to be his only no-hitter, a 6-0 victory with seven strikeouts and one walk over the Angels at Anaheim Stadium while facing just 28 batters. “I wasn’t coming out,” said the pitcher, whose groin tightened in the first inning, “even if I had to throw it underhanded.”21 In 30 starts, Blyleven (14-12) had a 2.72 ERA in 234⅔ innings.

Just about a month after Blyleven signed a six-year deal with the Rangers in the offseason, he was shipped on December 8 to the Pittsburgh Pirates in a rare four-team trade that also involved the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves.22 Overall, 11 players (including Blyleven) changed addresses during the deal, which was consummated near the end of the winter meetings in Hawaii. Disappointed that he was not sent to a team in Southern California, where he and his family lived in the offseason, Blyleven did not seem overly excited to be headed to Pittsburgh, whose manager, Chuck Tanner, was known for having a quick hook with his starters. “I really don’t care where I play,” he said. “I’ll pitch for Bert Blyleven and do the best I can.”23 Such comments did not endear the hurler to Pirates fans, who lost longtime favorite and All-Star outfielder Al Oliver to Texas in the swap. The optimistic Tanner waxed excitedly about Blyleven’s pitching attributes and exclaimed, “Bert Blyleven is capable of winning 25 games!”24

In the context of his career, Blyleven’s three-year tenure in Pittsburgh was underwhelming and marked by an increasingly acrimonious relationship with Tanner. Blyleven’s first victory as a Pirate (an 11-inning, six-hit, 1-0 shutout of the Mets on April 26) was probably the highlight of the 1978 season, during which he went 14-10 (3.03 ERA) in 34 starts and was bothered by persistent shoulder pain.

No longer mentioned among the best pitchers in baseball, Blyleven got off to a horrendous beginning in 1979, winless in his first nine starts with an ERA of 5.17. Requiring regular cortisone shots in his ailing shoulder, Blyleven called the period the “most frustrating” in his life.25 While the “We Are Family” Pirates coalesced into one of the most memorable and tight-knit teams in club history to win 98 games and capture the NL East Division crown, Blyleven was portrayed in the press as a “mystery man” who was more concerned with his own statistics than team success.26 “It’s tough pitching for Tanner,” said Blyleven (12-5), who led the staff in starts (37) and innings (237⅓), but completed only four games. “[He] goes to the bullpen so often. … I’m a competitor. I don’t like to be taken out of the game.”27 Blyleven looked back on 20 no-decisions that he had when the regular season ended.

As the Pirates beat the Cincinnati Reds during a pair of anxious extra-inning affairs at Riverfront Stadium in the first two games of the best-of-five NLCS, Blyleven seemed frustrated with years of criticism that he lacked concentration and couldn’t win the big game, calling his reputation a “bad rap.”28 He secured the Pirates’ berth in the World Series and quieted critics, at least temporarily, with an eight-hit, complete-game victory, 7-1, on October 5 at Three Rivers Stadium.

With the Pirates down after they lost Game One of the World Series, Blyleven started Game Two against the Baltimore Orioles, scattering five hits and two runs in a six-inning no-decision in the Pirates’ eventual 3-2 victory at Memorial Stadium. Blyleven’s most important outing of the season, and of his career thus far, came in Game Five on October 14 in Pittsburgh, ironically in his first relief stint since his rookie season. With the Pirates facing a three-games-to-one disadvantage and trailing 1-0 in an elimination game, Blyleven took over for Jim Rooker to begin the sixth frame and tossed four scoreless innings, yielding three hits. The Pirates exploded for seven unanswered runs, making Blyleven the victor. Pittsburgh won the final two games in Baltimore to complete their comeback and win a dramatic World Series.

The nadir of Blyleven’s career came the following spring when he walked out on the Pirates after an outing on April 29 versus Montreal when he was yanked with two on and two out during a shaky sixth inning. “It wasn’t a snap decision,” said Blyleven, who returned to California and demanded a trade. “I’ve been thinking about it for more than a year.”29 The hurler cited “nonsupport and lack of confidence from my manager” as reasons for his self-imposed retirement.30 “I may seem strange, but for the first time in a long, long time, I feel happy.”31 While Blyleven was vilified nationally as an entitled millionaire who symbolized the fan’s perception of all-that-was-wrong with the skyrocketing salaries in professional sports, his teammates were shocked. “I can’t understand why he left,” said Bill Madlock. “I would respect him more if he left for personal reasons.”32 Blyleven ultimately returned, was reinstated on May 11, and was in the starting rotation two days later in San Francisco, where Tanner left him in for the whole contest of a 5-0 defeat. But the damage had been done. A pariah in the clubhouse, Blyleven lashed out at the media for what he perceived as unfair treatment, and went on a “silence kick,” refusing to grant interviews to reporters.33 The Pirates finally traded their disgruntled hurler (8-13, 3.82 ERA in 32 starts) along with Manny Sanguillen on December 9 to the Cleveland Indians for four marginal players (utilityman Gary Alexander and pitchers Victor Cruz, Bob Owchinko, and Rafael Vasquez. The “checklist” end results from this transaction proved that “addition by subtraction” does not always work. In 1981 Alexander batted .213 in 51 plate appearances; Cruz was 1-1 in 22 relief outings; Owchinko was traded at the end of spring training to the Oakland A’s for reliever Ernie Camacho; Vasquez, who was a highly thought of prospect within the Pirates organization in the late ’70’s, ended up 4-8 after being dispatched to Double-A Buffalo.34

Blyleven immediately propped up Cleveland’s staff, which had produced the worst team ERA (4.68) among all 26 big-league teams in 1980. After losing on Opening Day, the 30-year-old hurler tossed six consecutive complete-game victories en route to a 7-4 record and 2.83 ERA before the 1981 season was interrupted for nearly two months by the players’ strike. Snubbed for the All-Star Game, which kicked off the so-called second half of the season, on August 9 in Cleveland, Blyleven was widely praised by Indians skipper Dave Garcia as the “leader of the staff.”35 Known throughout his career for his offseason exercise regimen and stamina, Blyleven developed a sore elbow in September, prematurely ending his season with an 11-7 record and a sparkling 2.88 ERA in 159⅓ innings. Few outside of Cleveland took note of Blyleven’s stunning renaissance. While Milwaukee’s newly acquired reliever Rollie Fingers won the Cy Young Award, Blyleven was the easily the most valuable pitcher in the AL, according to one contemporary metric (WAR), but did not receive a single vote for the coveted award.

After he missed most of spring training in 1982, Blyleven’s career seemed in jeopardy when he was diagnosed with a torn muscle in his right elbow after making just four starts. He underwent surgery performed by renowned surgeon Dr. Frank Jobe, and missed the rest of the season.

According to Cleveland sportswriter Terry Pluto, many wondered if Blyleven would ever pitch again. His return in 1983 was further complicated by a fracture of his left elbow suffered in an apparent fall at his home in California.36 But with Dutch perseverance, Blyleven, described as the “most encouraging development” of spring training, made an unexpected recovery.37 He pitched steadily yet unspectacularly in the first half of the season before shoulder and elbow miseries landed him on the DL three separate times in the second half of the season, once again raising doubts about his future.38

Blyleven’s return to pitching prominence was one of the feel-good stories of the 1984 season. He did not make a start for almost four weeks after he stepped on a ball in the outfield while shagging batting-practice flies in Milwaukee in mid-May and fractured his foot. Still, Blyleven went 19-7 and posted a stellar 2.87 ERA in 245 innings for the last-place Indians and new manager Pat Corrales. In Blyleven’s seven losses, his teammates managed to score a total of six runs. Praised by The Sporting News as the “best pitcher in the American League,” Blyleven increasingly relied on his curveball, sinker, slider, and changeup to augment his fastball.39 “I think all the injuries in the last two years have forced me to become a better pitcher,” said Blyleven, who finished third in voting for the Cy Young Award.40 The 15-year veteran had lost none of his competitive spirit. “I get enjoyment from striking out a guy and making him look bad,” admitted Blyleven bluntly. He then added, in sabermetric-like language, “I’ve always been a strikeout pitcher. It’s the best way to get rid of the hitter. If he doesn’t make contact, there can be no chance for a mistake.”41

But by his fifth start in 1985, Blyleven was at a boiling point. Frustrated that he had not been traded despite his public demands since the previous spring, Blyleven was struggling with an ERA just over 5.00. He blew his top on April 28 after allowing three home runs in an exasperating outing at Baltimore by making an obscene gesture to the jeering crowd at Memorial Stadium when he was removed from the game in the bottom of the eighth. Reprimanded by AL President Bobby Brown, Blyleven subsequently reeled off three shutouts in his next six starts, then commenced a string of 10 consecutive complete games from June 6 through July 24. Named to the AL All-Star team for the second and last time, Blyleven struggled (three hits and two earned runs in two innings), but received a hearty welcome on July 16 from the sellout crowd at the Metrodome, the Twins’ domed stadium in downtown Minneapolis. Blyleven, whom Cleveland had placed on waivers after the June 15 trading deadline, was later claimed by Minnesota, which acquired the 34-year-old hurler on August 1, along with a player to be named later (pitcher Rich Yett), in exchange for three prospects, infielder Jay Bell, pitcher Curt Wardle, and minor-league outfielder Jim Weaver. Blyleven made a smooth transition to the Twins, posting an 8-5 record and completing nine of his 14 starts. Finishing a distant third once again in the Cy Young Award voting, Blyleven (17-16 record, 3.16 ERA) led the AL in starts (37), shutouts (5), and strikeouts (206), while pacing the majors in complete games (24) and innings (293⅔). As of 2015, the latter two figures have not been matched by any big leaguer.

Blyleven’s post-surgery renaissance continued in his first full season in 1986 after his return to the Twins. “Bert’s delivery always has been smooth, loose, a lot of leg drive, everything going forward at the same time,” said skipper Ray Miller.42 On August 1 Blyleven tossed an overpowering two-hitter against the Oakland A’s, striking out a career-high 15, including the 3,000th in his career, to become the 10th major leaguer to reach that milestone.43 He reached another, albeit infamous milestone on September 29 when he yielded his 47th home run of the season, to Jay Bell (who was making his major-league debut and hit the first pitch Blyleven threw to him) in a victory over Cleveland at the Metrodome to break Robin Roberts’ record set in 1956 for the most gopher balls in a season. “I don’t like this ballpark,” said Blyleven, who ultimately surrendered 50 round-trippers in ’86 with 31 of those blasts coming at the Metrodome. “I’m a fastball pitcher and the ball carries here.”44 The baseball really carried in the Metrodome on September 13 when Blyleven allowed five home runs in 5⅓ innings to Texas. Blyleven (17-14, 4.01 ERA) fanned 215 and led the AL in innings (271⅔).

Led by a quartet of young sluggers (Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Gary Gaetti, and Tom Brunansky), the Twins (85-77) captured the AL West crown in 1987. In the postseason, Blyleven (15-12, 4.01 ERA in 267 innings) put to rest any suggestion that he could not win the big game. In the best-of-seven ALCS he defeated the heavily favored Detroit Tigers (98-64) twice, including the Game Five clincher in Tiger Stadium. He ran his postseason winning streak to five games in Game Two of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, scattering six hits and yielding two runs in seven innings in an 8-4 victory at the Metrodome with the partisan home crowd cheering loudly while waving “Homer Hankies.” “When you put fifty-five thousand screaming people in here, it’s something,” said Blyleven, soaking in every moment. “The best thing to do is just not think.”45 Though he picked up the loss, 4-2, in Game Five at Busch Stadium in St. Louis (seven hits, three runs, two earned in six innings), the Twins defeated the Cardinals in Games Six and Seven when they returned to the fever-pitched decibels of the Metrodome to capture their first championship since the franchise relocated from Washington, DC, after the 1960 season.

Blyleven’s second stint with the Twins ended after the 1988 season when he was traded to the California Angels for two prospects (first baseman Paul Sorrento and reliever Mike Cook) with limited big-league experience; both teams also tossed in a minor leaguer. Blyleven had struggled in 1988, notching just 10 victories and was bothered by a bruised right thumb. He also led the majors in two dubious categories: the highest ERA among starters (5.43) and losses (17, tied with Atlanta’s Tom Glavine).

“I’ve dreamt about this since I was growing up,” said Blyleven about pitching in Anaheim in front of friends and family in 1989.46 In what sportswriter Tim Harrigan of the AP called a “brilliant year,” the 38-year-old Blyleven resurrected yet again his career, posting a 17-5 record with a 2.73 ERA in 241 innings to finish fourth in the Cy Young Award balloting for the third-place Angels.47 In his last start of the campaign, he tossed his AL-best fifth shutout, and the 60th of his career, blanking Kansas City on seven hits. Blyleven attributed his success to his slider, which tended to ride in on left-handed hitters, as well as excellent command of his low-and-outside fastball.48 He walked a career-low 1.6 batters per nine innings.

Plagued by shoulder pain in 1990, Blyleven (8-7, 5.24 ERA) was forced to end his season prematurely when he was diagnosed with a torn muscle after a start on August 10. After an arthroscopic procedure in October, Blyleven reported to spring training in 1991. But when his pain resurfaced, he was once again examined by the Angels’ orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Lewis Slocum, who discovered a serious tear in his rotator cuff.49 Ten days after his 40th birthday, Blyleven had his second shoulder operation in less than eight months, and subsequently missed the entire 1991 season.

Few sportswriters thought the 41-year-old hurler could return to baseball in 1992. But as he had done so many times in his career, Blyleven proved his critics wrong. On May 19 he took the mound for the first time in more than 21 months and tossed six innings, yielding eight hits and three runs to the New York Yankees. Granted free agency after the 1992 season, Blyleven had no plans to retire. Despite losing seven of his last eight decisions, he pitched noticeably better over his final 12 starts with the Angels, finishing with an 8-12 record.

Only 13 victories shy of the magical 300 mark, Blyleven signed an incentive-laden contact with the Twins in 1993. He was roughed up in spring training and did not make the Opening Day roster. He subsequently announced his retirement, bringing his big-league career to an end. His name is displayed prominently among the career leaders in many pitching categories, including wins (287, 27th), losses (250, 10th), starts (685, 11th), innings (4,970, 14th), strikeouts (3,701, 5th), and shutouts (60, 9th). Blyleven accumulated 96.5 WAR (11th among pitchers), ahead of Christy Mathewson, Gaylord Perry, Warren Spahn, Steve Carlton, and Nolan Ryan.

Blyleven was also considered one of the baseball’s best and most notorious pranksters, famous for his “hot foot.”

Blyleven’s name is synonymous with Twins baseball even though he played half of his career with other teams. In 1996 he was named color commentator for Twins television broadcasts, developing a style that matched his personality on the field. Known for his insightful analysis, occasional controversial comments, and unequivocal “homer” support of the club, the still brash Blyleven began his 21st season as commentator in 2016. Blyleven was elected to the Twins Hall of Fame in 2002, and had his number 28 retired by the club in 2011. His close association with the Twins was forever cemented when he chose to be portrayed wearing a Twins cap on his Hall of Fame plaque upon his election to that shrine in 2011. He also served as pitching coach for the Dutch national baseball team in 2009 and 2013 in the World Baseball Classic.

As of 2016, Blyleven lived with his second wife, Gayle, in Fort Myers, Florida, and the Twin Cities.

Last revised: September 1, 2016

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also accessed Blyleven’s player file and questionnaire from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, Bill Lee’s The Baseball Necrology, the SABR Minor Leagues Database, accessed online at Baseball-Reference.com, The Sporting News archive via Paper of Record, and Ancestry.com.

Notes

1 With the rise of sabermetric analysis, WAR, ERA+ and FIP have become three of the most compelling metrics used to analyze a pitcher’s value and effectiveness. WAR (Wins Above Replacement) attempts to measure a player’s value in wins he provides the team in comparison to a replacement-level player. ERA+ (Adjusted ERA) adjusts a pitcher’s ERA according to ballpark factors and the league average. FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) attempts to measure a pitcher’s effectiveness by removing fielding variables.

2 Bert Blyleven’s Hall of Fame induction speech, July 24, 2011. Player’s Hall of Fame file, Cooperstown, New York.

3 Ibid.

4 The Sporting News, July 4, 1970: 10.

5 The Sporting News, June 13, 1970: 39.

6 The Sporting News July 4, 1970: 10.

7 AP, “Blyleven earns playoff start,” Winona (Minnesota) Daily News, October 1, 1970: 22.

8 Pat Thompson, “Blyleven 4 hits Brewers,” Winona (Minnesota) Daily News, April 8, 1971: 2.

9 The Sporting News, May 1, 1971: 9.

10 Ibid.

11 The Sporting News, August 19, 1972: 15.

12 The Sporting News, June 9, 1973: 3.

13 AP, “Darwin’s slam boosts Twins Over Angels, 4-0,” Winona (Minnesota) Daily News, July 1, 1973: 18.

14 AP, “Blyleven logs 7th shutout, 12th win,” Winona (Minnesota) Daily News, July 12, 1973: 16.

15 The Sporting News, December 8, 1973: 52.

16 Blyleven achieved a 9.9 WAR.

17 AP, “Blyleven, Twins Zip Yanks, 3-0,” Daily Journal (Fergus Falls, Minnesota), July 22, 1975: 12.

18 AP, “Rangers Offer Three Players for Blyleven,” Daily Journal (Fergus Falls, Minnesota), December 31, 1975: 13.

19 AP, “Blyleven Booed After 3-2 loss,” Daily Journal (Fergus Falls, Minnesota), June 1, 1976: 9.

20 AP, “MacPhail Orders Public Apology by Blyleven,” Winona (Minnesota) Daily News, June 3, 1976: 17.

21 The Sporting News, October 8, 1977:12.

22 A scorecard might have been needed to keep track of the 11 players who were involved in the rare four-team trade involving the Texas Rangers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Atlanta Braves, and New York Mets. Atlanta sent Willie Montañez to New York. Texas shipped Tommy Boggs, Adrian Devine, and Eddie Miller to Atlanta, and a player to be named later (Ken Henderson) and Tom Grieve to New York. Pittsburgh sent Nelson Norman and Al Oliver to Texas. New York sent Jon Matlack to Texas. New York sent John Milner to Pittsburgh. Blyleven was sent to Pittsburgh.

23 The Sporting News, December 24, 1977: 51.

24 The Sporting News, December 24, 1977: 51.

25 Charley Feeney, “Blyleven Not Happy About Winless Start,” Pittsburgh Post Gazette, May 15, 1979: 13.

26 The Sporting News, June 30, 1979: 24.

27 Charley Feeney, “It’s Blyleven vs. LaCoss in Game 3,” Pittsburgh Post Gazette, October 5, 1979: 9.

28 Ibid.

29 Charley Feeney, “Blyleven Walks Out, Wants Trade,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 1, 1980: 9.

30 The Sporting News, May 17, 1980: 5.

31 Ibid.

32 Phil Axelrod, “Madlock Baffled by Blyleven’s Departure,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 2, 1980: 16.

33 The Sporting News, June 21, 1980: 33.

34 One of the worst trades in Pirates history.

35 The Sporting News, September 19, 1981: 21.

36 The Sporting News, April 4, 1983: 26.

37 Ibid.

38Ibid.

39 The Sporting News, October 22, 1984: 14.

40 AP, “Cleveland’s Blyleven Pushes for a Trade,” Des Moines (Iowa) Register, September 11, 1984: 18.

41 AP, “Indians Hurler Blyleven focuses on Strikeouts at Expense of Shutouts,” Arizona Republic (Phoenix), April 10, 1984: 44.

42 The Sporting News, March 31, 1986: 32.

43 Blyleven joined the following members of the 3,000-strikeout club with the date of their entry in parentheses: Walter Johnson (1923), Bob Gibson (1974), Gaylord Perry (1978), Nolan Ryan (1980), Tom Seaver (1981), Steve Carlton (1981), Ferguson Jenkins (1982), Don Sutton (1983), and Phil Niekro 1984.

44 AP, “Cleveland Rookie Helps Blyleven Secure Record,” Star-Democrat (Easton, Maryland), October 1, 1986: 26.

45 AP, ‘Blyleven returns to roots, wins for Twins,” The Tennessean (Nashville), October 19, 1987: 18.

46 AP, “Twins Deal Blyleven to California,” Star-Democrat (Easton, Maryland), November 4, 1988: 9.

47 Tim Harrigan, AP, “The Big A. Blyleven back among best in the league,” Arizona Republic (Phoenix), September 30, 1989: 38.

48 Dave Luecking, “His Biggest Prank. Blyleven Proves He’s not Washed Up,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 27, 1989: 66.

49 Robyn Norwood, “Tour de Pain: At 40, Angels’ Blyleven Is Given Little Chance to Pitch Again After Major Surgery — but He Has Pedaled that Route Before,” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 1991.

Dorian “Doe” Boyland was a good prospect who never got a proper chance to show what he could do in the major leagues. The first baseman received three trials with the Pittsburgh Pirates — in 1978, 1979, and 1981. He got into a total of 21 games, but started none of them and played in the field in just one — all his other opportunities came as a pinch-hitter or pinch-runner. He got just two singles and a walk in 20 plate appearances.

For a time Boyland was touted as the heir to the great Willie Stargell in Pittsburgh. He wasn’t a big power hitter — the most home runs he ever had in any season was 14 — but he hit for good average and stole an unusual number of bases for his size (6-feet-4 and 200 pounds) and position. He worked hard to become adept in the field — he had never played first base before turning professional. Yet even after Stargell entered his twilight as a player, the Pirates used other veterans instead. Boyland finally got a change of scenery in 1982, but could not break through in the San Francisco Giants organization either. He retired from pro baseball after that season.

Boyland then went on to huge success as a businessman. He founded his company, Boyland Auto Group, in 1987 and led it to the number-4 ranking on Black Enterprise’s auto dealers list for 2013. Brainpower, charisma, and determination were all big ingredients — yet he also gave credit to what he learned as a member of the 1979 World Series champion Pirates, especially from manager Chuck Tanner. In a 2011 promotional video, Boyland said, “I was very fortunate to be involved with the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates. … I’ve got the [World Series] ring on right now. That was a dream in itself. I still get asked today, ‘How was it?’

“But the one thing that was very helpful, in terms of not just making money, and people respecting what I’ve done, and having arrived as a baseball player  … Chuck Tanner was the eternal optimist. He could motivate a guy that was tired, hurt, injured, didn’t feel like playing, to run through a brick wall. And not knowing at the time, I was picking all of that stuff up. So by the time it came that I was in the automobile industry and became a manager, I understood what motivation was all about.”1

Dorian Scott Boyland was born on January 6, 1955, in Chicago. His parents were William and Alice (née Walker) Boyland.2 He had one sibling, an older sister named Brenda. William and Alice were divorced when little Dorian was around 4 years old.3 Alice, who worked as an accountant for retailer Montgomery Ward, then brought both children up by herself. She was a heroine to her son.4

In pursuit of better education for her children, Alice moved the family to the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago in 1962.5 Dorian attended Isabelle O’Keeffe Elementary School and South Shore High, and his drive was evident from an early age. “As I was growing up, the only motivation I really had, that I could recall, was that I always wanted to do the right things. I wanted to get straight A’s, I wanted to be the fastest guy in kickball, I wanted to be the last person out in dodgeball, I wanted my mom to say, ‘Good job.’ I wanted to be the best at whatever I was trying to accomplish.”6

At one time in his youth, though, Boyland joined a gang. He talked about it with a group of 250 Chicago youngsters in 2010. “Seeing he was headed for trouble, his single mother sent him away to live with his grandmother. ‘I learned a lot that summer, came back and made a different choice.’”7 Throughout his life, this man never touched alcohol, tobacco, drugs, or even coffee.

Boyland won a scholarship to the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh. His first love was basketball, and he later said that he chose UW-Oshkosh because of the head basketball coach, Robert White. In 2011 he called Coach White “a pioneer in recruiting minority players and diversifying the team,” and talked of how the coach and his wife were another pair of parents to him.8

“Oshkosh had a good baseball team too,” wrote Pittsburgh Press columnist Dan Donovan in 1978, “and since Boyland threw the ball pretty well, he volunteered to pitch.” He had a strong freshman year on the mound, helping the Titans get to the 1973 NAIA College World Series.9 One of his teammates was Jim Gantner, who went on to play 17 seasons in the majors with the Milwaukee Brewers. “The scouts came out to see him, and so they saw me too,” said Boyland.10

Knee surgery after a basketball injury changed his priorities. “I lost some quickness,” Boyland said. “I knew if I was going anywhere in sports, it would have to be in baseball.”11

Over time in college, Boyland’s bat got him into the everyday lineup. When he was not pitching, he played designated hitter and (on occasion) the outfield. As a senior in 1976, though his pitching record was so-so, Dorian was 29-for-95 (.305) with 6 homers and 26 RBIs.12 Major-league scouting directors and coordinators named him to the second team of The Sporting News College All-America squad in 1976.13

That June Pittsburgh chose Boyland in the second round of the amateur draft. “I was not really surprised about being picked in the second round,” he said, “because scouts had told me that I would be going in the first three rounds, and I had been contacted by the Pirates’ chief scout [future general manager Harding “Pete” Peterson] this summer.”14

Howie Haak, the Pirates’ superscout, was surprised that Boyland was still available. He later said, “We knew he could run, and he had a good arm. We’ve found that most natural athletes can learn to hit. If they can’t, you send them home.”15

“I am really glad to be with the Pirates,” Boyland also said, “because they like my hitting. They haven’t said too much about pitching, because as a pitcher I would only get to bat every fourth day and they seem to want my bat in the order every day.” The Oshkosh baseball coach, Russ Tiedemann, said, “Dorian is not a good cold-weather pitcher and pitching in Wisconsin in the spring has not been real good to him. He does have all the tools to make it in the big leagues, though.”16

Murray Cook, then Pittsburgh’s assistant farm director, liked Boyland’s overall baseball abilities. “We think he is the type of player that can help us to a pennant. We just feel this way but have no guarantees. We do know he has the size, agility, and coordination of a baseball player. Boyland is also an outstanding runner with fine speed and an adequate arm, so he has the tools we look for. We want him to play every day at this point and do not plan on using him as a pitcher.”17

Boyland reported to Salem (Virginia) of the Carolina League (Class A), where he was made a first baseman, though he had never played there before. “That was my plight,” he said. He was thrown in the deep end, with no instruction, and expected to cope. “I got there and the manager, Steve Demeter, told me, ‘You’re batting fourth and playing first base.”18

“I didn’t know how to field the ball at first base,” he said in 1978. “And when I picked it up, I didn’t know how to throw it. I looked pretty silly. I never knew there was so much involved in playing baseball.”19 He later added, “It really made me depressed.”20 In 71 total games, Boyland hit .269 with 3 homers and 31 RBIs. “I was hitting a buck-twenty or a buck-forty early on. If I hadn’t been a second-round pick, they would probably have released me.”21

Nonetheless, Boyland was invited to practice with the big leaguers in spring training 1977.22 He stepped up to Double-A and hit very well for Shreveport in the Texas League: .330-11-60 in 119 games. He also stole 30 bases and got caught just six times. The first-base position belonged to him — even though, in his own words, “I still couldn’t catch a cold there.” (He committed 28 errors.)23

In the fall of 1977, the Pirates and New York Yankees fielded a combined entry in the Florida Instructional League.24 “I was finally taught how to play first base — by the Yankees. Ed Napoleon took me out and put me through all kinds of drills. I learned how to grip the ball so it wouldn’t move like it did when I was a pitcher. Gene Michael helped too.” According to Boyland, the Yankees were interested in acquiring him (that December they lost Willie Upshaw to the Toronto Blue Jays in the Rule 5 draft).25

Shortly after that, Boyland gained his first experience in winter ball. He joined Navegantes del Magallanes in the Venezuelan league. He got into 28 of the 70 games that season, because 34-year-old veteran Bob Oliver (the first baseman at Triple-A Columbus that year) was also with the Navigators. In just 98 at-bats, though, Boyland hit well: 5 homers, 24 RBIs, and a .337 average. One of his managers that season was Pirates first-base coach Alex “Al” Monchak. A number of other Pirates prospects were there too, such as pitchers Rod Scurry and Fred Breining, and infielder Gary Hargis. When asked about his experience in Venezuela, Boyland responded enthusiastically. “I loved it, loved it. I didn’t stay in a hotel, I stayed with the people because I wanted to improve my Spanish. Still to this day it’s one of my favorite places.”26

Boyland was again invited to work out with the Pirates in the spring of 1978. “Remember the name: Dorian Boyland,” said beat writer Charley Feeney, mentioning for perhaps the first time that the young man was someday expected to replace Willie Stargell.27 Stargell himself said, “You can see he’s going to hit for a good average. He’s got strong, quick wrists.” But Dorian said, “I want to be [a] complete first baseman. … I want to bunt, steal bases, and hit for average as well as show power. I also want to be a good first baseman defensively.”28

Boyland moved up to Triple-A Columbus of the International League for the 1978 season — Bob Oliver was out of the Pirates organization — and had another good year (.291-12-61 in 113 games). He was rewarded with his first call-up to the majors that September.

His debut was bizarre and unique. During the first game of a doubleheader on September 4 at Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium, Chuck Tanner sent Boyland in to pinch-hit for pitcher Ed Whitson. The score was tied 4-4 against the New York Mets with one out in the seventh inning, and Phil Garner was on first base. Pitcher Skip Lockwood had a 1-and-2 count on Boyland, but Lockwood had to come out of the game with a sore shoulder. Mets manager Joe Torre brought in a southpaw, Kevin Kobel, and Tanner sent righty Rennie Stennett in to hit for the lefty Boyland. Stennett promptly took strike three; by the rules, the strikeout was charged to Boyland.29

“For many years I dreamed of what I might do in my first major-league at-bat,” Boyland said. “I dreamed of hitting a grand-slam homer and even of striking out, but I never thought I’d strike out — and be watching from the dugout.”30

Sixteen days later, Boyland got his first base hit in the majors. It came at Wrigley Field in Chicago, playing for the first time in his hometown in a major-league uniform, with his mother, sister, and around 100 friends in the crowd.31 Tanner then put the steal on, although Pittsburgh was trailing 4-1 in the eighth inning. He kept it on, even though Frank Taveras fouled off four straight pitches. On the fifth attempt, Taveras lifted a short fly that Boyland thought was catchable, but Cubs shortstop Iván de Jesús didn’t get to it. Doe headed for third base, but “‘I missed second,’ he said. ‘I knew I missed it. I hoped they [the umpires] wouldn’t notice. Manny Trillo called for the ball and appealed. They proved me wrong.’”32

Boyland’s lone outing in the field as a big leaguer came at Three Rivers on the last day of the season. Willie Stargell — batting leadoff for one of just 15 times in his 21 years as a Pirate — opened the bottom of the first with a single. Boyland came in to run for him and played first base the rest of the way, getting his only RBI in the majors with his only other hit.

Boyland returned to Venezuela for the winter of 1978-79. He was not as successful this time (.268-0-18 in 30 games) and had to leave early after sustaining a wrist injury.33 That problem wasn’t serious, but a recurring hamstring problem plagued him in 1979. In spring training, the Pirates wanted Boyland to work in left field, since Stargell (who became the NL’s co-MVP that season) was still the main man at first base. “A ball was going down the line and I broke for it. I felt something in my leg,” Boyland recalled in 1980. He sat out the rest of spring training and was sent down to the Pirates’ new Triple-A team, the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League.34

“I’d finally become a real first baseman, and what happened? They sent me back to the outfield,” said Boyland. “But here’s my demise. When the Pirates sent me down, I was distraught. I said some unkind words to Chuck Tanner.”35

With Portland, Boyland remained in left field — and pulled the hamstring again in his first game. He was out for a month, played again, and was hurt again.36 All told, Boyland played in just 30 games for the Beavers, hitting just .245-2-12 in 102 at-bats.

Even so, when the rosters expanded that September, Boyland went back up to Pittsburgh. He pinch-hit three times, striking out twice, and also pinch-ran once. He was not eligible for the Pirates’ successful postseason; he was one of the eight players who received a modest $250 cash grant when the team voted on World Series shares.

His leg did not bother Boyland while he was with Pittsburgh, but during winter ball in the Dominican Republic with Águilas Cibaeñas, the problem recurred after an opposing first baseman tripped him. “Now he has to prove he can play again,” said Howie Haak.37

In the spring of 1980, the new heir apparent to Stargell at first base was a big Puerto Rican named Eddie Vargas. Vargas (who made the majors briefly with the Pirates in 1982 and 1984) was coming off a strong year in Single A and was headed for Double A. He was also four years younger than Boyland. “This year in spring training I’m more realistic,” said Boyland. “I know I would only make the team in the event of a trade or an injury. If I don’t make the team, I’ll set my goals very high. If I have a good season in Portland, I can make the team next year or maybe someone else will want me.”38

A little over a week later, the subject arose of what would happen if Stargell got hurt. Boyland responded, “It all depends on how serious an injury and how everybody else on the team is doing and the extent of the injury. Then they might say, ‘Get Doe Boyland up here.’”39 As it turned out, “Pops” was able to play in just 67 games in 1980 — but Pittsburgh used John Milner and Bill Robinson at first base that year. Bill Madlock, Manny Sanguillen, and Kurt Bevacqua also filled in.

Meanwhile, Boyland spent the year at Portland. There had been talk that he would play left field, but he returned to first base, hitting .281-14-67 in 120 games. His leg was healthy again, as evidenced by 26 stolen bases. “And I played flawless defense,” he added. “But you know how it is — you get labeled, and that’s it.”40

Despite his good year, Boyland saw no major-league action in 1980. “Everybody thought I was going up after September 1,” he remarked the following spring, “But all I got was a plane ticket home to Chicago. And during the year I was very disappointed I didn’t get called up. I was hitting about .340 and I was leading the team in home runs and stolen bases. I got so down I went into a tremendous slump for about a month and a half. There was no one for me to talk to and I let it bother me.”41 He put it even more strongly looking back in 2014: “I was done. I was through.”

In the spring of 1981, after a winter in the Mexican Pacific League with Águilas de Mexicali, Boyland roomed with Mike Easler. “The Hit Man” knew firsthand about waiting years to get his chance to break through in the majors. “He’s helped me accept my situation a little better,” Boyland said. “Seeing what he went through to get here. … I know I just have to hang in there.”42

Yet even though Boyland was hitting well in camp, general manager Pete Peterson told him that in all likelihood he was bound for Portland again. Stargell was still on the scene — “If Willie can get to the plate in a wheelchair, he’s going to play,” Boyland said.43 Plus, shortly before the season started, Pittsburgh acquired Jason Thompson from the California Angels. Things might have turned out differently, though, had Commissioner Bowie Kuhn not prevented the Thompson trade from becoming a three-way deal with the Yankees. Jim Spencer, who had little left in the tank, would have wound up with the Pirates instead.

Boyland, who had welcomed the idea of a trade, still had confidence in his abilities. He said, “I think I can hit 20 home runs and steal 30 bases in the major leagues. That’s pretty select company.”44 During 1981, though, he was hurt again and had to share time at Portland with Craig Cacek (four months older) and Bob Beall (who was turning 33 — the Beavers roster had at least 10 players aged 30 and over that year). Boyland got into just 68 games, and though he hit .310, he had only 2 homers and 28 RBIs.

Despite his part-time status, Boyland made it back to Pittsburgh in September for the last time. He got into 11 games, going hitless with a walk in nine trips as a pinch-hitter and pinch-running twice.

Boyland played in seven games for Magallanes during the 1981-82 winter season. On December 11, 1981, he was dealt to the San Francisco Giants for veteran pitcher Tom Griffin. “I was out of options,” he recalled, “so I thought they would finally keep me. So what did they do? They traded me.”45

Boyland still held promise for at least one high authority — Frank Robinson, who was then the Giants’ manager. Robinson called him a good young prospect (though Doe was about to turn 27) and said, “I saw Boyland when I was at Rochester in 1978 and he impressed me.”46

It was much the same story with San Francisco, though. The Giants had two veteran first basemen in Enos Cabell and Dave Bergman. Then in late February 1982, they signed another veteran, switch-hitting Reggie Smith, as a free agent (the seven-time All-Star outfielder played first base only during his final season).“I remember Frank Robinson giving me the news,” said Boyland.47

Shortly thereafter, Cabell was traded, and Boyland — a nonroster player — was given a chance to stick with the big club in spring training.48 Yet Darrell Evans, who played first base a good deal, was on the team too. Boyland was ticketed for Triple-A Phoenix. There he played in 107 games, but the primary first baseman for that team was José Barrios — again, a younger player than Boyland (by two years). Boyland was in the lineup more often as a designated hitter, and his production was not high (.259-7-52 in 371 at-bats).

“I said to myself that year, ‘Better find a new job.’”49 After he quit, Boyland — with his degree in business administration and computer science — was mulling an offer from Intel Corp. to become a systems analyst. (The semiconductor company still has a major presence in Oregon.) The door to his true career then opened, though, thanks to Ron Tonkin, who was president and part-owner of the Portland Beavers — and a leading car dealer in the Portland area.

“He convinced me to come try the car business for 60 days, and if I didn’t like it, I could go back to my other position,” said Boyland in 2005. Thinking he would have a managerial position, he accepted — but when he got to the dealership, he found he was a rank-and-file salesman. Boyland added, “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”50

When the two-month trial period was up, Tonkin made Boyland an assistant manager. Within two years, they were partners, acquiring a Dodge dealership together; Boyland held a 30 percent stake. In 1987 he bought his own dealership, and over time he built it into a chain of Dodge, Ford, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, and Hyundai agencies.51 The jewel in the crown: Mercedes-Benz of South Orlando, which opened at a prime location in 2004. The Mercedes regional manager for the Southeast said of Boyland, “He has a knack for responding to market demands and understanding how markets change.”52 One of Boyland’s partners put it this way: “Dorian is a very driven guy with vision. … He’s got the moxie and savvy to put deals together.”53

Boyland also based his business on knowing the numbers — something that dated back to early childhood — and fiscal prudence. From the beginning, he established a core value: ensuring satisfaction for his customers, employees, and manufacturers. He felt a strong sense of duty in setting a successful example for the minority community and helping the generations that followed his.54

Boyland emphasized the importance of connections with people in his foreword to the 2014 book Networking for Black Professionals. In addition to what he called “the 3 C’s” — Competitive Edge, Confidence, and Competence — he said that talking to people daily and listening to them bred high customer satisfaction. He concluded with the encouraging words, “Don’t let fear hold you back, take the ride and see where it leads you!”55

Boyland said he often saw players he faced — “Manny Trillo was just in the store last week” — and comrades from the 1979 Pirates. For example, “Lee Lacy was just here. Dave Parker comes down all the time.”56 Though his stay in the big leagues was brief, Dorian Boyland cherishes the many friendships he formed during his baseball career.

Grateful acknowledgment to Dorian Boyland for his memories (telephone interviews, May 5 and May 7, 2014) and to his sister Brenda Mitchell for the introduction.

Sources

Internet resources

purapelota.com (Venezuelan statistics).

blackenterprise.com.

Notes

1 Boyland Auto Group — “Ride with a Winner” promotional video, 2011 (youtube.com/watch?v=fg2zO783P0c).

2 Who’s Who Among African-Americans (Farmington, Michigan: Gale Group, 2002), 126. This reference gave Alice’s maiden name as Jones, but according to her daughter, Brenda, it was Walker.

3 Telephone interview, Dorian Boyland with Rory Costello, May 7, 2014.

4 Lucia Reid, “The Midas Touch,” Onyx (Orlando, Florida), July-August 2007, 23.

5 Reid, “The Midas Touch,” 22.

6 “Ride with a Winner.”

7 Maudlyne Ihejirika, “Success ‘up to you,’ teens told,” Chicago Sun-Times, May 8, 2010.

8 “Coach White to be honored at men’s basketball reunion,” UW Oshkosh Today website, August 10, 2011.

9 The NAIA’s freshman eligibility rules are different from those of other associations, such as the NCAA.

10 Telephone interview, Dorian Boyland with Rory Costello, May 5, 2014.

11 Dan Donovan, “Baskets to Bases: Boyland a Natural,” Pittsburgh Press, March 2, 1978: A-7.

12 Dave Grey, “Boyland, Pascarella are high draft picks,” The Daily Northwestern, (Neenah/Menasha, Wisconsin), June 9, 1976: 9.

13 Lou Pavlovich, “Bannister Chosen Player of Year on All-America Team,” The Sporting News, July 31, 1976: 28.

14 Grey, “Boyland, Pascarella are high draft picks.”

15 Donovan, “Baskets to Bases: Boyland a Natural.”

16 Grey, “Boyland, Pascarella are high draft picks.”

17 Ibid.

18 Telephone interview, Dorian Boyland with Rory Costello, May 5, 2014.

19 Donovan, “Baskets to Bases: Boyland a Natural.”

20 Glenn Miller, “Waiting and Hoping,” St. Petersburg Independent, March 20, 1980, 1-C.

21 Telephone interview, Dorian Boyland with Rory Costello, May 5, 2014.

22 Charley Feeney, “Bucs’ Key Player: Versatile Robinson,” The Sporting News, January 29, 1977: 46.

23 Telephone interview, Dorian Boyland with Rory Costello, May 5, 2014.

24 Don Greenberg, “He can go all the way — with experience,” St. Petersburg Times, September 27, 1977: 4. Subject: Joe Lefebvre.

25 Telephone interview, Dorian Boyland with Rory Costello, May 5, 2014.

26 Telephone interviews, Dorian Boyland with Rory Costello, May 5 and May 7, 2014.

27 Charley Feeney, “Bucs to Lean Heavily on Toughy Duffy,” The Sporting News, February 18, 1978: 50.

28 Donovan, “Baskets to Bases: Boyland a Natural.”

29 Charley Feeney, “Pirates Trail by One After Sweep of Mets,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 5, 1978: 13. This article says that Stennett swung and missed, but Boyland remembered that Rennie was caught looking.

30 Jerome Holtzman, “Some Free Advice,” The Sporting News, October 7, 1978: 42.

31 Reid, “The Midas Touch,” 23.

32 Miller, “Waiting and Hoping.”

33 Dan Donovan, “Candelaria, Stennett Find Cure for Ailments in Winter Baseball,” Pittsburgh Press, January 14, 1979: D-8.

34 Dan Donovan, “Another Turning Point for Boyland,” Pittsburgh Press, March 11, 1980: D-1.

35 Telephone interview, Dorian Boyland with Rory Costello, May 5, 2014.

36 “Another Turning Point for Boyland.”

37 Donovan, “Another Turning Point for Boyland.”

38 Donovan, “Another Turning Point for Boyland.”

39 Miller, “Waiting and Hoping.”

40 Telephone interview, Dorian Boyland with Rory Costello, May 5, 2014.

41 Ron Cook, “Boyland weary of waiting to be Willie,” Beaver County (Pennsylvania) Times, March 16, 1981: B1.

42 Ibid.

43 Dan Donovan, “Boyland Claims His Future Is Now,” Pittsburgh Press, March 16, 1981, C-1.

44 Ibid.

45 Telephone interview, Dorian Boyland with Rory Costello, May 5, 2014.

46 Nick Peters, “Giants Under Fire for Peddling Griffin,” The Sporting News, January 2, 1982: 41.

47 Telephone interview, Dorian Boyland with Rory Costello, May 5, 2014.

48 Nick Peters, “Robinson, Players Big on Confidence,” The Sporting News, March 6, 1982: 36.

49 Telephone interview, Dorian Boyland with Rory Costello, May 5, 2014.

50 Christina Hildreth, “Grand slam performer,” Orlando Business Journal, July 25, 2005.

51 Alan Hughes, “The Game Plan,” Black Enterprise, April 1, 2012.

52 Hildreth, “Grand slam performer.”

53 Hughes, “The Game Plan.”

54 Reid, “The Midas Touch,” 24-25. Ihejirika, “Success ‘up to you,’ teens told.” Alan Hughes, “8 Steps to Keep Your Small Business on the Road to Success,” Black Enterprise, March 25, 2013.

55 N. Renee Thompson, Michael Lawrence Faulkner, and Andrea Nierenberg, Networking for Black Professionals (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2014), vii-viii.

56 Telephone interview, Dorian Boyland with Rory Costello, May 5, 2014.

John Robert Candelaria was born on November 6, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York, to Puerto Rican parents. His father, also named John, was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, in 1932, and his mother, the former Felicia Bauza, was born in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, in 1934. Both moved from Puerto Rico when they were children to New York, where they met and began a family. John had a brother, Michael, and two sisters, Maria and Dolores. As a child John learned to throw and catch from his father, who played amateur baseball in the New York area. His father saw his talent early: “This kid really has it,” he told his family when John was just 5 years old.2 But John’s parents divorced and his father moved back to Puerto Rico when John was 6. His father worked as a car salesman, but John knew little of him once he left, relying instead on his mother, a homemaker, who would closely follow his career as an athlete.

Growing up in Brooklyn, John was a Yankees fan, although with money tight he didn’t attend too many games. “I didn’t go unless there was a doubleheader,” he said. “I used to sit in the bleachers for 75 cents.”3 He played baseball at LaSalle High School, where he attracted attention from scouts during his freshman season, but he felt that he was being worn out by pitching so much, and so he quit baseball. He switched to basketball, where he became the school’s all-time leading scorer and second all-time rebounder (to Lew Alcindor, later known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar4), and his performances on the court attracted college scouts from across the country. He was selected to play for Puerto Rico in the 1972 Olympics, but suddenly decided that he would rather play baseball instead, believing that he could be in the major leagues in baseball before he would even be out of college if he were playing basketball.5

Candelaria performed well enough in his return to baseball that he was scouted by Pittsburgh Pirates scout Dutch Deutsch,6 who remembered him from his first year in high school, and was drafted in the second round of the 1972 draft by the Pirates. Candelaria was in Puerto Rico, preparing to play basketball in the Olympics, when Pirates officials arrived to sign him. They brought Roberto Clemente with them to act as translator, and Clemente told him in Spanish to reject their offer of $15,000, that he was worth much more.7 He did, and Clemente’s advice proved sound, as Candelaria eventually signed for $40,000.8

After signing with the Pirates Candelaria was sent to Charleston (South Carolina) of the Class-A Western Carolinas League for the remainder of the 1973 season, going 10-2 despite feeling the effects of not having pitched regularly for so long. In his best start he threw a one-hitter – allowing the hit to the opposing pitcher in the sixth inning. Moving to Salem (Virginia) of the Class-A Carolina League in 1974, he went 11-8, but suffered from back pain throughout the season. This injury would become a recurring motif during his career. Candelaria sometimes claimed that it began when he slipped on the mound during a start in 1974, but at other times he said it came from a childhood injury, and Pirates doctors even suggested the problem dated back to when he was born.9 At various times he also said that an operation to fuse the bones in his spine might help with the pain he often felt while pitching, but that it would end his baseball career.10

After the 1974 season Candelaria went to Puerto Rico to play winter ball for Bayamon, and learned from the veteran players there. “They taught me to spot my pitches and to use my curveball with more success,” he said.11 He pitched winter ball in Puerto Rico for three seasons.

Candelaria had one start for Charleston (West Virginia) of the Triple-A International League at the end of the 1974 season, and was assigned there again in 1975. He broke out, running his record to 7-1 with a 1.77 ERA. “His control is super. … He is throwing consistently harder than he did when I first saw him two years ago,” Charleston manager Steve Demeter said.12 When left-hander Ken Brett went on the disabled list the Pirates needed a starter, so Candelaria got the call and made his major-league debut on June 8 in Pittsburgh, in the first game of a doubleheader against the San Francisco Giants. He pitched six innings and impressed, even though he gave up all the runs in a 3-1 loss. He stayed in the rotation, and on June 20, before 47,867 at Shea Stadium, he pitched in New York for the first time, where with a large group of family and friends watching, Candelaria earned his first major-league win by throwing his first complete game to beat the New York Mets, 5-1. “It was something special. Something I’ll always remember,” he later said.13

Despite his early success, Candelaria knew he hadn’t made the big time just yet. “I’ve got a lot to prove,” he said.14 But he pitched well enough to stay with the team, finishing 8-6 with a 2.76 ERA. He ended the season pitching in the playoffs, starting Game Three of the NLCS in Pittsburgh, which the Cincinnati Reds won in 10 innings to complete their sweep of the then best-of-five postseason series. Even so, Candelaria struck out 14 batters in 7⅔ innings, an NLCS record that was not surpassed until 1997. “He’s 6-5 and he’s all arms and legs,” said Pete Rose, although Candelaria was actually 6-7 (and 210 pounds).15 Rose also said that it was “the greatest pressure game I’ve seen any pitcher pitch.”16

Returning with the Pirates in 1976, the 22-year-old Candelaria showed composure beyond his years as he pitched in the rotation all season. “He has all the tools. … He knows what he is doing on the mound,” said Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh.17 “He is a finished major-league pitcher despite his youth.”18 He did get one relief appearance when on May 26 he threw three shutout innings to get his first career save.

But his highlight came on August 9 at home against the Los Angeles Dodgers. That night the Pirates held “Candy Night” and handed out candy bars to the crowd of 9,860, honoring the player who was now nicknamed the Candy Man, after the popular Sammy Davis Jr. song. Candelaria responded to the honor by throwing a no-hitter to beat the Dodgers, 2-0. He was perfect for every inning except the third, when he walked a batter and two others reached on errors to load the bases, but he got out of the jam and sailed the rest of the way home. (Many years later Candelaria admitted that one winter he needed to work out, and the game ball from his no-hitter was the only ball he had, so he practiced with it against a concrete wall and destroyed it.19)

In 1977 Candelaria was feeling much more comfortable as a major leaguer. He had bought a home in Monroeville, just east of Pittsburgh, and in March he signed a multiyear contract with the Pirates. Even though he had some shoulder problems during spring training, and was having more back pain after slipping on the mound in Montreal in July, he pitched the full season and pitched well. He capped off his season by winning his last four starts to finish at 20-5, the only time he would win 20 games in his career. He won the ERA title at 2.34 (best in the major leagues), although he only finished fifth in Cy Young Award voting, the only season he got any votes for that award. Candelaria was also selected for his only All-Star team in 1977. (He didn’t get into the game.)

Candelaria came into spring training 21 pounds lighter in 1978, hoping it would help his back, but he ended up with other problems. A sore left elbow in August had him skipping a few turns through the rotation, and he ended the year at 12-11. In 1979 he had numerous little injuries, not only from the back pain, but from a minor automobile accident on July 31, and then late in the season he pulled a muscle in his ribcage. He had helped the team return to the postseason with his 14-9 record, and started Game One of the NLCS, giving up two runs in seven innings as the Pirates won, 5-2, in 11 innings, starting their three-game sweep of the Cincinnati Reds.

In the World Series Candelaria started Game Six against Baltimore and struggled after being staked to a 3-0 lead, giving up two runs in the third inning before a 67-minute rain delay, and when he returned after the delay he allowed all four batters he faced to reach base (one on an error) before being pulled and taking the loss. But the Pirates fought back from a three-games-to-one deficit, and Candelaria started Game Six, in which he controlled the Orioles batters. He threw six shutout innings, allowing just two runners to get as far as second base, before being lifted for a pinch-hitter. Kent Tekulve came in and closed out the final three innings, the pair combining on a shutout that tied the World Series. “It’s a tribute to him that he can pitch in pain the way he did tonight,” Tekulve said.20 The next night the Pirates did it again, beating the Orioles, 4-1, to become world champions.

In 1980 Candelaria came back to earth, and despite throwing the most innings of his career (233⅓) he had his first losing record at 11-14, and his highest ERA to that point at 4.01. The 1981 season was much worse, though, when on May 10 he felt something in his arm when he threw a pitch in a cold and wet game in St. Louis. Initially diagnosed with a torn biceps tendon, Candelaria turned to Dr. Paul Bauer, an expert in body mechanics. Bauer said he did not have a torn tendon, but rather nerve problems in his shoulder, and said Candelaria needed rehab and changes in his pitching motion. Candelaria went along with this idea, missing the rest of the season while working in Bauer’s lab in San Diego, watching himself pitch on videotape and adjusting the way he pitched. It all worked; he avoided surgery and came back feeling better than ever. “I believed in myself, but they’re the ones who showed me what to do. Without them I don’t think I’d be pitching today.”21

Candelaria returned in 1982 and pitched well all season, although no longer able to go as long as he did earlier in his career. He had said earlier that “I’m not a nine-inning pitcher. The back just aches too much for me to pitch nine innings.”22 Now it showed; he completed just six games in the next three seasons (he had completed 11 in 1976 alone). In those years he also talked more about long-term contracts, but enmity was growing between Candelaria and the Pirates front office. He would snipe about management, and they would snipe back, a pattern that continued for the rest of his time in Pittsburgh. (At one point he called the general manager an “idiot” and a “bozo.”) He said he would never re-sign with the Pirates, although he suggested that the length of the contract would be the most important factor. Sure enough, he soon signed a new four-year contract with the Pirates, which made him happy again, at least for the short term.

Candelaria had a tumultuous personal life, making what might be considered poor choices numerous times. He had married and divorced twice in the 1970s. His first marriage was to a woman who had three children from her prior marriage. He successfully fought a paternity suit after blood tests proved a child was not his, and the papers for his second divorce were served between innings of a game he was pitching in Pittsburgh.23 He finally settled down in his relationship with a flight attendant, Donna Hall, and the couple had two children, Amber born in 1982 and John in 1983. But tragedy soon struck, with John Jr. nearly drowning after falling in the family pool in Sarasota, Florida, on Christmas Day of 1984. The child spent months in the hospital and then at home, all the time in a coma, before he died in November 1985. Candelaria was naturally devastated, and spent most of the year with his mind on far more important things than baseball.

During that time Candelaria had problems on the field as well. He had bone chips removed from his elbow in October 1984, and the team decided in 1985 to move him from the rotation to the bullpen, in part due to the surgery and in part due to concerns over his mental condition while dealing with his son. Candelaria initially complained about the move, saying he wanted his contract renegotiated, but after having some success he reconsidered. “Relieving isn’t as bad as I thought it would be … I’m more involved in the games than I used to be,” he said.24

Candelaria was always considered an oddball, a player who may have been a little too crazy at times. “There’s the starting pitcher for tonight, hat on backward, leaning out the window screaming at people, talking to the grass, thinking about the hitters,” as a teammate once described a bus ride to the ballpark in New York. A more astute analysis of Candelaria’s style might be the following: “He wasn’t particularly sharp. He didn’t do anything extremely well. But when it was all over, he was the winner. Typical.”25 When asked once what he would be doing if he wasn’t playing baseball: “I’d probably be living in an apartment building in Brooklyn and working for UPS. That would be fun, too.”26 Fun seemed to be his style, with a live-and-let-live attitude to both life and baseball. “If I ever lose the boy in me, what’s the sense? I plan to be doing silly things when I’m 50. I just want to be remembered as footloose and fancy free.”27

Eventually the Pirates tired of Candelaria’s antics and insults, and let it be known that they were ready to move him. Several teams were interested, and he was traded to the California Angels in August of 1985, along with pitcher Al Holland and outfielder George Hendrick, for outfielder Mike Brown and pitchers Pat Clements and Bob Kipper. Candelaria still took some parting shots at the Pirates, saying he had been mishandled by manager Chuck Tanner. “I never should have been in the bullpen there,” he said.28 Switched into the rotation for the division-leading Angels, he pitched well, going 7-3, but the Angels fell just one game short of the Kansas City Royals in the AL West at the end of the season.

In 1986 Candelaria had pain in his elbow in the spring, and managed just two innings in his first start before succumbing to the pain. Surgery to remove bone spurs put him out for three months, although he returned and did well, going 10-2 with a 2.55 ERA, the second lowest of his career. This time the Angels won their division, and Candelaria, with relief help from Donnie Moore, pitched well to win Game Three of the ALCS against the Boston Red Sox, giving up one run in seven innings. “I’m throwing it better than I have in seven or eight years. … I’m just trying to stay inside myself,” he said.29 But coming back in Game Seven, Candelaria had a rough outing, although badly hurt by his defense. He gave up three runs in the second and four in the fourth, when Jim Rice ended his misery with a three-run home run. All of the runs were unearned – both of those innings had begun with an error – but it made no difference as Roger Clemens and Calvin Schiraldi held the Angels batters down and the Red Sox easily won. After the season, Candelaria was named the AL Comeback Player of the Year by The Sporting News.

Perhaps due to his personal problems from the last few years coming back to haunt him, Candelaria struggled with injuries and off-field trouble during 1987. On April 17 he was arrested for DUI after running a stop sign (“It was my off day. … It’s nobody’s business but mine,” he said, earning the ire of anti-drunk driving campaigners), and on May 14 he got a second DUI arrest.30 The Angels put him on the disabled list the following day for personal reasons, but he returned just two weeks later. In late June they put him back on the DL and checked him into rehab, where he spent more than a month dealing with his problems. “A lot of people assume that since you play this game, you should be happy. Sometimes it’s not that way. We’re all humans and we all have our problems – regardless,” he said.31 He returned to the team in early August, but they traded him to the New York Mets in mid-September for minor-league pitchers Shane Young and Jeff Richardson. The Mets, chasing the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL East for a playoff spot, had just lost starter Ron Darling to a torn ligament, and immediately traded for Candelaria, who went 2-0 in three starts but the team fell three games short anyway.

Candelaria signed with the New York Yankees as a free agent for 1988, saying that they had guaranteed him a spot in the rotation, something the Mets wouldn’t do. “Every kid fantasizes about pitching for his hometown team,” he said.32 In a stunning attack on the Angels during spring training, he told a reporter that Don Sutton had set him up for his first DUI arrest the prior year, claiming that Sutton had called police on him because Sutton wanted his spot in the rotation (“He later told me it was out of concern for my well-being,” Candelaria said.)33 He also slammed Angels manager Gene Mauch, calling him a control freak and saying, “He isn’t a very good manager, and I think he knew that I knew that.”34 Then he suggested that rehab was the team’s idea, and he didn’t want to do it but was forced to, before finally admitting that “I have no one to blame but myself for what was a very tough and frustrating year.”35 The Angels declined to respond to Candelaria, although they reminded reporters that his tirade was similar to when he left the Pirates.

Things didn’t go much better with the Yankees, though, as Candelaria argued with manager Lou Piniella during the season and told reporters he wanted out. Even though he was pitching well with a 13-7 record, when he came down with knee pain in August, he was done for the season, although Yankees doctors suggested he should be able to play. He had surgery for cartilage damage in his knee in October, and although he started 1989 in the rotation he returned to the disabled list in May for more knee surgery, missing another three months. When he returned it was to the bullpen for a few weeks, before being traded once again, this time in late August to the Montreal Expos for third baseman Mike Blowers. The Expos were hoping to add veteran talent for the stretch run, and Candelaria spent the last month of the season in their bullpen. But the Expos chose not to go to salary arbitration with Candelaria, so he once again was a free agent at the end of the year.

Candelaria signed with the Minnesota Twins for 1990, spending almost all his time there in the bullpen, compiling a 3.39 ERA along the way. Traded in July to the Toronto Blue Jays for second baseman Nelson Liriano and outfielder Pedro Munoz, he was used out of the bullpen but also for a couple of spot starts, and struggled, going 0-3 with a 5.48 ERA as the Blue Jays finished two games behind the Boston Red Sox in the AL East.

Yet again a free agent, Candelaria signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1991, his eighth team in six years. Happy to be close to the Orange County home his family had lived in since moving to the Angels in 1985, he took the role of left-handed reliever, pitching in 59 games, the highest total of his career, even though he threw only 33⅔ innings. He returned to the Dodgers in 1992 with the same role, and in 1993 went back to where it all began, signing a one-year contract with the Pirates to be their left-handed reliever. Initial reports of his new-found work ethic – “I’ve mellowed out a lot. Let’s put it that way”36 – were ruined by his arrest for DUI in Sarasota, Florida, during spring training. He stayed with the team, but struggled, and eventually was released by the Pirates in July with an 8.24 ERA. With minimal interest from other teams – and perhaps not much interest from Candelaria himself – at age 39 his career was over.

As his career came to an end, Candelaria was regularly asked to look back at what he had accomplished. Numerous writers had written about him over the years, and many had said that he was a classic example of wasted potential. The general idea was that he would prefer to sit in the clubhouse and smoke and drink coffee, rather than working out or getting ready for baseball, and this rankled Candelaria. He had after all won 55 more games than he lost (career record of 177-122), and wondered just what he had to do to be considered a success. “I have been successful, I am successful, and I will be successful. Who is to say who has potential and what somebody else’s potential is?”37

Candelaria tried various things after he retired from baseball, including owning an advertising agency in Pittsburgh. Ultimately, though, he found he preferred solitude. “I am a loner. That’s the way I like it. It’s what I choose.”38 He moved several times, finally settling in North Carolina, where as of 2016 he lived quietly.

This biography appears in “When Pops Led the Family: The 1979 Pitttsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2016), edited by Bill Nowlin and Gregory H. Wolf. It also appears in “Puerto Rico and Baseball” (SABR, 2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Edwin Fernández.

Notes

Joseph Howard Coleman was destined to become a baseball player when he was born in the Richardson House wing of Boston Lying-in Hospital on February 3, 1947. His father, Joe (Joseph Patrick) Coleman, was a big-league pitcher and one-time All-Star who went 52-76 in parts of 10 seasons spanning the years 1942-1955, mainly with the Philadelphia A’s, the Baltimore Orioles, and the Detroit Tigers. “I can remember a time that I sat on Mr. (Connie) Mack’s knee for a picture,” said Coleman about living a boy’s dream on the field in Shibe Park, shortly before the historic ballpark was renamed Connie Mack Stadium. “After the games I used to run around the infield and slide into every base.”1 The youngster accompanied his father and mother, Barbara, to spring training, and often traveled with the team to visiting ballparks. By the time he was 7 years old and with his father’s career winding down, young Joe knew that he wanted to become a baseball player. 

The Colemans lived in Natick, a town of about 20,000 residents located 20 miles west of Boston. Joe got his first taste of organized baseball while attending Bennett-Hemenway Elementary and Wilson Junior High Schools. At Natick High School, the right-handed Joe developed into an overpowering, dominant pitcher, winning 24 of 28 decisions; he also played basketball. “My father never pushed me,” said Joe of his interest in baseball. “He let me pitch. If I had a question, then he’d help me.”2 But father Joe, who opened a sporting goods store in Natick, took obvious delight in his son’s success.  “By his senior year,” said the elder Coleman, “[scouts] were swarming all over the place.”3 Joe had begun attracting attention while participating in Ted Williams’s baseball camp in Lakeville, Massachusetts, after his freshman through junior years, and had played in the Hearst Sandlot Classic game at Yankee Stadium in New York in 1964. As a senior in 1965, the 6-foot-3, 165-pound Coleman was considered one of the top pitchers in the country.

The Washington Senators, acting on the recommendations of team scouts Joe W. Lewis Sr. and Hal Keller, selected Coleman in the first round in the inaugural major league draft on June 8, 1965.4 He was the third overall pick (following outfielder Rick Monday by the Kansas City Athletics and pitcher Les Rohr by the New York Mets) and the first draft choice to make it to the major leagues. Coleman signed what Washington sportswriter Bob Addie called the “biggest bonus in Washington history,” a reported $75,000, with Senators general manager George Selkirk.5

Just weeks after graduating from high school, Coleman reported to the Class A Burlington (North Carolina) Senators in the west division of the Carolina League. He struggled against competition that averaged four years older, winning just twice in 12 decisions and posting a 4.56 ERA in 75 innings for a last-place team. The Washington Senators, plodding through their fifth consecutive dismal season since entering the American League as an expansion team in 1961 and drawing less than 7,000 per game, made national headlines when they called up the 18-year-old Coleman in  late September.

Coleman made an auspicious big-league debut on September 28 in D.C. Stadium by tossing a complete-game four-hitter, striking out three and pitching around four walks to defeat another highly touted teenager, 19-year-old Jim “Catfish” Hunter of the Kansas City Athletics in the first game of a twilight-night doubleheader, 6-1. Coleman yielded back-to-back doubles with two outs in the ninth inning to lose his shutout bid.  Five days later, he went the distance again, holding the Detroit Tigers to just five hits in a 3-2 victory in the nation’s capital. He got additional work with the Senators coaching staff in the Florida Instructional League in the fall. 

Coleman arrived at the Senators’ spring training facility in Pompano Beach, Florida, in 1966 under the glare of media attention. His first camp, however, was a lesson in humility as he struggled and was assigned to the York (Pennsylvania) White Roses in the Double-A Eastern League. “I wasn’t in shape [and] I came down a week late because we had a little contract dispute,” said Coleman. “I was overweight, lazy, and had the wrong attitude.”6 On another last-place team, Coleman posted just seven wins, led the league in losses (19) and home runs allowed (17), and carved out a disappointing 3.75 ERA in 199 innings. Recalled by the Senators in September, Coleman made the most of his one start by tossing another complete game, a six-hitter to defeat his hometown Boston Red Sox, 3-2, in front of fewer than 500 spectators in D.C. Stadium on September 26 during the second game of a Monday afternoon doubleheader.

Regardless of Coleman’s 9-29 record in the minors so far, the Senators saw him as their future ace. “I think better up here than in the minors. The extra pressure makes me think more,” said Coleman, who landed a spot in starting rotation to begin the 1967 season.7 In his debut, he tossed 137 pitches and came within one out of his fourth consecutive complete game, but settled for his fourth straight win, beating a still-struggling New York Yankees team, 10-4. Another complete-game victory over the Chicago White Sox followed before reality set in. Coleman lost six of his next eight decisions and his 3.06 ERA ballooned to 5.33. Disconcerting to manager Gil Hodges, known as a disciplinarian, was Coleman’s spoiled-brat behavior, such as arguing balls and strikes with umpires and complaining when he was removed for a pinch-hitter. Despite winning four straight starts from July 13 through July 26, Coleman, struggling with an 8-9 record, was unexpectedly sent down to Double-A York in mid-August. “Coleman’s demotion surprised everyone,” wrote Bob Addie.8 Although Hodges claimed publicly that he thought Coleman was losing his confidence, he intended the demotion to be a wake-up call for his young hurler. Coleman was mainly relegated to the far end of the bullpen following his recall on Labor Day after a very rough starting assignment lasting just one-third of an inning on September 11 and finishing a once promising season with a disappointing 4.63 ERA (second highest among AL pitchers with at least 100 innings).

But Coleman emerged as a solid starter in 1968, leading the Senators, now managed by Jim Lemon, in starts (33), innings (233), and complete games (12), and lowering his ERA more than a run to 3.27. He credited his success to the Washington coaching staff. “There are better teachers in the big leagues. … Guys like [pitching coach] Sid Hudson who has taught me how to pace myself.”9 Coleman also mastered the forkball, which he had been playing around with for several years. “I started throwing it consistently in 1968,” he explained. “I saw some diagrams of how [Elroy Face] threw his forkball in Sport Magazine. But my father wouldn’t let me throw any kind of breaking stuff when I was a kid.”10 Coleman won 12 games, but also lost a team-high 16 for the last-place club. “If I’d go out and lose a close ballgame,” said Coleman, “I’d get upset and maybe throw my chair around the clubhouse. And the guys would get on to me.”11 Some teammates referred to him scornfully as “Boy Blunder” for his rookie-like mistakes and sore-loser sulking after poor outings.

At the baseball winter meetings in December 1968, Bob Short, treasurer of the Democratic National Committee and former owner of the Minneapolis Lakers of the National Basketball Association, purchased a controlling interest in the Senators. The following month he shocked the baseball world by luring Ted Williams out of retirement to pilot the club. Washington had not seen as much excitement and anticipation for Opening Day since the days of Walter Johnson. Described by Dick Couch of the AP as the “brightest young star” on the staff, Coleman tossed a complete-game victory in his season debut, but otherwise struggled through July 4, winning just four of 11 decisions and surrendering 19 gopher balls in 115 2/3 innings.12 Tabbed a disappointment by his manager, Coleman turned his season around by tossing three consecutive shutouts, surrendering just 11 hits while striking out 31, as part of a career-best streak of  32 1/3 consecutive scoreless innings. The 22-year-old cut down on his home runs-allowed total and established himself as the ace of the staff, leading the club in starts (36), innings (247 2/3), complete games (12), and shutouts (4), while finishing with a 12-13 record. “It was a matter of getting adjusted,” replied Coleman when asked about his dramatic midseason transformation. “I was on my own more, called my own game, did more things on my own after Ted knew me.”13 Coleman’s forkball, which batterymate Jim French called “the best in the league,”14 kept hitters off balance and helped him strike out 182 (tied for fifth most in the AL); “I need to throw three-quarter. Then my ball stays down and does something,” said a reflective Coleman, who also sported a robust 3.27 ERA.15 The surprising club won 86 games, the most for a major-league baseball team in Washington, D.C., since the 1945 Senators won 87, and finished in fourth place in the AL East in the first year of division play.

Coleman began the 1970 season seemingly prepared to continue his second-half surge from 1969. A four-game winning streak improved his record to 5-3 and lowered his ERA to 3.05 on June 10. One of those wins (a complete-game, 3-1 five-hitter over the Cleveland Indians) occurred on May 19 with umpire Ed Runge at first base; coincidentally, he was also the first-base ump when Coleman’s father (then with Baltimore) tossed a complete game to defeat the Washington Senators, 5-3, on that same date 16 years earlier. Coleman’s season unexpectedly veered out of control following losses in five consecutive starts and he was ultimately banished to the bullpen in early July. “Coleman is not the pitcher we thought he would be,” opined owner Bob Short.16 He returned to the rotation on August 2 for the second game of a doubleheader with rumors of his imminent trade in the offseason. While the weak-hitting Senators fell to last place in the AL East, Coleman dropped to 8-12 with a 3.58 ERA and exceeded 200 innings pitched for the third consecutive season.

Coleman and Williams had a contentious relationship, to say the least. Williams’s distrust (some would say dislike) of pitchers was well known from his playing days and things were no different during his tenure as skipper of the Senators. “What would you think of a guy who welcomed you to his camp by asking, ‘What’s dumber than a pitcher?’ and answered his own question by saying “Two,” said Coleman.17 Williams’s general lack of confidence in pitchers, his belief that they needed to last just five or six innings, and insistence that they throw sliders (a pitch that he had trouble with as a batter) further inflamed his relationship with Coleman. Miffed by “Teddy Ballgame’s” constant public berating of Coleman, Washington beat reporter Merrell Whittlesey noted that “Williams has been gruff at times with the youngster who should be the Senators star pitcher.”18 Coleman steadfastly refused to throw a slider and began to tune out his manager. “I knew that if I threw the slider, I’d risk hurting my arm,” Coleman told Ed Rumill of the Christian Science Monitor. “No matter how I tried, I couldn’t change Ted’s mind. He didn’t like my stubborn attitude.”19

Just days after the 1970 regular season ended, Coleman, dependable starting shortstop Ed Brinkman, swingman hurler Jim Hannan, and third baseman Aurelio Rodríguez were shipped to the Detroit Tigers for troubled former 31-game winner Denny McLain (who had been recently reinstated by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and pronounced “not mentally ill”20), utilityman Elliott Maddox, relief pitcher Norm McRae, and third-sacker Don Wert on October 9. The transaction is now considered among the most lopsided in baseball history, though at the time many thought McLain would return to the form that earned him two Cy Young Awards. The trade crippled the Senators franchise just prior to their last season in Washington and subsequent relocation to Texas). McLain went 10-22 in 1971 and was out of the big leagues a year later; McRae never appeared again in the majors; Wert played in only 20 games before being released before midseason; and Maddox had three mediocre seasons. Detroit sportswriter Watson Spoelstra excitedly called the trade the “steal of the year” for the Tigers who solidified three positions.21 Coleman developed into one of the most dependable workhorses in the league; the durable Brinkman shored up the middle infield for four years; and Rodríguez held down the hot corner for the remainder of the decade. Both infielders won Gold Gloves.

Coleman, who married Deborah Fitch just days after his trade, was in need of a change of scenery. The incessant losing and constant bickering with Williams had eroded his confidence. He looked forward to playing for a club that “makes money and puts people in the stands.”22 He also anxiously anticipated pitching for new Tigers manager Billy Martin, whose successful yet controversial one season as big-league skipper, guiding the Minnesota Twins to the AL West crown in 1969 was well documented.

In spring training with the Tigers, Coleman got the scare of a lifetime when he was hit in the head by a line drive off the bat of the St. Louis Cardinals’ Ted Simmons on March 27. “I never saw the ball coming,” said Coleman. “I don’t remember a thing until I was on the ground with people standing around me.”23 Rushed to the hospital, he was diagnosed with a nondepressed linear fracture in his skull. He was hospitalized for two weeks and placed on the 21-day disabled list, but made a miraculous and quick recovery. He debuted for Tigers on April 24, allowing two runs on five hits over five innings in a no-decision against the Oakland A’s. “You don’t how happy I am to be here,” said a relieved Coleman.24 Suffering from headaches and working his way into shape, Coleman found his groove beginning July 9 when he tossed 10 scoreless frames against the Senators during an 11-inning pitching duel with Pete Broberg and Casey Cox at RFK Stadium, winning 1-0 to start a personal six-game winning streak. He emerged as one of the hottest pitchers in baseball, going 13-3 over his final 20 starts, a majority of them on three days’ rest. “Pitching under Billy Martin has made all the difference in the world,” said Coleman. “He gave me a free rein with my pitches. He said ‘You’re a pro. You know what’s best for you. You pitch that way.’”25 That not-so-subtle dig at Ted Williams aside, Coleman exacted revenge again on his former club by whiffing a career-high 14 in a complete-game victory on September 15. For the second-place Tigers, Coleman finished with a 20-9 record and sported a 3.15 ERA in a career-high 286 innings while a teammate, southpaw Mickey Lolich, led the majors with 25 wins and 376 innings. Coleman also set career highs in strikeouts (236) and complete games (16).

Coleman won 62 games in his first three seasons with the Tigers (just one fewer than AL stalwarts Catfish Hunter, Jim Palmer, and Lolich, but well behind Wilbur Wood’s 70); however, his name rarely cropped up in discussions about the best pitchers in the league and he was once described as baseball’s “forgotten man.”26 Overshadowed by Lolich, Coleman was more relaxed with the Tigers, responded to the trust Martin had in him, and shed his “hot-head” temperament. “I regret that show of temper,” said Coleman of his days with the Senators. “It was a reputation I built up and it was a reputation I didn’t want. But at the time, I deserved it.”27 Being on a winning club with stars like Al Kaline, Bill Freehan and Norm Cash, who garnered most of the media attention, also helped. “I got more runs, better defense, and a better team effort behind me,” said Coleman. “When you’re playing for a loser, you play for yourself, because you know you’re not going to win.”28

Coleman’s development into a complete pitcher fueled his success. He claimed that he mellowed and no longer just tried to “blow the ball by the hitter.”29 Coleman possessed a strong fastball and increasingly relied on his elusive side-arm sinker and side-arm curve, but his forkball was his “out” pitch. “I don’t know where it’s going,” he said. “I just throw the ball down the middle of the plate and wait to see where it breaks.”30

Detroit captured the AL East crown on the next-to-last day of the 1972 strike-shortened season after a grueling, hotly contested division race with the Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles, and New York Yankees. The now portly Coleman was at his best over the last six weeks of the season when the club needed him the most. He went 7-3 in his final 11 starts, including a masterful, four-hit, 11-inning shutout of the Minnesota Twins in the second game of a doubleheader on August 27. He finished the season with 19 wins, a career-best 2.80 ERA, and 222 strikeouts in 280 innings. He was a hard-luck loser; the Tigers scored just 14 runs in his 14 losses. Coleman was named to his first and only All-Star team, but did not pitch.

In the only postseason appearance of his career, Coleman tossed a gem in Game Three of the ALCS. He blanked the Oakland A’s on seven hits and struck out a then Championship Series-record 14 in the Tigers’ 3-0 victory. However, the Tigers eventually lost the best-of-five series, three games to two.

Coleman emerged as the club’s most consistent winner in 1973, collecting 15 victories by the All-Star break. However, Oakland’s Dick Williams, manager of the AL All-Star squad, snubbed the hurler, drawing Martin’s ire. The Tigers took over first place in early August before falling out of contention by losing 10 of 14 games. The team reached its nadir in now infamous episode on August 30 against the Cleveland Indians. Martin, incensed that the umpires had refused to take measures against Gaylord Perry and his alleged spitballs, ordered Coleman (in the midst of a seven-game losing streak) to throw the illegal pitch. Martin was suspended, and subsequently fired on September 2 in a move that shocked the team. Propelled by a five-game winning streak after the brouhaha, Coleman finished the season with a career-high 23 wins (15 losses), a 3.53 ERA, and 202 punchouts in 288 1/3 innings.

Coleman logged in excess of 200 innings for last-place Tigers teams in 1974 and 1975, but his record fell to 14-12 and 10-18 and his ERA rose dramatically to 4.32 and 5.55 (easily the highest in baseball). The Tigers were miffed by Coleman’s rapid decline and control problems (he issued a career-high 158 walks in 1974). I’ve never seen a pitcher at his age (27-28), who never has had any arm problems, have as much trouble as Joe has had for us the last two years,” said manager Ralph Houk.31 Coleman, who revealed that he had a painful “huge knot” in his shoulder in 1974, was equally frustrated. “At times, I didn’t have any idea what I was doing out there,” he said. “I was having an awful lot of trouble with my forkball … and it was always my out pitch.”32

Coleman spent his last four years (1976-1979) in the major leagues with six different clubs. After 12 mostly ineffective starts for Detroit in 1976, he was sold to the Chicago Cubs in an early June waiver transaction. No longer possessing his heater, Coleman moved to the bullpen and appeared in a career-high 51 games between the two clubs. He was traded to the Oakland A’s in spring training the following year for pitcher Jim Todd and enjoyed a rebirth of sorts (2.96 ERA in 127 2/3 innings) as a reliever and occasional starter. Following stints with the A’s, Toronto Blue Jays, and San Francisco Giants, the Pittsburgh Pirates signed him as a free agent on May 8, 1979, and assigned to their Triple-A affiliate in the Pacific Coast League, the Portland Beavers.

The Pirates called up Coleman after the All-Star break to shore up an already overworked bullpen facing a heavy schedule, including seven doubleheaders in three weeks. With the bullpen already overworked, Coleman took one for the team against the Cubs on August 7, tossing the final 5 1/3 innings and yielding nine runs in a 15-2 laugher, in a game which Dave Parker called the “incident.”33 “Our bullpen was beat up, and Joe knew that,” said Kent Tekulve. “Every inning, [Coleman is] getting more and more exhausted. He’s throwing a ton of pitches, and it’s hotter than heck. He’s sweating buckets. He’s got a towel over his head in the dugout. It got to the point where you were literally worried about him.”34 According to Pittsburgh sportswriter Joe Starkey, when an exhausted Coleman entered the dugout after the eighth inning, skipper Chuck Tanner said, “You just won the pennant for us!”35 Coleman pitched otherwise reasonably well and remained on the roster for the rest of the regular season, but was dropped for the postseason. Players voted him a half-share of their World Series winnings.

Coleman, just 32 years old, drew his release from Pittsburgh in the offseason, bringing his 15-year major-league career to an end. His final tally showed 142 wins, 135 losses, and a 3.70 ERA in 2,569 1/3 innings. He started in 340 of his 484 appearances, completing 94, and tossed 18 shutouts. Coleman was especially tough on All-Stars Jim Fregosi (5-for 46, .109), Thurman Munson (9-for-56, .161), and Robin Yount (5-for 31, .161), but encountered problems with light-hitting Ted Kubiak (10-for-25, .400), Jake Gibbs (11-for-28, .393), and Ed Herrmann (15-for-41, .366). Well respected by his teammates, Coleman also served as player representative for several teams.

After his release from the Pirates, Coleman began a long and successful coaching career. In 1980 he was named player-coach for the Spokane Indians, the Seattle Mariners’ and later California Angels’ Triple-A affiliate in the PCL, and held the position for three years; he also made at least 10 appearances per year for the team. A highly respected teacher and mentor for young hurlers, Coleman served as bullpen and pitching coach for the California/Anaheim Angels (1987-1990; 1996-1999), as well as roving pitching instructor (1995-1996). He was also the pitching coach for manager Joe Torre with the St. Louis Cardinals (1991-1994). Since 2000, Coleman was the pitching coach for several minor-league teams: the Triple-A Durham (North Carolina) Bulls (2000-2006) in the International League, and two clubs in the Class-A+ (Advanced) Florida State League, the Lakeland Flying Tigers (2007-2011) and the Jupiter Hammerheads (2012-2014).

A baseball lifer, Coleman grew up in big-league parks and spent more than a half-century in them as a player or coach. In 2010 he became part of the first family with three generations of big-league pitchers when his son, Casey, debuted with the Chicago Cubs. Coleman and his wife lived in Florida during the baseball season and in Tennessee in the offseason.

He died at the age of 78 on July 9, 2025, in Jamestown, Tennessee.

Sources besides those cited in Notes:

Joe Coleman player file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, New York.

Ancestry.com.

BaseballLibrary.com.

Baseball-Reference.com.

Retrosheet.com.

SABR.org.

Notes

1 News Enterprise Association, “Jr’s Career Began in Dugout on Mr. Mack’s Knee,” The News (Frederick, Maryland), August 24, 1964: 21.

2 The Sporting News, September 18, 1965: 39.

3 Jack Sheehan, “Ball Park Always 2nd Home To Nats’ Coleman,” June 1967: 4. (Player’s Hall of Fame file, National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, New York).

4 Joe Coleman provided the names of these two scouts in his SABR Scouts Committee questionnaire.

5 The Sporting News, July 10, 1965: 22.

6 Murray Chass (Associated Press), “Pitcher Averages Better In Major Than In Minor Leagues. How Come?” The Daily Mail (Hagerstown, Maryland), April 4, 1967: 12.

7 Chass.

8 The Sporting News, September 2, 1967: 6.

9 Joe Sargis (Associated Press), “Coleman Learning How To Pace Self,” Ogden (Utah) Standard-Examiner, April 23, 1968: 10 A.

10 Frank Barrett Jr., “Young Coleman had it when Red Sox did not,” Lowell (Massachusetts) Sun, August 7, 1971: 5.

11 The Sporting News, June 3, 1973: 3.

12 Dick Couch (Associated Press), “Joe Coleman Demonstrates Effects of Ted’s Theories,” Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Virginia), March 25, 1969: 10.

13 The Sporting News, February 7, 1970: 43.

14 The Sporting News, August 2, 1969: 8.

15 Lew Ferguson (Associated Press), “Joe Coleman Still Needs Curve Work, Says Ted Williams,” Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Virginia), June 5, 1969: 10.

16 The Sporting News, August 8, 1970: 28.

17 Morris Siegel, “Coleman hasn’t forgotten his two seasons with Ted,” Washington Times, March 17, 1992: D5.

18 The Sporting News, June 27, 1970: 22.

19 Ed Rumill, “Discards slider, Coleman gets free rein with Tigers,” Christian Science Monitor, May 28, 1971.

20 Ira Miller (UPI), “Denny McLain Sent To Senators In Eight-Player Transaction,” Cumberland (Maryland) News, October 10, 1970: 15.

21 The Sporting News, October 24, 1970: 11.

22 The Sporting News, February 6, 1971: 36.

23 The Sporting News, April 10, 1971: 26.

24 The Sporting News, May 15, 1971.

25 Rumill.

26 Fred McMane (UPI), “Joe Coleman Just Misses First No-Hitter,” Dubois County (Jasper, Indiana) Daily Herald, April 12, 1974: 12.

27 The Sporting News, June 16, 1973: 3.

28 Larry Paladino, “Line Drive To Head Didn’t Halt Joe Coleman,” Lakeland (Florida) Ledger, March 28, 1972: 1B.

29 UPI, “Joe Coleman Mellows With Age,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, May 19, 1973: C1.

30 The Sporting News, August 7, 1971.

31 The Sporting News, June 26, 1976: 16.

32 The Sporting News, May 24, 1975: 11.

33 Joe Starkey, “The 1979 Pirates: Where are they now?”, Tribune-Review (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), August 16, 2009, http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/.

34 Starkey.

35 Starkey.

The 6-foot-1 Easler played outfield and first base, and, during his tenure in the American League, often was a designated hitter. Easler played for six teams: the Houston Astros (1973-1975), California Angels (1976), Pittsburgh Pirates (1977-1983), Boston Red Sox (1984-1985), New York Yankees (1986, 1987), and Philadelphia Phillies (1987). He was a .293 career hitter who hit over .300 four times. While a member of the Pirates, he was selected to the National League All-Star Team in 1981 and was a part-time player on the Pirates’ World Series championship team of 1979. In 2004 Easler was inducted into the Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame. A 2014 Cleveland.com online poll ranked him the best baseball player to ever come out of Northeast Ohio.2 After leaving the majors as a player, Easler played professional baseball in Japan, then started a successful career as a coach, particularly as a hitting instructor.

Easler was born on November 29, 1950, in Cleveland to James E. “Ted” and Willie Mae (Watkins) Easler. Ted Easler worked for the US Postal Service while his mother was a homemaker.3 Mike attended high school at Benedictine, an all-male Catholic high school in Cleveland, starring on the perennially powerful Benedictine Bengals baseball teams of the late 1960s.4 After graduating from high school in 1969, Easler was drafted by the Houston Astros in the 14th round of the June amateur draft. He signed with the Astros in exchange for $500 tuition money which enabled him to attend Cleveland State University during the offseason.5

Easler’s decade-long minor-league odyssey began in Covington (Virginia) in the Appalachian League, the home of the Astros’ rookie-league affiliate. In many respects, Easler’s first year of professional baseball set the tone for his minor-league career. He excelled at the plate, leading the team in batting average at .319 while struggling in the field. Easler proceeded swiftly through the Astros’ minor-league system, posting excellent power numbers and batting averages year after year while struggling defensively in the outfield. As the early 1970s turned into the mid-1970s, Easler proved to be stuck in Triple-A baseball, putting up excellent batting numbers year after year but receiving nothing more than September call-ups from the Astros.

The success Easler achieved as a major leaguer was a product not only of his talent, but of his extraordinary work ethic and attention to the details of the game. Throughout his decade of minor-league baseball, Easler spent the winters playing in Latin America, primarily in Puerto Rico and Venezuela. He was also a student of the game, willing to spend hours in the batting cage and working on his fielding to improve his game.  In a 2011 interview with David Laurila at fangraphs.com, Easler described his hitting style as influenced by Reggie Jackson, Pete Rose, and Mike Schmidt. “I was an adequate hitter,” he said, far too modestly, “…I studied it and that’s how I became better, just by doing the little stuff, like extra work in the batting cage.”6

Easler got his first shot at the major leagues in 1973 after splitting the season between the Astros’ Double-A affiliate in Columbus (Georgia) and Triple-A Denver, posting a .297 batting average with 13 home runs and 58 RBIs in 96 games. He made his major-league debut for the Astros on September 5, 1973, against the Cincinnati Reds at the Astrodome.  Pinch-hitting for catcher Skip Jutze in the ninth inning of a 9-3 Astros defeat, Easler grounded out to first in his only plate appearance. Easler went 0-for-7 in six games for the Astros during September 1973.

Easler returned to the Denver Bears in 1974 and he hit .283 with a team-leading 19 home runs with 63 RBIs. He got his second September call-up that season. Again, he struggled against major-league pitching. Easler went 1-for-15 with six strikeouts, serving exclusively as a pinch-hitter. He returned to the Denver Bears in 1974 and hit .283 with a team-leading 19 home runs and 63 RBIs. One of his late-season home runs for the Bears was struck at Lawrence Stadium in Wichita, Kansas. The ball traveled well over 400 feet, then bounced across McLean Boulevard before rolling into the Arkansas River. Following a strong spring training in 1975, Easler was placed on the Astros’ Opening Day roster, but the player later known as the “Hit Man” struggled for the third time at the big-league level, going 0-for-5 in five April pinch-hitting appearances. Houston sent Easler back to Triple-A, now in Des Moines, Iowa, to regain confidence, which proved successful. “I was trying to pull everything for a long time after I came down from Houston,” Easler said. “(Iowa manager Joe Sparks) pointed out that I was looping my swing upward. He got me swinging level and hitting straight away…”7 His confidence regained, Easler had another outstanding season in Triple A in 1975, hitting .313 with 15 home runs and 69 RBIs. 

On June 25, 1975, Easler was traded for the first time, sent to the St. Louis Cardinals for a player to be named later who turned out to be Mike Barlow, a right-handed pitcher. Easler spent the remainder of 1975 and the 1976 minor-league season with the Cardinals’ American Association affiliate in Tulsa. “The Hit Man” continued to dominate Triple-A pitching in 1976, batting a league-leading .352 with 26 home runs and 77 RBIs. He finished second to Denver’s Roger Freed in the race for American Association MVP. Despite his success at the highest level of the minors, Easler did not get a shot at the big leagues with the Cardinals in either 1975 or 1976. The Cardinals’ strong outfield regulars, Lou Brock, Bake McBride, and Reggie Smith, and backups Willie Crawford, Jerry Mumphrey, and Mike Anderson, kept Easler off the 25-man roster. 

On September 3, 1976, the Cardinals traded Easler to the California Angels for minor-league third baseman Ronnie Farkas. The Angels added Easler to their September roster. He was primarily a designated hitter and pinch-hitter. Easler got his most extensive major-league experience to that point, hitting .241 with 4 RBIs in 54 at-bats for the Angels. 

On April 4, 1977, two days before Opening Day, the Angels traded Easler to the Pittsburgh Pirates for minor-league pitcher Randy Sealy. The Pirates designated Easler for assignment to Columbus of the International League, where he spent virtually all of the 1977 and 1978 seasons. Again, Easler excelled against Triple-A pitching, batting over .300 both years and hitting 18 home runs each season. Again, talent in his parent club’s starting outfield, this time Al Oliver, Bill Robinson, Dave Parker, and Omar Moreno, kept him out of the majors. In a September 1977 call-up, Easler went 8-for-18. In 1978 he made no appearances for the Pirates. After the 1978 season, the Red Sox purchased Easler’s contract, only to trade him back to Pittsburgh for minor leaguers George Hill, Martin Rivas, and cash during the next year’s spring training. 

For the first time in 1979, Easler spent an entire season in the major leagues. Serving almost exclusively as a pinch-hitter, he had 62 plate appearances for the world champion Pirates. Easler had only three starts. In 54 at-bats, he batted .278 with a strong on-base percentage of .371, 2 home runs, and 11 RBIs. One of his home runs was a 13th-inning, game-winning shot off Skip Lockwood of the New York Mets on May 16 at Three Rivers Stadium. Easler made his only career playoff appearances for the 1979 Pirates, going 0-for-2 in three plate appearances during the NLCS and World Series.

In 1980 Easler became a regular in the Pirates’ outfield. The left-handed-hitting Easler and right-hander Lee Lacy platooned in left field as a replacement for the aging Bill Robinson. Easler and Lacy excelled as a platoon during the 1980 season, proving to be one of the few bright spots on the disappointing Pirates club of that season, which finished third in the NL East. Easler hit .338 with 21 home runs and 74 RBIs in 393 at-bats. He hit for the cycle against Cincinnati on June 12 and was named National League Player of the Week for the week of June 15. On the other side of the platoon, Lacy hit .335 with 7 home runs and 33 RBIs in 278 at-bats. Both Easler and Lacy batted for significantly higher averages than 1980 NL batting champion Bill Buckner (.324), but neither managed the required number of plate appearances to qualify for the award. 

In August 1980 Sports Illustrated profiled the Easler and Lacy platoon, lauding both longtime benchwarmers for excelling when they finally got the shot to play on a regular basis. Pirates manager Chuck Tanner said that “when (Lacy and Easler) share the position, we have the best left fielder in the league.”8 “If I worked real hard and had a good spring, I hoped Chuck would play me more,” Easler said of the 1980 season. The article detailed Easler’s decade of minor-league baseball, his season after season of hitting excellence and his struggles in the field. It described Easler’s offseason jobs as a bellboy and assembly-line worker to support his family.  “People see Mike Easler of the Pittsburgh Pirates and think that’s just great, but they have no idea of what it took to get here,” Easler said of himself.9 

Easler began to take the lion’s share of starts in left field for the Pirates during the 1981 season. Lacy became a part-time starter in left field and right field that year, spelling Easler in left and slugger Dave Parker in right. Easler continued to excel in the new situation, batting .286 with 7 home runs and 42 RBIs in the strike-shortened season. At the time the players’ strike suspended play on June 12, Easler was batting .317. Based on his first-half performance, Easler was named as a reserve to the 1981 NL All-Star Team, which was to be played in his hometown of Cleveland. Easler feared that the game would be canceled because of the prolonged labor stoppage, but players and owners came to an agreement in early August, and the season proceeded, beginning with the All-Star Game in Cleveland.10 

The 1981 All-Star Game was Easler’s only All-Star appearance or selection to the team. He entered the game in the top of the sixth inning, replacing his Pirates teammate Dave Parker in right field. In the top of the eighth inning, he was walked by Milwaukee’s Rollie Fingers and later scored on Mike Schmidt’s home run. Easler grounded into a force out to end the top of the ninth against Toronto’s Dave Stieb. The National League won its 10th straight All-Star Game, 5-4.

Easler continued to post strong offensive numbers in 1982 and 1983 for back-to-back 84-win Pirates teams. In 1982 he hit .276 with 15 home runs and 58 RBIs. In 1983 he hit .307 with 10 home runs and 54 RBIs. Easler remained a defensive liability, often facing late-game defensive replacements by manager Tanner. To open the 1983 season, Tanner benched Easler in favor of the speedier and more defensively proficient Lacy. Easler described the benching as the “low point of my baseball career.”11 His hitting soon won him a place back in the lineup. 

After the 1983 season, the Pirates traded Easler back to the Red Sox for left-handed starting pitcher John Tudor. The change of venue helped Easler enjoy a career year in 1984. He hit .313 with 27 home runs and 91 RBIs for the 86-win Red Sox, who finished fourth in the AL East. No doubt Easler benefited from a Boston lineup with four other regulars who swatted at least 20 home runs each: Tony Armas (43), Dwight Evans (32), Jim Rice (28), and Rich Gedman (24). Designated hitting also benefited Easler, who appeared in 129 of his 156 games at DH. Easler finished tied for fifth in the American League with 188 hits and seventh in slugging percentage with a .516 mark. “Basically, I was an inside-out hitter made for Fenway Park,” Easler said of his hitting style. “I had my power to the opposite field. I could turn on the ball, but that wasn’t my strength. My strength was actually finishing high and going the other way. Very similar to Prince Fielder. My swing was close to his.”12  

Like the rest of the Red Sox, Easler’s power numbers dipped considerably in 1985. He hit .262 with 16 home runs and 74 RBIs in 155 games, primarily at designated hitter. After the season, the Red Sox and Yankees swapped designated hitters. Easler headed for the Bronx while Don Baylor was Fenway-bound. Easler had an excellent season for the 1986 Yankees, batting .302 with 14 home runs and 78 RBIs. After the season, the Yankees traded Easler and middle infielder Tom Barrett (brother of the Red Sox’ Marty Barrett) to the Philadelphia Phillies for pitchers Jeff Knox and Charles Hudson. The Phillies used Easler part-time in left field, where he hit .282 in 33 games. The Yankees reacquired him in June for outfielder Keith Hughes and third baseman Shane Turner. Easler hit .281 for the Yankees in 65 games that season, splitting his time between the outfield and designated hitting. The Yankees released Easler after the 1987 season, which proved to be his last in the major leagues. Easler was a .293 career hitter with 118 home runs and 522 RBIs in 4,061 plate appearances. 

Easler played parts of two seasons (1988-1989) for the Nippon Ham Fighters in the Pacific League of the Nippon Professional Baseball League. Working primarily as a DH, Easler hit .302 in two seasons with the Fighters. Easler played his final season of professional baseball in the fall of 1989 with the West Palm Beach Tropics of the Senior Professional Baseball Association. The “Hit Man” went out in style, batting .323 in 35 games for the Tropics.  

Easler became a highly in-demand hitting instructor, on both the major- and minor-league levels. He was the hitting coach for the Milwaukee Brewers (1992), Boston Red Sox (1993), St. Louis Cardinals (1999-2001), and Los Angeles Dodgers (2008). 

Easler’s most famous prodigy as a hitting instructor was Boston’s Mo Vaughn. After struggling in his rookie year for the Red Sox, Vaughn, under Easler’s tutelage, became one of the American League’s most feared hitters and, in 1995, won the Most Valuable Player Award. After Easler left the Red Sox organization, Vaughn hired him to work as his private hitting instructor for the remainder of his career.13 Also was the hitting coach for the Double-A Jacksonville Suns (2006) and the Triple-A Las Vegas 51s (2007), both part of the Dodgers organization, as well as the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons, the New York Mets’ International League affiliate (2011). Additionally, he has served as a roving, minor-league hitting instructor in the Dodgers and Mets organizations.

Between his stints as a hitting coach, Easler was a manager four times. In 1990 he managed the Miami Miracle of the Class A Florida State League to a 44-93 record. In 1994, he managed the Caguas Criollos of the Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League for four games. A dispute over how to use the team’s pitching staff with Red Sox pitching coach Al Nipper, who oversaw the Red Sox affiliated-team on behalf of the major-league organization, led to Easler’s abrupt dismissal. During spring training in 1995, Easler was let go by the Red Sox for refusing to work with replacement personnel during the lengthy players’ strike which had started on August 11, 1994. He returned to managing in 1998, leading the Nashua Pride of the independent Atlantic League to a impressive 59-41 record and a third-place finish. In 1999 Nashua fell to fourth place with a 52-67 record. Easler became the St. Louis Cardinals’ hitting coach and served for three years (1999-2001). In 2004 he coached the Florence (Kentucky) Freedom of the independent Frontier League In 2004 Easler was replaced by Eddy Diaz as manager for the Triple-A Yucatán Leones of the Mexican League, and later took the reins for the final 49 games of the Florence (Kentucky) Freedom of the independent Frontier League.

As of 2015 Easler and his wife, Brenda (Johnson) Easler, resided in Las Vegas, Nevada.14 Brenda is the sister of 15-year major leaguer Cliff Johnson, a power-hitting first baseman and designated hitter who played for seven teams. Easler became a born-again Christian during his minor-league playing career and was ordained as a Baptist minister.15 

Sources other than those cited in notes:

Baseball-Almanac.com.

Notes

1 Anthony Cotton, “Happy at Going Halfsies,” Sports Illustrated, August 18, 1980. Accessed on November 17, 2014: si.com/vault/1980/08/18/824880/happy-at-going-halfsies-hard-hitting-lee-lacy-below-left-and-mike-easler-constitute-a-mutual-admiration-society-which-is-a-good-thing-because-they-often-share-leftfield-for-pittsburgh/.

2 “Which Baseball Player Is the Best to Come From This Area?” Cleveland.com, April 30, 2014. Accessed on November 14, 2014: highschoolsports.cleveland.com/news/article/-2891660188822200122/which-baseball-player-is-the-best-to-come-from-this-area-baseball-roundtable-for-april-30-2014-poll/.

3 Claire Smith, “Manager’s Dream Is Lost in the Sun,” New York Times, November 9, 1994; “Easler, Cleveland, Ohio: Deaths,” Ancestry.com. Accessed on November 12, 2014: search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=ohdeath93-98&rank=1&new=1&MSAV=0&gss=angs-d&gsln=easler&mswpn__ftp=Ohio%2c+USA&mswpn=38&mswpn_PInfo=5-%7c0%7c1652393%7c0%7c2%7c3247%7c38%7c0%7c0%7c0%7c0%7c&uidh=hsj&mswpn__ftp_x=1&mswpn_x=XO&gsln_x=XO&gl=&gst=&hc=20&fh=20&fsk=BEEeEuMIgAAWgwAeOWI-61-.

4 “Which Baseball Player Is the Best to Come From This Area?” Cleveland.com, April 30, 2014. Accessed on November 14, 2014: http://highschoolsports.cleveland.com/news/article/-2891660188822200122/which-baseball-player-is-the-best-to-come-from-this-area-baseball-roundtable-for-april-30-2014-poll/

5 “Mike Easler,” Baseball-Reference.com: BR Bullpen, February 16, 2013. Accessed on November 17, 2014: baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Mike_Easler.

6 David Laurila, “Q&A: Mike Easler — The Hit Man Talks Hitters,” fangraphs.com, September 2, 2011. Accessed on November 12, 2014: fangraphs.com/blogs/qa-mike-easler-the-hit-man-talks-hitters/.

7 “American Association,” The Sporting News, June 14, 1975: 36.

8 Anthony Cotton, “Happy at Going Halfsies,” Sports Illustrated, August 18, 1980. Accessed on November 17, 2014: si.com/vault/1980/08/18/824880/happy-at-going-halfsies-hard-hitting-lee-lacy-below-left-and-mike-easler-constitute-a-mutual-admiration-society-which-is-a-good-thing-because-they-often-share-leftfield-for-pittsburgh/.

9 Ibid.

10 Charlie Feeney, “Easler’s Star is Sinking Fast,” The Sporting News, July 11, 1981, 39.

11 “Bucs’ Easler Miffed Over Bench Role,” The Sporting News, April 18, 1983, 16.

12 David Laurila, “Q&A: Mike Easler The Hit Man Talks Hitters,” fangraphs.com, September 2, 2011. Accessed on November 12, 2014: fangraphs.com/blogs/qa-mike-easler-the-hit-man-talks-hitters/.

13 Tim Kurkjian, “MO TOWN: The Momentum of Mo Vaughn and the Streaking Red Sox has Boston Dreaming Impossible Dreams,” Sports Illustrated, August 2, 1993. Accessed on November 17, 2014: si.com/vault/1993/08/02/129043/mo-town-the-momentum-of-mo-vaughn-and-the-streaking-red-sox-has-boston-dreaming-impossible-dreams; David Siroty, The Hit Men and the Kid Who Batted Ninth (Lanham, Maryland: Diamond Communications, 2002), 161-162; David Laurila, “Q&A: Mike Easler The Hit Man Talks Hitters,” fangraphs.com, September 2, 2011. Accessed on November 12, 2014: fangraphs.com/blogs/qa-mike-easler-the-hit-man-talks-hitters/.

14 “Obituary: Raymond Johnson,” San Antonio Express-News, April 19, 2003. Accessed on November 17, 2014:

legacy.com/obituaries/sanantonio/obituary.aspx?n=raymond-johnson&pid=164315725.

15 Claire Smith, “Manager’s Dream Is Lost in the Sun,” New York Times, November 9, 1994.

Known as Peanut, then later simply “The Nut,” Dock Phillip Ellis Jr., was born on March 11, 1945, in Los Angeles. His father, known as Big Dock, worked in a post office and as a longshoreman, then went to school to learn shoe repair. His wife, Naomi, assisted him when they opened a shoe-repair shop and a dry-cleaner business.

Dock attended the predominantly white Gardena (California) High School in hopes of finding a better education but found a good dose of racial prejudice. To avoid suspension when he got caught drinking and smoking marijuana at school, he agreed to go out for baseball. But he found racial resistance there as well. He excelled at basketball, however, as the only black person on the team.

Big Dock died when Dock was 18, and Dock decided to focus solely on baseball. Playing mostly in the infield, he became a pitcher when one day he threw the ball from the outfield fence all the way over the backstop. A tall, lanky right-hander at 6-feet-3 and 195 pounds, he batted both ways and threw so hard his friends would stop playing catch with him.2

Ellis attended Los Angeles Harbor College in Wilmington, California, but spent most of his time playing baseball in Watts for former Negro Leagues pitcher Chet Brewer. Brewer scouted for the Pirates and tutored several future major leaguers, including Bob Watson, Bobby Tolan, and Enos Cabell. Fielding several offers, Ellis always wanted to sign with Pittsburgh, as he finally did in 1964, but saw his signing bonus reduced from $60,000 to $2,500 after his arrest for stealing a car.3

When Ellis started at the Pirates’ Class A team in Batavia, New York, he felt extreme pressure to succeed and became steadily involved in alcohol and drugs. Homesick and lonely, he went to a bar with teammates and ordered a beer, hoping to pass as 21. When the waitress informed him that the drinking age in New York was 19, he said, “Okay, take the beer back, and bring me some vodka stingers.”4

Despite his fears, Ellis excelled, but he soon became addicted to stimulants like Benzedrine (bennies) and Dexamyl (greenies). “I was into the speed … because of the expectations … to hurry up and get to the big leagues,” Ellis recounted. “I had a no-miss tag on me. ‘It’s impossible for this kid not to get to the big leagues.’ That’s a lot of stress.”5

In 1965 Dock married his first wife, Paula Hartsfield, an accomplished athlete and the first black homecoming queen at George Washington High School They were 20 and 17, respectively. They had one daughter, Shangaleza, in 1969.

Ellis had an overall won-lost record of 41-31 during his first four minor-league seasons through 1967. On the brink of making the Pirates in March 1968. he felt emboldened: “I held out this spring because … I never did get a bonus, and I thought I was entitled to more money.”6

He finally accepted his contract and joined the Columbus Jets, the Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate. He made his major-league debut on June 18 at Pittsburgh in relief against the Los Angeles Dodgers, and got his first win, pitching the 10th inning and allowing one hit. Ellis made and won his first start on July 31 in the second game of a twi-night doubleheader at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field, and finished the year in the starting rotation. In 1969 Ellis continued as a starting pitcher. Although he lost 17 games, he completed over 200 innings with a 3.58 earned-run average.

On Wednesday, June 10, 1970, Pittsburgh lost a day game in San Francisco and flew to San Diego for four games. Ellis obtained permission to drive home Thursday, an offday, and planned to return Friday to pitch the first game of a doubleheader. He said he took LSD on the way and timed it to kick in about the time he reached Los Angeles. He stayed with friends and continued with vodka and more acid, then lost track of the days.

A friend’s girlfriend woke him up at 2:00 P.M., saying “Dock, you have to pitch today in San Diego!”

“I don’t pitch until Friday,” he replied.

“It is Friday!” she said.

“O wow. What happened to yesterday?” said the confused pitcher.7

Ellis caught a flight at 3:00 P.M. and arrived at the misty, drizzly, half-empty ballpark at 4:30 for the 6:05 game. He remembered having a sense of euphoria, with the ball feeling sometimes big like a balloon, sometimes small like a golf ball. He saw a comet tail on his pitches and Richard Nixon umpiring behind the plate. He could not see the hitters well enough except to tell whether they were on the right or left side of the plate. Catcher Jerry May had his fingers wrapped with reflective tape to help.8

Rookie Dave Cash sat next to Ellis in the dugout and from the fifth inning kept reminding him that he had a “no-no” going. Nine innings, eight walks, and one hit batsman later, the weak-hitting Padres lost, 2-0, without producing a hit. Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski saved the no-hitter for the first out in the bottom of the seventh inning with a “fantastic backhanded grab” of a line drive from pinch-hitter Ramon Webster. “I didn’t think I had a chance for it,” said Mazeroski after the game. Ellis knew otherwise: “When Maz dove, I knew he’d grab it.”9

Ellis insisted that he did not intend to take LSD before pitching. He lost track of time. Yet he did admit that he worried about how he would be able to pitch. He knew the effects of LSD would not wear off before the game, so he took some speed, “because it was a habit. It was natural to take stuff, forgetting that I had taken the acid.”10

Ellis went on to pitch three more shutouts in 1970, then developed a sore arm in mid-August and missed over a month. He still led Pirates starting pitchers with 13 wins, as the team won its division but was swept in three games of the best-of-five NLCS by the Cincinnati Reds.

Still complaining about arm trouble in 1971, Ellis started the season strong. His record of 14 wins against only three losses with a 2.11 ERA by July 6 earned him his first and only All-Star Game selection. When he learned that pitcher Vida Blue would start the game for the American League, he challenged the racial preferences in baseball: “They’ll never start one ‘brother’ against another ‘brother.’” The manager of the National League All-Stars, Sparky Anderson, said he picked Ellis to start because of his excellent numbers and the fact that he had six days’ rest.11 Ellis claimed that he had intentionally used a form of reverse psychology to ensure the outcome. “I said they wouldn’t do it, so they had to.”12

Ellis fared well through the first two innings of the game, allowing just a single. Then Luis Aparicio led off the third inning with a single, and Reggie Jackson, pinch-hitting for Blue, blasted Ellis’s pitch off the light tower in right-center field at Tiger Stadium. With two outs, Frank Robinson added another two-run homer. Norm Cash struck out to end Ellis’s All-Star career. The AL went on to win, 6-4, hanging the loss on Ellis.

Later that season the Pirates made history on September 1 against the Philadelphia Phillies by starting an all-black lineup, using a combination of American and Latin players, with Ellis as the starting pitcher.

Although Ellis finished the rest of the season with a mediocre five wins and six losses and a 4.50 ERA, the Bucs went on to beat the San Francisco Giants three games to one in the NLCS. They won the World Series, defeating the Baltimore Orioles in seven games.

While in San Francisco for the first two games of the League Championship Series, Ellis complained about his bed being too short in the team hotel, the Jack Tar. He insisted on a suite, volunteering to pay the extra, but there were none available. Ellis checked out and moved to the Hilton. He also complained during the World Series in Baltimore about the Lord Baltimore Hotel. He got a different room, then finally moved to another spot with two rooms adjoining. He called the Pittsburgh “Establishment” cheap and bush league.13 In Ellis’s only appearance in the World Series, the Baltimore fans booed him loudly and waved handkerchiefs at him when he left the field during the third inning of the first game.14 Many thought the Pirates would surely trade him, with his sore arm and loud mouth, but he stayed with Pittsburgh the next four seasons.

Ellis started on Opening Day for the Pirates in 1972, but still felt some arm soreness and even threatened to retire by age 30. He almost found himself sitting out more time than expected after an encounter with a security officer at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. When Ellis arrived at the stadium together with Willie Stargell and Rennie Stennett on May 5, the guard, David Hatter, asked them all for identification. When Ellis flashed his world championship ring, Hatter interpreted his raising his fist, along with his “vile language,” as a confrontation, and sprayed the hurler with Mace, arrested him, and charged him with disorderly conduct.15

Ellis sued the Reds, and the Cincinnati team dropped all charges before the trial. Ellis and the Reds wrote Reds apologies to each other.

Pittsburgh general manager Joe Brown admitted that Ellis had no identification card at the time because the team had never issued any. Within three days of the incident, the Pirates issued pink identification cards to all the players, with their pictures on the back.16

In 1972 Ellis pitched in only 25 games, all starting assignments. With all the controversy and arm concerns, he nonetheless had a very good year, with 15 wins, 7 losses, and a 2.70 ERA. He posted his best WHIP (1.157) since his rookie season in 1968.

The Pirates won the NL Eastern Division for a third consecutive season, but lost the NLCS to the Reds in five games via dramatic walk-off fashion on a ninth-inning wild pitch. Ellis started the fourth game with the Pirates up two games to one and looking to clinch another pennant, but he was touched for three unearned runs on three Pittsburgh errors in five innings, and took the loss.

Ellis formed a very close relationship with Roberto Clemente. They roomed together when Ellis first got to the Pirates, and Roberto helped the kid from “the Neighborhood” make some adjustments to life in the big-time baseball arena. Clemente’s tragic death in late 1972 shocked and traumatized Ellis. He went on a violent rampage in his house, displacing his anger and grief on his wife, Paula. They soon divorced.

Ellis started the 1973 pretty smoothly, until a picture circulated through the newspapers showing him in the bullpen before a game in August wearing hair curlers under an oversized cap. He wore them only during pregame warm-ups, but Pirates manager Bill Virdon passed word to him to stop wearing them.17 Ellis accused Commissioner Bowie Kuhn of sending the edict, hiding behind Virdon. “There are many black men who wear curlers to help their hair,” he said. “Baseball is getting behind the times again.”18 Ellis admitted later to biographer Donald Hall that he never wore curlers around the house, only before games. “That’s when I was throwing spitballs. When I had the curlers, my hair would be straight. Down the back. On the ends would be nothing but balls of sweat.”19

Again, Ellis developed arm trouble toward the end of the season. He missed the first three weeks of September and feared missing a pay raise the next year, saying, “This is going to cost me money now.”20 He had knee surgery in October to repair injuries from a fall when he was 11 years old. His doctors hoped that the surgery could actually help some of his arm problems. Despite the health holdups, Ellis had been one of the sturdiest pitchers on the Pirates staff, both winning and losing more games (59-40) than any other Pittsburgh hurler from 1970 through 1973.21

One day in 1974, the intimidation that Ellis felt building up from Cincinnati’s dominance drove him to seek his own form of revenge against them. His anger dated back to losing the 1972 playoffs to the Reds. “All I heard was their players talking about how the Pirates were dumb players, and that’s why they beat us.”22 On May 1 Ellis took the mound at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh to face Pete Rose, the first player to bat. He hit Rose, then Joe Morgan, then Dan Driessen, loading the bases. He tried to hit the fourth batter, Tony Perez, but Perez dodged the pitches and took a walk, forcing Rose home from third. Pittsburgh manager Danny Murtaugh had seen enough and pulled Ellis out. No other pitcher had hit three consecutive batters since a hundred years before, when Emerson “Pink” Hawley of the 1894 St. Louis Browns hit three in the first inning.23

Ellis had a reasonably good year in 1974, with 12 victories and a 3.16 ERA, yet again did not finish September because of arm trouble. The Pirates finished first in the NL East Division, but Ellis did not pitch in their three-games-to-one NLCS loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Ellis enjoyed doing imitations in the clubhouse. He would do other players and umpires, but especially loved doing Muhammad Ali. One day in 1975 the Champ himself wandered into the Pirates clubhouse. Ellis showed off his quick feet and his quick mouth. Then Ali thumped him with a strong left jab to Dock’s chest, throwing him back almost off his feet. Nevertheless, Ellis still fashioned himself “the Muhammad Ali of baseball.”24

Late in the 1975 season Ellis refused an assignment to the bullpen. When he announced that he would speak to the team, everyone expected an apology. Instead, they got a rant against manager Danny Murtaugh, for which Ellis earned a 30-day suspension. Some players said Ellis tried to speak constructively, but others heard his words very differently. With the help of lawyer/agent Tom Reich, who had helped him during the Macing incident, Ellis was reinstated retroactively after 14 days. He did not lose any pay but still suffered a hefty fine. Ellis reluctantly accepted the bullpen assignment, but the ever-present trade rumors began to sound a lot more realistic during the offseason.25

The trade finally came — on December 11, 1975, to the New York Yankees. The very unbalanced transaction sent pitcher Ken Brett and second baseman Willie Randolph to the Yankees for pitcher Doc Medich, with Ellis’s name added as a “throw-in.”

As he left Pittsburgh, Ellis professed his love for the Pirates. “When the Pirates first signed me in 1964, I was wild. I was called a militant, although I don’t think it was so. Joe Brown tried to understand me, and he did. So did the people who own the Pirates — the Galbreaths.” Ellis said he really wanted to play for Billy Martin and the Yankees, and promised to focus totally on baseball in 1976, but he added, “I’ll always be a Pittsburgher. I like the people there. I like the Pirates, too.”26

Ellis started very strong in New York in 1976. By mid-July he had an 11-4 record, with five complete games and a 3.14 ERA. He pitched well throughout the season and posted 17 victories, the second-highest in his career, while topping 200 innings for the first time since 1971.

A beanball battle raged between the Yankees and the Orioles that season. On July 27 Ellis hit Baltimore’s Reggie Jackson on the side of the face, forcing the slugger to go to the hospital for x-rays and miss a few games until the swelling went down. Jackson had hit six home runs in six games. Later in the game, Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer obviously retaliated by hitting Mickey Rivers.27

Many remembered Jackson’s towering home run off Ellis in the 1971 All-Star Game, but Ellis insisted that the July 27 incident arose from Jackson’s taunting from the dugout and in the on-deck circle immediately before his at-bat.

Ellis started and won Game Three of the ALCS against the Kansas City Royals, then lost his start in Game Three at Yankee Stadium in the World Series against the Reds, who took four straight from the Yankees. Ellis received recognition for his standout season, as The Sporting News named him and Tommy John of the Dodgers the Comeback Players of the Year for 1976.

Peaceful times did not last long in New York for Ellis as he expected better compensation for his work. Reminiscing about the trade that brought him to the Yankees, he said, “The Yankees got me at a fire sale, and now they don’t want to give me any money.”28 He also had words of advice for Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. “I think he should stay up in his office, push his buttons, count his money, and stay out of the locker room.”29

The Yankees now saw Ellis as expendable. In a move labeled as a trade of “headaches,” they sent him to the Oakland Athletics on April 27, 1977, along with outfielder Larry Murray and infielder Marty Perez, for pitcher Mike Torrez. “It’s not the idea that I’m happy to be leaving the Yankee organization. I wasn’t being paid, so I have to leave,” reflected Ellis. He said joining the A’s team full of rookies “makes me feel young again. Hopefully, I will pitch like I’m younger.”30

Ellis had a very rough beginning with Oakland, with no wins and three losses in his first four starts, and a 23.48 ERA. His next three went much better, with an ERA of 3.93, but he won only one against two losses. Three days before his turnaround he shaved his head, a major shift from his usual style and a marked contrast from his curlers days.31

While in Oakland Ellis pulled what he later called the craziest thing he ever did. “They wanted me to keep charts. I said, ‘Bleep the charts,’ and set ’em on fire. They thought the clubhouse in Cleveland was on fire. The alarm went off. The automatic sprinklers started.”32

Ellis’s Oakland days lasted only until June 15, when the Texas Rangers purchased his contract for $275,000. But before he left Oakland, he had played for his third manager of the season. Charlie Finley, owner of the Athletics, changed skippers on June 10 when he surprisingly replaced Jack McKeon with Bobby Winkles.33

Rangers owner Brad Corbett received a lot of criticism, from fans and media alike, for signing Ellis. “All I can tell you that he’s done a magnificent job for us,” reported Corbett. “Dock Ellis got a bad rap. I love him. He’s fair. He calls it the way he sees it.”34

In July 1977 Dock married Austine Washington. They had one son, Dock Phillip Ellis III, or Trey.

The Rangers also went through a series of managerial shifts in 1977, resulting in Ellis playing for seven skippers during the season, including Frank Lucchesi, Eddie Stanky (one game), Connie Ryan (six games), and Billy Hunter in Texas. His season turned out mildly successful, as he pitched over 200 innings again. He bounced back from the poor showings in Oakland to finish with 10 wins and 6 losses for the Rangers, and a 2.90 ERA.

Once again, as in Pittsburgh and New York, Ellis served as player representative with the Rangers. His outspokenness came out again during the 1978 season. Manager Billy Hunter prohibited players from drinking at the hotel bar and banned mixed drinks on all flights. During a confrontation about the liquor rules with Ellis on the team bus, Hunter told him to sit down and shut up. Then Hunter decided to drop all alcohol from the flights. Enraged, Ellis resigned as player representative, complaining not only about the unreasonable rules, but also about feeling belittled in front of the team. “My father as the last man who told me to [sit down and shut up]. And as far as I’m concerned, nobody else can.”35

Fans and media again called for a trade, but owner Corbett sided with his player over his manager. Hunter turned down a five-year contract extension in midseason, and Corbett fired him with one day left in the season.

Ellis started 1979 with the Rangers, but did not pitch well. On June 15 Corbett relented and traded him to the New York Mets for pitchers Mike Bruhert and Bob Myrick. In 27 games for the Rangers and Mets, Ellis had a 4-12 record and an ERA over 6.00. On September 21 Pittsburgh purchased his contract, and Ellis got his wish to “come back and die as a Pirate.”36 He started one game and pitched two in relief during the last week of the season.

Pittsburgh released Ellis to free agency on November 1. Once again he flew into a rage at home, devastated that the Pirates had let him go. He had focused his whole life, since his teen years, on pitching a baseball. He traumatized his wife, Austine, so much one day at home that when she could get out of the house, she went to a hospital and never got back with Ellis again.

Corbett had promised Ellis a job after baseball, and Ellis traveled the world doing “soft PR” at $50,000 a year promoting his former owner’s plastic-pipe company.37

In the fall of 1980, realizing he had a problem, Ellis called former major leaguer Don Newcombe, who he knew worked with other addicts. Dock called his sister Sandra from the airport and asked her to bring a bottle of vodka. “It’s going to be my very last,” he said.38 Newcombe helped Dock get into The Meadows, a substance-abuse clinic in Wickenburg, Arizona, where he stayed 45 days — two weeks longer than insurance allowed, too terrified to leave until he felt ready to cope.

Ellis dedicated much of the rest of his life to helping fellow addicts find a path to recovery. He actually started this work during his playing days when he visited inmates in Pittsburgh area prisons. His own conversion experience drove his passion to work with others.39 He wanted to “go to where they’re at,” to meet them in the clubhouses and in the bars. “By the time they come for help, they’re already locked up and in trouble with their families.”40

Dock married a third time, to Jacquelyn, in 1985, then soon divorced, and shortly thereafter he married Hjordis, who was with him until he died in 2008.

Dock’s son Trey remembered the sense of calling that his father felt, “that feeling he got knowing he was changing somebody’s life.”41 Ellis never forgot his own struggles. “Continuous recovery! I’ll be recovering until I die!”42

Ellis was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver in 2007, and hoped for a liver transplant. With no insurance, his family relied heavily on friends from his baseball career to help pay bills. Heart damage precluded any transplant, and he died on December 19, 2008, at the age of 63.

Around the time of the 1971 All-Star Game, Ellis received what he regarded as perhaps his most prized possession: a handwritten letter from Jackie Robinson. In it Jackie wrote: “Try to get more players to understand your view, and you will find great support. You have made a real contribution.”43

Possibly the most underrated, unpopular, and misunderstood player ever, Dock Ellis redefined “success” as something other than putting up impressive numbers in the major leagues. He pioneered a path across racial and cultural divides, and found a way not only to live beyond his fears but also to walk alongside others who struggled as he did.

Last Revised: April 12, 2023 (zp)

Notes

1 Jeff Radice, director and producer, No No: A Dockumentary. 2014.

2 Ibid.

3 Keven McAlester, “High Times,” Houston Press, June 23, 2005.

4 Jerry Crowe, “Dock Ellis: The Man Who Pitched a No-Hitter While Under the Influence of LSD Has Found a New Delivery: He Coordinates a Substance-Abuse Rehabilitation Program: Ellis: ‘I Couldn’t Pitch Without Pills,’” Los Angeles Times, June 30, 1985.

5 Ibid.

6 Les Biederman, “Blass Blossoms; Ellis Could Be Next to Thrive,” The Sporting News, September 11, 1968.

7 Radice.

8 ESPN.com, “OTL: The Long, Strange Trip of Dock Ellis,” ESPN.go.com.

9 Charley Feeney, “Maz’ Dive Buoys Dock in No-No Against Padres,” The Sporting News, June 27, 1970.

10 Crowe.  

11 “Pipeline Full of Chit-Chat,” The Sporting News, July 31, 1971.

12 Donald Hall with Dock Ellis, In the Country of Baseball (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 175.

13 Charley Feeney, “Bucs ‘Stuck’ with Ellis, Big Winner, Big Yelper,” The Sporting News, October 23, 1971.

14 Lowell Reidenbaugh, “Orioles Find Way Back With McNally,” The Sporting News, October 23, 1971.

15 Charley Feeney, “Drydock Beckons Bucs’ Storm-Tossed Ellis,” The Sporting News, May 20, 1972.

16 “Dock Gets Identity Card,” The Sporting News, May 27, 1972.

17 Hall, 215.

18 Charley Feeney, “Even Hair Curlers Rear Ugly Head in Bucs’ Domestic Life,” The Sporting News, September 1, 1973.

19 Hall, 217.

20 “Pirate Ellis in Dry Dock Again,” The Sporting News, September 22, 1973.

21 Charley Feeney, “Bucs’ Moody Ellis Happy — Knee Sound after Surgery,” The Sporting News, March 15, 1974.

22 Crowe.  

23 “N.L. Flashes — Dock Makes History,” The Sporting News, May 18, 1974.

24 Radice.  

25 Charley Feeney, “Apologetic Dock Earns Return to Bucs,” The Sporting News, September 13, 1975.

26 Charley Feeney, “Dock Dons Walking Shoes for Pirate Exodus,” The Sporting News, December 20, 1975.

27 Jim Henneman, “Oriole Feathers Fly in Duster Fight,” The Sporting News, August 14, 1976.

28 Dick Young, “Young Ideas,” The Sporting News, April 16, 1977.

29 “Insiders Say,” The Sporting News, April 30, 1977.

30 Tom Weir, “Trader Finley Swaps Headaches, Torrez for Ellis,” The Sporting News, May 14, 1977.

31 Tom Weir, “Page Injury Dims One of A’s Few Bright Spots,” The Sporting News, June 18, 1977.

32 Crowe.  

33 “Winkles Take Over as A’s Skipper; McKeon Gets Axe,” Gadsden (Alabama) Times, June 11, 1977.

34 Randy Galloway, “Betrayed Corbett Ready to Cash Ranger Chips,” The Sporting News, July 23, 1977.

35 Randy Galloway, “Dock Protesting Dry Runs, Leaps Overboard,” The Sporting News, June 17, 1978.

36 Radice.  

37 Hall, 328.

38 Radice.  

39 Hall, 336.

40 Radice.  

41 “OTL: The Long, Strange Trip of Dock Ellis,” ESPN.com, August 24, 2012.

42 Hall, 336

43 Radice.  

Wait a minute! How could the Oglala Sioux Indian chief who, along with Sitting Bull, routed General Custer at Little Bighorn, have a World Series ring? He never played baseball. True. But “Crazy Horse” was also the nickname given to Tim Foli, a talented but hot-tempered infielder who played 16 years in the majors for six teams, and won it all with the Pirates in 1979.

Timothy John Foli entered the world on December 6, 1950, in Culver City, California, one of four children (two sons and two daughters) born to Ernie and Lillian Kathleen (Deserf) Foli. When Ernie Sr. wasn’t toiling in the real-estate business, he worked with his sons as they moved up the Little League ranks. Both boys were athletes; Tim’s brother, Ernie Jr., was eight years older than Tim, and also played professional baseball. He got as high as the Triple-A level as an infielder in the Los Angeles Angels and Kansas City Athletics organizations.

Tim began playing in a park league at the age of 6 before moving on to the Canoga-Winnetka Little League from age 9 until he was 13. The competitive intensity and fire that marked his career was evident even then.

“Tim has played with intensity and competitiveness all his life and even when he was six years old in the park league he was always far advanced,” said his Little League coach, Quentin Quick.  “He simply has tremendous desire and talent to go with it.”1

That desire and talent turned Foli into a three-sport athlete at Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California. In his senior year, he was chosen Southern Section 3-A player of the year in baseball, when he hit an incredible .562. He was also an elite basketball and football player and was offered a scholarship to play quarterback at the University of Southern California under legendary coach John McKay. New York Mets scout Harry Minor had other ideas, however, and convinced the “Amazin’s” to select him number 1 overall in the 1968 amateur draft. A bonus ranging from $70,000 to $85,000, depending on the source, convinced Foli he should forgo college and devote himself to professional baseball.2 His first stop was with the Marion (Virginia) Mets of the Rookie-level Appalachian League, where his intensity gained notice.

“There he batted .281 (with four home runs and 36 RBIs in 235 at-bats) and 9began to build the reputation, says Ed Kranepool of the Mets, ‘of a guy who’s so hyper that he brings his bat back to his hotel room,’” wrote Pat Jordan in Sports Illustrated. The Mets sent him to their Visalia club in the Class A California League for 1969. He had an impressive year, batting .303 with 15 home runs and 62 RBIs, and he made the all-star team, but after one tough game on a very hot day in which he went 0-for-5, he slept at second base.

“So I got a blanket and a record player and found the coolest place available,” Foli recalled. “I lay down along near shortstop and listened to music and thought about how I wouldn’t go nothing-for-five again.”3

The problem Foli had playing in the Mets’ minor-league system, besides being too hard on himself, was that the parent club, just coming off its first world championship, already had two veteran major-league-caliber shortstops, Bud Harrelson and Al Weis. That didn’t stop Foli, however, from wowing them at the Mets’ 1970 spring-training camp. 

“Foli, the 19-year-old shortstop from Culver City, California, is the talk of Florida,” wrote Jack Lang in The Sporting News. “He draws raves everywhere he goes from players, managers, scouts and fans.”4

As any thespian will tell you, rave reviews don’t guarantee a long run on Broadway. Such was the case with Foli, who for all the talent he displayed still only had 163 games of professional experience behind him. Mets management decided he would benefit from another year in the minors and sent him to the Tidewater (Virginia) Tides of the Triple-A International League. Foli, understandably, reacted like the 19-year-old that he was.

“They tell me I’m only 19 and I’ve played only 163 games in the minors,” he said, “but why should that make any difference if I can do the job? And I know I can do the job.”5

Unfortunately, Foli couldn’t do the job offensively at Triple-A the way he did the previous season, with a lower batting average and diminished home-run and RBI totals (.261, 6, 30). The Mets nonetheless called him up during the September pennant race, and he made his major-league debut on September 11, 1970, as a ninth-inning defensive replacement for Harrelson. He didn’t get to bat in that game, which meant he managed to avoid facing future Hall of Famer Bob Gibson.

Foli made his first major-league start the next day against the Cardinals, but not at his customary position — he played third base instead. The Mets were in only their ninth year of existence that season, yet Foli was the 43rd man to play the hot corner for the franchise. (Rumor had it that number 44 was going to be the winner of a fan essay contest.) Foli went 2-for-4 with an RBI at the plate, and had two putouts and three assists in the field with no errors. That September he got into five games with four hits and an RBI.

Wayne Garrett was expected to be the third baseman for the 1971 season, having played 70 games at the position the previous year. But just as spring training began, Uncle Sam came calling and Garrett was drafted into the Army, giving Foli an opening to make the team. Foli took full advantage of the chance, worked hard in Florida, and came north with the team as the backup to the more experienced Bob Aspromonte, who had been acquired from the Atlanta Braves in December 1970. 

It was during the 1971 season that Foli’s teammates started calling him Crazy Horse because, in the politically incorrect spirit of the time, “he keeps wandering up and down the dugout like an Indian on the warpath waiting to get at the U.S. Cavalry.”6

Of course, part of that intensity stemmed from his being only 20 years old. How else to explain a dugout incident with teammate Ed Kranepool during a May 26 game against the Phillies? As the Mets infield warmed up prior to the first inning, when first baseman Kranepool tossed a grounder to Foli at third, Foli’s return throw was wide, forcing Kranepool to stretch for the toss. Kranepool wasn’t pleased, and so threw grounders to every infielder except Foli for the rest of the warmup. A seething Foli charged Kranepool in the dugout when the half-inning was over, demanding to know why Kranepool stopped throwing to him. Yelling led to pushing which led to Kranepool giving Foli a smack in the snoot and it was all over. 

“He was showing me up in front of my teammates,” said Kranepool. “I couldn’t let him do that.”7

Temper tantrums aside, it seems that the Mets had trouble finding a spot for Foli that season, playing him at third, second, and short over 97 games; he even played five innings in center field. At the plate he hit only .226 with 24 RBIs in 288 at-bats, not the kind of numbers that warrant a lot of playing time.

They also don’t warrant a team tolerating somebody getting into scraps with teammates and coaches. As if fighting with Kranepool wasn’t enough, Foli also duked it out with Mets coach Joe Pignatano during spring training in 1972 over a mix-up about hockey tickets for an East Coast League playoff game. It seems that some ducats were left for Pignatano and he arrived at the arena to find Foli and others sitting in his seats. A slight confrontation ensued, but the players got up and moved. Foli, not one to let a sleeping pout lie, walked into the coaches’ dressing room the next morning to discuss the matter further. A couple of punches and a broken pair of glasses later, Foli was soon gone from the Mets. They shipped him off to Montreal along with first baseman Mike Jorgensen and outfielder Ken Singleton in return for right fielder Rusty Staub on April 5, 1972. 

The trade was a boon to Foli’s career because he got the playing time at shortstop in Montreal that he would not have had in New York behind Harrelson. It also allowed him to play for Gene Mauch, who saw in Foli a younger version of himself, temper and all.

“Foli would light a fire under that team [the Expos], Mauch assumed,” wrote Jordan. “Mauch said he had taken to the young shortstop because ‘there’s no mystery to him’ and because he bore a strong resemblance to a fiery shortstop of another generation — Mauch himself.”8

Foli replaced incumbent number-one shortstop Bobby Wine and hit reasonably well considering that he played in an era when not much offense was expected from the position (the top 15 shortstops in 1972 totaled 65 home runs; in 2013, the top 15 hit 184).9 He hit .241 with his first two major-league home runs and 35 RBIs. Foli also led the league in fines resulting from run-ins with umpires (four), and turned being a batboy into a hazardous occupation by flinging bats, gloves, helmets, and other paraphernalia. 

Foli’s 1973 season was marred by a horrific collision with Bob Watson of the Houston Astros on July 8 at Montreal’s Jarry Park. Watson, who was on first as a result of a Foli error, was heading to second on a groundball by Doug Rader while Foli was making the pivot for a double play. Watson put up his forearm just as Foli lurched forward to complete the throw, and the two crashed into each other, with Foli getting the worst of it. Foli and the baseball went flying while his glasses also sailed through the air from the force of the impact. To add insult to his injury, Foli was charged with his second error of the frame as he lay prone on the infield, bleeding from the mouth. He was carried off the field on a stretcher with a broken jaw, and missed exactly one month, returning on August 8. Three days after his return, he was suspended for three games for bumping umpire Ken Burkhart earlier in the season. Despite the injury and suspension, his numbers were similar to those of the previous season. In 82 fewer at-bats, he hit .240 with 2 home runs and 36 RBIs.

Foli had a routine season in 1974 in which he hit .254 with no home runs and 39 RBIs, and had a huge dust-up with the Dodgers’ Rick Auerbach on July 7. Auerbach slid into Foli while trying to break up a double play, precipitating a fight between the two of them and a bench-clearing brawl. The Dodgers were furious with Foli. LA second baseman Davey Lopes called him a dirty player who can dish it out but can’t take it, while catcher Joe Ferguson referred to him as a cheap-shot artist.10

Other teams may have hated Foli, but Ginette Pélissier, a former bunny at the Montreal Playboy Club, showed she loved him by marrying him in December 1974. As of 2015, they were still married, with five children.

The bunny’s husband played shortstop like Hall of Famer Rabbit Maranville in 1975, leading all National League shortstops in putouts (260), assists (497), and double plays turned (104). His offensive numbers remained meager (.238, 1, 29), but his pugnaciousness was in fine form. He got into a fight with the Cardinals’ Reggie Smith on July 5 when he accused Smith of coming into second base too hard while trying to break up a double play, and earned a three-game suspension in September for arguing with the umpires after a game in which he had been thrown out for … arguing with the umpires.

Whether it was helpful or not, Foli’s fiery playing style was one of the few bright spots on a truly dreadful 1976 Expos team that went 55-107. So was the unusual way in which he hit for the cycle, the first in the team’s history, and a natural one to boot. An April 21 game against the Cubs at Wrigley Field was suspended by darkness after six innings, by which time Foli had singled, doubled, and tripled in that order. His home run came in the eighth inning when play resumed the following day. He went 4-for-5 with three RBIs as the Expos won, 12-6.11 Foli’s overall numbers were improved. His six home runs were a career high, and he hit .264 and had 54 RBIs, the most in his career to that point.

Even though he had good numbers in 1976, Foli’s days in Montreal were numbered by 1977. Giants shortstop Chris Speier wanted out of San Francisco because he never knew week-to-week where or if he was going to play. He wanted to come to Montreal because he loved the city and saw the team as an up-and-coming contender. Expos GM Charlie Fox, Speier’s first manager with the Giants, was glad to oblige, not just because he knew Speier, but saw him as a winner. Fox sent Foli to San Francisco on April 27, 1977, in an even-up deal for Speier.

“I think they are both good shortstops,” said Fox.  “But if you put them both in a room and told me I could have either one, I would take Speier because I think he can make us a winner sooner.”12

Things got off to a rocky start for Foli in the Bay area. In his first game with the Giants he made an error on a groundball by José Cruz of the Houston Astros. The next batter was Bob Watson, who had broken Foli’s jaw four years earlier. Watson didn’t break any body parts this time, but did smack a home run that gave Houston a 2-0 lead on its way to a 3-1 win. That start was a sign of things to come for Foli, as he hit .221 for the year, the lowest batting average of his career to that point, with 4 home runs and 27 RBIs.

If reality television shows existed back then, Foli could have starred in one called “What Goes Around Comes Around.” In December the Giants sold Foli back to the Mets, for whom he replaced Bud Harrelson as the team’s starting shortstop. (These were not the Mets that Foli signed with in 1970. That team was coming off a World Series win, but the woeful 1977 edition lost 96 games.) Foli rebounded offensively in 1978, hitting .257, again with 27 RBIs but only one home run. That wasn’t good enough for the Mets, who opted for more speed from the shortstop position, and traded Foli and minor-league pitcher Greg Field to Pittsburgh for their shortstop, Frank Taveras, on April 19, 1979. Taveras had led both leagues with 70 stolen bases in 1977, and followed that up with 46 thefts in 1978. Foli, meanwhile, would end up with 81 steals for his entire career. He also had, by joining the Pirates, a FAM-A-LEE!

The 1979 Pirates were a close-knit group that danced all the way to the World Series to the tune of their theme song, the Sister Sledge hit “We Are Family.” Led by their captain, veteran slugger Willie Stargell, and right fielder Dave Parker, the Pirates led the league in runs scored (775). Foli caught the team’s hitting bug by putting up the best offensive numbers of his career — he had a .288 batting average with 65 RBIs, and scored 70 times. He also did well in the postseason, batting .333 in both the three-game sweep of the Cincinnati Reds during the best-of-five NLCS and the World Series triumph in seven games over the Baltimore Orioles, going the entire postseason without striking out. Being with the Pirates seemed to steady Foli. He made a good keystone combination with second baseman Phil Garner, and he didn’t fly off the handle as often.

“Tim is still quick to jaw with a teammate and therefore is not the most popular Pirate, but he’s come a long way in keeping his Irish temper under control,” wrote Mailand McIlroy in a Pittsburgh-area newspaper. “Because he has a lot to say, some of the other players call him “coach” in a rather irreverent tone.”13

Being in a good space won’t prevent injuries or work stoppages. Various ailments, including a leg infection resulting from being spiked early in the season, limited Foli to 127 games in 1980, while a players’ strike restricted him to 86 games in 1981. His numbers for the two seasons returned to his normal levels after peaking in 1979 (.258 batting average, 3 home runs, 58 RBIs for the two seasons combined).

Even the best families have their breakups, and such was the case with Foli and the Pirates, who traded him to the California Angels for catcher/outfielder Brian Harper on December 11, 1981. In what would have been a sequel had the show “What Goes Around Comes Around” existed, Foli was reunited with his manager from the Montreal days, Gene Mauch. Unlike the Montreal situation, Mauch was in charge of a playoff-caliber team in 1982 that won the American League West Division before losing to the Milwaukee Brewers in the then-maximum of five games in the ALCS. Foli was a major contributor to the team’s success, leading AL shortstops in fielding percentage (.985) and finishing sixth in assists. He led both leagues in sacrifice hits (26). He also set a league record with only 14 walks in 528 plate appearances. He had only 2 hits in 16 at-bats in the playoffs.

The last three years of Foli’s major-league career saw vastly diminished playing time. In 1983 a bruised rotator cuff kept him out of the lineup from early August through the rest of the season. He couldn’t avoid trouble while injured; in September, he was suspended, then reinstated and fined for changing from his uniform into street clothes during a rain delay in Chicago. The Angels traded Foli to the New York Yankees after the season for pitcher Curt Kaufman. He played in only 61 games with the Yankees in 1984 and demanded a trade after the season because he wasn’t getting any playing time, not because of his relationship with George Steinbrenner. In fact, he liked “The Boss.”

“[A] lot of people didn’t like George,” Foli said. “I liked George. He’ll do whatever it takes to win and I like that.”14

The Yankees traded Foli back to Pittsburgh along with outfielder Steve Kemp and cash for infielder Dale Berra, outfielder Jay Buhner, and pitcher Alfonso Pulido before the 1985 season. Foli played in only 19 games for the Pirates that year before they released him on June 17. He then played one game for the Miami Marlins of the Class A Florida State League before calling it a career. In his last three major-league seasons, Foli played in 168 games and batted .247 with 2 home runs and 47 RBIs. 

After his playing days, Foli stayed in baseball as a coach and manager. He coached with the minor-league Marlins in 1986, then spent two seasons coaching third base with the Texas Rangers. In the winter of 1987, he managed the Criollos de Caguas of the Puerto Rican League in the Caribbean Series, but was fired after the team lost two of its first three games (including one in which they committed eight errors). His replacement, Ramon Aviles, led Caguas to the title.

Foli also coached with the Brewers, Reds, Royals, Mets, and Washington Nationals. He has managed at the Triple-A level for the Nationals, where he skippered his son Daniel, a career minor-league pitcher, for one game in 2006.  By 2010 Foli was the Nationals’ head of player development and special adviser to general manager Mike Rizzo.

It also turned out that you can take the Foli out of the fight, but you can’t take the fight out of the Foli, even after his playing days. On August 24, 1993, while coaching at first base with Milwaukee, Foli was ejected during the second game of a doubleheader for fighting with the opposing third-base coach, Tommie Reynolds, during a lengthy bench-clearing brawl between the Oakland Athletics and the Brewers. While with the Reds in 2001, he got into a fight with fellow coach Ron Oester after a game and required stitches for a cut to the head.

As of 2015, Foli lived in Ormond Beach, Florida, with Ginette. He became a born-again Christian while with the Pirates and has devoted time to speaking to Christian groups.

Sources other than those cited in notes:

biography.com/.

baseball-reference.com.

Los Angeles Times.

New York Times.

sportscelebs.com/.

Reds.enquirer.com.

Notes

1 Frank Mazzeo, Column, Valley News (Van Nuys, California), June 4, 1971.

2 A Montreal Gazette article from September 26, 1972, lists the bonus at $70,000, Sports Illustrated (June 9, 1975) lists it at $75,000, and the Valley News (June 4, 1971) said that the bonus was $85,000, plus $10,000 for college tuition.

3 Ian MacDonald, “Foli’s temper improves along with his hitting, fielding,” Montreal Gazette, September 26, 1972.

4 Jack Lang, “Foli Most Marvelous of New Mets,” The Sporting News, April 4, 1970.

5 Lang, “Mets to Place More Emphasis on Offense to Repeat Title Bid,” The Sporting News, April 11, 1970.

6 Lang, “Foli Making Mets’ Mark as King of the Rednecks,” The Sporting News, June 19, 1971.

7 Pat Jordan, Sports Illustrated, June 9, 1975.

8 Ibid.

9 The author was 15 years old and working on a cable television baseball show in the summer of 1972. He interviewed Bobby Wine at Jarry Park on July 9. Wine was cut from the team the next day. 

10 Associated Press, “Dodgers fuming at Expos,” Bakersfield Californian, July 8, 1974.

11 It was the only time all season that the Expos scored in double figures.

12 Ian MacDonald, “Speier ‘Elated’ Over Deal That Turns Him Into Expo,” The Sporting News, May 14, 1977.

13 Mailand McIlroy, “Foli Has Become Glue For Pirates Infield,” Daily News (Huntington, Mount Union, and Sexton, Pennsylvania), March 19, 1980.

14 Tim McDonald, “Tim Foli is now Mr. Calm,” St. Petersburg (Florida) Evening Independent, April 2, 1985.