Remember Mark "the Bird" Fidrych and how he used to talk to the baseball plus other unusual things? He absolutely electrified baseball for a few years, a throwback to the old days. I actually got to meet him at baseball camp for kids and have his autograph. About all I could say was thanks for the memories.
He certainly did in his rookie season. The following spring: injured. Several premature comebacks later---gone. Turned out he injured a knee in spring training,
came back too soon, ended up with a rotator cuff shredded like cheese, impossible to even think about repairing. (The surgery was coming on line at about
the time the Bird hung it up. He didn't even know it was a rotator cuff shredding until it was too late.)
Makes you think about all the other young arms who look so great coming up but for one reason or another end up flaming out too soon. I wrote about them a few years ago:
Rex Barney—Teen phenom with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Harnessed his impossible-to-see fastball by 1948 and won fifteen; had a no-hitter on his resume. End of season: leg fracture in two places sliding into base. Following season: 48 walks in 33 innings, pitching, as one sportswriter phrased it, as though the plate were high and outside. Gone at 25.
Jack Banta—Another Dodger pitching comer who looked like a live one in 1949. After a couple of cups of coffee in 1947 and 1948, the sidewinding Banta came up in 1949 and established himself as one of the club’s top relief pitchers. Came on in the sixth and finished for the win in the September pennant clincher. Three live relief gigs in the World Series. The following season: Shoulder injury and finished. Banta tried to become a manager in the Dodger system but was canned unceremoniously in 1958. Went to work for a grocery distributor as a dock worker and moved up the ranks until his retirement. Died of cardiovascular disease in 2006 at 81. Told Peter Golenbock (for
Bums) in the early 1980s that he hadn’t gone to a baseball game since the Dodgers cut him loose as a minor league manager.
Ewell (The Whip) Blackwell—Six-time All-Star for the postwar Cincinnati Reds. Snapping sidearm motion on a 6’6″ pitcher earned Blackwell his nickname and an image, as one writer put it, of “a man falling out of a tree.” Age 24: Led the National League in wins, strikeouts, complete games, strikeouts, and strikeout-to-walk ratio, and almost equaled Johnny Vander Meer’s double no-hit feat. By age 28: Arm trouble, plus kidney removal and appendectomy. By age 30: A spare part on a couple of Yankee pennant winners and, other than an abbreviated comeback with the Kansas City Athletics in 1955, gone at age 32, a shadow of what once terrorised hitters.
Joe Black—1952, as a 28-year-old rookie: Rookie of the Year, finished a league-leading 41 games, first black pitcher to win a World Series game. Next season: Told he needed more stuff, including a curve ball his finger tendons made impossible to throw, Black was a wreck. Never won or saved more than six again; done at 33.
Karl Spooner—Turned a 1954 cup of coffee into three squares at 23: back-to-back shutouts toward season’s end, in the first of which he struck out fifteen, for a rookie record that stood until J.R. Richard smashed it. Struck out 27 over the two games. Spring training 1955: Came into a game without a proper warmup and blew his arm out. Struggled through the season, never appeared in the majors again following Game One of the 1955 World Series. “Sooner with Spooner,” the saying Dodger fans came up with over his stupefying 1954 debut, took on a sinister meaning after that.
Herb Score—At 22: Rode bullet fastball to Rookie of the Year honours, 245 strikeouts, and a 9.7 strikeouts-per-nine rate, leading the league. At 23: 20 wins, five shutouts, 268 strikeouts, another league-leading strikeouts-per-nine rate (9.5). He was Sandy Koufax a few years before Koufax became Koufax, basically. At 24: Hit in the face by Gil McDougald’s liner in his fifth start; gone for the year. At 25: Ruptured a tendon in his pitching elbow on a rainy afternoon (he surely could have used Tommy John surgery, had it been invented at the time), tried to adjust his mechanics to compensate, and was never again the pitcher he looked to have been after missing almost two full seasons. By age 29 and a number of faltering comebacks: Finished on the mound, headed for a second career in the broadcast booth.
Steve Dalkowski—Minor league phenom whose heater may have made Score’s seem like a changeup. (What the hey, Ted Williams himself said he couldn’t see it.) Finally harnessed it enough to make the Orioles in 1963 spring training, at age 24 . . . and blew his elbow out pitching to Yankee rookie Phil Linz. Bounced back to the minors; drank himself out of baseball by age 26. Would the Orioles have won their first World Series sooner with a healthy Dalkowski?
Jim Bouton—Age 23: Yankee comer with a hard fastball delivered just as hard. Age 24: Yankee 21-game winner. Age 25: Improving strikeout-to-walk ratio and WHIP while winning 18 for the last of the old-guard Yankee pennant winners. Age 26: Shoulder and arm miseries begin, never again an effective starter. By age 31: Marginal relief pitcher and gone, mostly because he’s lost whatever was left, though the controversy around
Ball Four didn’t help. Brief, memorable comeback with the 1978 Atlanta Braves, including a pitcher’s duel with J.R. Richard in which neither got the decision, but ended it after that season.
Art Mahaffey–Live fastball, maybe the best pickoff move in the National League, did what he could on some terrible Phillies teams between 1961 and 1963. (He had threatened—bravely or brazenly, depending on your point of view—to pick off the first man to reach base against him in the majors . . . then, he picked off the first three.) Two-time All-Star who looked like he’d rehorse in 1964 until a) his strikeout rate collapsed profoundly, and b) he—with everyone else in the park—was stunned by Cincinnati rookie Chico Ruiz’s stealing home in the game that launched the infamous Phillie phold. (Ruiz’s steal was the only run of the game.) He may or may not have been doghoused by manager Gene Mauch over it. Mahaffey would get only one start during the peak of that fateful losing streak, pitching solidly enough in his loss to cause some teammates to wonder whether the phold could have been blocked if he’d gotten another start during that streak, especially with Mauch barely willing to trust his bullpen. (Infamously, Mauch went to Jim Bunning and Chris Short in seven of the ten games, three each on two days’ rest.) An arm injury cost Mahaffey his fastball; struggling as a finesse pitcher, he was finished by the end of 1966 and and a non-descript season with the St. Louis Cardinals (to whom Mahaffey was dealt after 1965 in the deal that sent Bill White to Philadelphia); the Cardinals shipped him to the Mets for 1967, but he never showed up in the majors again. He went into the insurance business after retiring from baseball. If you believe in the so-called
Sports Illustrated cover jinx, be advised that the spindly Mahaffey was an April 1963 cover boy. As strange as this may sound—considering such Phillie strikeout emperors to come as Jim Bunning, Steve Carlton, and Curt Schilling—Mahaffey still holds the Phillies’ single-game strikeout record, striking out 17 Cubs in 1961.
Sammy Ellis—Looked like a comer with the mid-1960s Reds; he mixed a swift, riding fastball and a knuckleball into a 10-3/14 save 1964 (he actually finished in the top 20 among MVP vote-getters, since his performance helped keep the Reds in the pennant race as the Phillies came to fold) and, as a starter, a 22-10 1965 and his only All-Star appearance. He looked like he’d become the no-questions-asked number two man behind Jim Maloney until he developed arm trouble, bounced around to the Angels, White Sox, and Indians, before calling it a career and becoming a long-time, somewhat traveled, respected pitching coach, primarily for the Yankees in the early 1980s.
Jim Lonborg—At 25, put it together following his first two warmup seasons with a Cy Young award, the league leadership in wins, starts, and strikeouts. 1967 World Series: Wheeled out on two days’ rest for Game Seven and couldn’t hold his own. Offseason: Knee injury in a skiing accident. Next season: Late start, disoriented mechanics, never again anywhere near the pitcher he was in 1967 despite forging a long enough career. Reversed Casey Stengel’s professional path and became a dentist after his baseball career.
Denny McLain—Twenty-game winner at 22. Thirty-one-game winner at 24; 24-game winner at 25. Next season: Suspended over gun carrying. Following season: Arm still wrung by too many innings pitched (he averaged 290 innings pitched over the span; pitched over 320 innings in each of 1968 and 1969) and maybe too many complete games (he pitched 51 of them in 1968-69), he lost 22 for the 1970 Senators and had no arm left by age 28. That proved to be the least of his problems as life went on, alas.
Steve Blass—After a few seasons to horse himself, he sat on top of the world in 1971 as one of the keys to the Pirates’ World Series championship (he beat the Orioles twice with complete-game wins) and in 1972 as an All-Star. Three years later: lost control, lost career. Blass has since managed to come to terms with the collapse of his pitching career and become a longtime, long-loved colour commentator on the Pirates’ television broadcasts. But “Steve Blass Disease” has entered the baseball lexicon, with Willis cited as its most recent and prominent victim, even though Blass may never have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.
Randy Jones—After a frightful (22-game losing) start at age 24, went back-to-back 20-game winning at 25-26, including a Cy Young Award. Slop-tossing righthander. He also threw 600 innnings in those two (1975-76) seasons. 1977: His arm committed suicide; he’d hang in until he was 32 but never had a winning season after 27.
Wayne Garland—At 25, emerged as a 20-game winner with an ERA under 2.70, and landed himself one of the early yummy multi-year free agency contracts. The following spring training: Hellbent on living up to that then-monster deal, Garland blew his rotator cuff, tried pitching through it anyway, and led the league in losses with 19. Hung in for half of the ten-year deal, eventually earned a friendly reputation for pitching with guts, but he stands as the classic example of what pushing too hard can do to the unsuspecting.
Mike Flanagan—Cy Young winner at 27. Didn’t know his own limits; pitched an astouding 157 straight turns, never missing a start, while hurt. Never won as many as 17 the rest of his career; won 15 or 16 only twice more. Eventually joined the Oriole front office; committed suicide in 2011.
J.R. Richard—Took his time to become the National League’s mound terror, and he was still only 29 after he broke the National League record for strikeouts by a righthander. Age 30: Stroke, career dead. Hit rock bottom before going into the ministry.
Steve Stone—Took the steady ride to the top and bagged the 1980 Cy Young Award. The following season, he was gone after fifteen games, at 32. The verdict: His curve ball destroyed him—he threw it too often for his own good and took it to fever pitch in 1980. Became a broadcaster.
Mike Norris—What the curve ball was to Stone, the screwball—plus 24 complete games in his 22-game winning season at age 25, not to mention that he may have
been a screwball—proved to Norris. They still debate which went south first and faster, Norris’s arm or his off-field life.
Steve McCatty—Wins and ERA champ done in by too many complete games. Don’t think for one moment that his experience on that ill-fated Oakland rotation of 1981-83 didn't have a factor in formulating the Strasburg Plan a couple of years ago even if he didn’t have Tommy John surgery himself: McCatty was the Nats’ pitching coach, until he got purged undeservedly in the Matt Williams managerial disaster.
Pete Vukovich—Another steady rider to the top. Landed a Cy Young award in 1982, at 29 . . . and, after winning nothing to open 1983, missed the rest of that season and all 1984. Pitched hurt helping the Brewers win the 1982 pennant; gone at 33.
LaMarr Hoyt—Back-to-back wins champion at ages 27-28, including a Cy Young Award. At 29: 18-game loser, future drug rehab patient, finished at 31. Hoyt’s drug issues tied mostly to painkillers and marijuana, presumably taken up in a bid to relieve the shoulder discomforts while desperately trying to find ways to pitch again. He wouldn’t find them until it was too late, and a return to the White Sox after his ill-fated spell in San Diego revealed what had really gone wrong with his shoulder: a frayed rotator cuff that wasn't diagnosed properly, not to mention undiagnosed bicep tearing. (He did win a judgment against the Padres, though, after their then-owner called him a cokehead when he spoke of taking---wait for it---Valium, while the team failed to diagnose his physical issues properly.)
Rick Sutcliffe—ERA champ at 26; 20-game winner (including a 16-1 mark in the National League after his trade to the Cubs, leading them to their first postseason since 1946) and Cy Young pitcher at 28. At 29-30: Injuries, 11-22 span thanks to premature comebacks. Occasional flashes of his old self the rest of the way . . . very occasional. He, too, moved to the broadcast booth in due course.
Dwight Gooden—From 19-21 they talked about when, not if he’d make the Hall of Fame having obliterated half the pitching records in the book. Warning sign: the 1986 Mets began throwing salves of doubt into the quietly confident kid, telling him, essentially, he couldn’t live on just that exploding fastball and voluptuous curve ball. Forget the drug issues, Gooden by 25 would be damaged once and for all by shoulder issues. The miracle is that he managed to make a sixteen-year career with a .634 winning percentage, but they’ll never stop calling him the greatest might-have-been of them all. His post-baseball life hasn’t been simple, either.
Mike Boddicker—Age 26, after a few cups of coffee and a promising 1983: Led the American League in wins and ERA. The next and last nine seasons of his career: Won more than 15 only once; never again got his ERA under 3.00; never again enjoyed a WHIP under 1.20. Those in the know believed Boddicker was done in by too many innings and too many curve balls, neither of which his body could really withstand.
Generation K—The once-vaunted trio of Met young guns. Jason Isringhausen, Paul Wilson, Bill Pulsipher. Arm and shoulder trouble practically out of the chute. Only Isringhausen would make anything like a long, never mind respectable career, and that when he converted to relief pitching. He ended up with exactly 300 saves for his effort.
Steve Avery—Want one reason why Scott Boras wasn’t in any big hurry to push his client Stephen Strasburg to infinity and beyond in 2012? He’d been there, done that: Avery at 21 went 18-8 and finished sixth in the Cy Young voting helping the worst-to-first Atlanta pennant winners. By 23: 50-36 record, ERA around 3.20, excellent postseason jacket. At 24: Popped an armpit muscle, never again the same, gone swiftly enough.
Kerry Wood—At 21: A 20-K game and a Rookie of the Year award. At 22: Sitting out a season following Tommy John surgery. By 26: Don’t go by the innings pitched, he was piling up crazy pitch counts as often as not and ended up developing triceps and rotator cuff trouble, among other maladies. He’d make fourteen trips to the disabled list and convert to relief pitching before he finally called it a career.
Mark Prior—At 21: mid-season phenom. At 22: 18-game winner, All-Star, third-place Cy Young finisher. At 23: Achilles tendon injury just the first of enough health troubles including two shoulder surgeries that Prior hasn’t thrown a major league pitch since 2005. Latest comeback attempt in the Red Sox organisation ended with his release last week. What got him? Possibly the same thing that helped get Wood—too many 120+ pitch count games too young—plus his pitching mechanics, which may have put excess strain on his shoulders before anyone caught on. Prior finally gave up the ghost at the end of 2013 and went to work in the Padres' front office.
