This Week in Baseball: 1972

This week’s article chronicles the goings on during the week of April 29-May 5, 1972.

April 29:

• R.O. Gau writes a letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times:

“The baseball players’ strike is history. However, many fans are and will continue to be disturbed about the greediness and selfishness displayed by the players. I love the game. I will attend many, many games. I support the owners, and the owners must have good attendance to stay in business. As a permanent personal protest against the actions of the players, I will never again purchase any products endorsed by an active major league baseball player. I hope many fans adopt this form of protest. The day will come when the players will have to discontinue approaching management with their hand out, snarling ‘gimme, gimme, gimme.'”

The players agreed to strike on March 31 when the collective bargaining agreement expired. The players wanted the owners to boost their annual contributions to the players’ pension fund by 17 percent, bringing the total to $6.5 million per annum. In essence, the players were asking for only $2,092 a year in pension if they started drawing on their pension at forty-five and $7,416 at age 65. But the owners balked. Cardinals owner Gussie Busch summed up their sentiments when he raged at reporters, “We voted unanimously to take a stand. We’re not going to give them another goddamn cent. If they want to strike, let ’em.”

Had Busch kept his mouth shut, the players most likely would have folded like a house of cards. In fact, Marvin Miller, executive director of the Players Association, had already drawn up a resolution that would keep the players from striking while a new collective bargaining agreement was negotiated during the ’72 season. The players were so fired up by Busch’s statements, however, that they rejected Miller’s proposal and voted to go on strike (Dodgers first baseman Wes Parker was the only player rep to vote against a strike; he had just purchased a new house and needed to be paid or risk losing his home).

Eventually the sides compromised—the pension plan had accrued an $800,000 surplus to be used in reserve and Miller suggested that the owners add it back into the fund instead of reserving it. The owners agreed to use $500,000 of the $800,000 to increase their contributions. They refused to reschedule the missed games, however, nor would they pay the players for games missed. The owners’ decision to not reschedule the missed games killed the Red Sox. They finished only a half-game behind the first-place Tigers, who played one more game than Boston. Four of the 10 players who voted against the strike played for the Red Sox, including Carl Yastrzemski, but they were outnumbered 6-to-1 and lost a chance at a pennant because of it.

• White Sox knuckleballer Wilbur Wood sees his scoreless innings streak snapped at 27 and suffers his first defeat of the season when he falls to the Tigers, 6-1. Wood enters the game having thrown three straight complete game shutouts and owns a 0.25 ERA, but Detroit scores in the first, then rides homers by Mickey Stanley, Bill Freehand and Willie Horton to the win. Mickey Lolich strikes out nine and improves to 3-1 on the year.

• Yankees hurler Fritz Peterson falls to 0-3 after losing to the Twins, 2-0. Harmon Killebrew knocks in both Minnesota runs with a first inning triple, then both teams put nothing but goose eggs on the scoreboard for the next 17 half innings. Jim Kaat throws six shutout innings in his first start of the season and Dave LaRocke closes out the win with three hitless innings to earn his third save.

Peterson went 17-15 with a 3.24 ERA in 1972 and led the team in wins, which is pretty amazing considering his unlucky start. He lost his first six starts, despite allowing three runs or less in every one of them (by today’s standards, four of them would have been considered Quality Starts). His ERA after those starts was 3.86, which wasn’t great (the league average was 2.95), but wasn’t horrible either. Needless to say, he overcame his poor luck and went 17-9 the rest of the way with a 3.13 earned run average.

• Texas scores three runs in the eighth and another in the ninth to beat Boston, 7-6, at Arlington Stadium in a game that features six lead changes. Frank Howard belts his 362nd career home run to pass Joe DiMaggio for 20th place on the all-time list. Shortstop Luis Aparicio commits two more errors, giving him seven in Boston’s first 10 games.

Aparacio eventually settled down and committed only nine more errors all season. Still, his .968 fielding percentage was his worst since he fielded at a .957 clip in 1967. Frank Howard ended his career with 382 home runs and currently ranks 53rd (tied with Jim Rice) on the all-time list. Had he retired immediately after hitting his 362nd, he’d rank 69th.

• Milt Pappas pitches well for the Cubs but suffers a hard-luck defeat at the hands of the Reds when Cincinnati plates two in the top of the ninth to earn a 3-2 victory. The rally starts with, of all things, a bunt single by catcher Johnny Bench, who catches Cubs third baseman Ron Santo napping, but it’s an error by Don Kessinger that proves to be fatal. Pappas allows only one earned run in eight innings, but falls to 1-2 with the loss.

• Astros hurler Ken Forsch tosses 10 innings in a 4-2, 11-inning loss to the Cardinals and falls to 1-1 on the year. Al Santorini throws 3 2/3 scoreless innings to earn the win in relief of Scipio Spinks. Jimmy Wynn hits his fourth home run of the season, putting him in a five-way tie for second place behind Dave Kingman, who has six.

Forsch obviously suffered from the extra workload as his next start lasted only three innings. Incredibly, he tossed 11 innings in his next start and surrendered only one run in a game the Astros eventually lost to Pittsburgh 6-1 in 12 innings. The year before, Forsch threw the first 13 innings of a 21-inning affair the Astros finally won 2-1. Padres hurler Clay Kirby went 15 innings and fanned 15, but got a no-decision.

April 30:

• Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley engage in a war of words regarding Kuhn’s insistence that Finley keep his $63,000 contract offer to holdout pitcher Vida Blue on the table. “I am ruling that the offer that has been made will remain in effect,” Kuhn states. “We will have a deal if Vida is willing to accept.” To which Finley responds “I may and I may not keep it open. Should I decide not to keep it open, no one, including Bowie Kuhn, Can or will force me to do so.”

Blue eventually signed the deal, then went out and had one of his worst seasons, going only 6-10 with a 2.80 ERA that was only five points lower than league average (his 1971 ERA was more than a run and half better than average). Blue rebounded and won 91 games for the A’s from 1973 to 1977, averaging 18 wins a year, before being traded to the Giants prior to the 1978 season.

The incident between Kuhn and Finley wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last. In 1970 Finley tried to demote young slugger Reggie Jackson to the minors after he got off to a slow start following a bitter contract dispute, but Kuhn intervened and blocked the move, ruling it was “motivated by personal reasons unrelated to Jackson’s ability.”

Then in 1976, Finley tried to sell closer Rollie Fingers and outfielder Joe Rudi to the Red Sox for $2 million, but Kuhn blocked that move as well, invoking the “not in the best interests of baseball” clause that had been reinstated to the Major League Agreement in 1964. Kuhn felt the transaction would upset the American League’s competitive balance and would put a concrete value on players that would be used by others to gauge their own worth during free agent negotiations. In 1977, Kuhn blocked similar moves by Finley that would have sent Blue to the Yankees for $1.5 million, or to the Reds for Dave Revering and $1.75 million. Finley finally traded Blue to the Giants for seven players and $390,000.

• Cleveland scores two runs in the top of the 16th inning to beat Kansas City, 5-3, in the first game of a doubleheader. The Royals tie the game at 3-3 with a run in the bottom of the ninth and could have won it, but right fielder Buddy Bell throws Cookie Rojas out at the plate, then the Indians escape a bases loaded jam to send the game into extra innings. Ray Lamb, Cleveland’s fifth pitcher of the game, throws six scoreless innings for the victory.

Prior to becoming one of baseball’s better third baseman, Bell split his time between right and center field and he was pretty damn good, fielding at a .990 clip with 10 assists in 123 games. After spending his rookie year in the outfield, he was moved to third base when the team traded Graig Nettles to the Yankees.

• Milwaukee’s Ken Brett pitches seven hitless innings before being touched for two hits in the eighth and wins his first game of the year. Brett also helps himself out at the plate by going 2-for-3 with a double, a run, and an RBI. Denny McLain takes the loss for Oakland and falls to 1-2.

Brett was one of baseball’s best hitting pitchers—no surprise considering he was George Brett’s older brother. He batted only .227 in 1972, but batted .250 and .310 and slugged .463 and .448 in 1973 and ’74, respectively. He retired with 10 home runs and a career slugging percentage of .406.

• Cardinals ace Bob Gibson is shelled for six runs on five hits and four walks in only 2 2/3 innings and falls to 0-3 when the Astros defeat the Cards, 7-6. The Astros rap out 11 hits, six of which are doubles, and walk 10 times against five St. Louis hurlers, but are forced to stave off a St. Louis ninth-inning rally for the win.

To that point in his 17-year career, it was only the sixth time Gibson didn’t pitch at least three innings in a game that he started, and it was the first time he didn’t go at least three innings since June 29, 1967. After he lost to the Astros, Gibson’s ERA jumped almost two full runs from 3.60 to 5.56. But he posted a 2.19 ERA over his next 255 1/3 innings to finish the season at 2.46 and won 19 of his last 27 decisions to finish at 19-11.

• Dodgers hurler Don Sutton scatters seven hits over nine innings and beats the Mets, 7-0, to run his record to 4-0 on the year and lower his ERA to 0.55.

Sutton’s next start was a doozy. He and Montreal’s Carl Morton locked horns in a pitcher’s duel that saw both hurlers throw 10 innings of shutout ball before both were removed for relievers. Sutton allowed only one hit, a lead-off single to Bob Bailey in the seventh, in his 10 innings of work. Then Jim Brewer threw two more hitless innings at the Expos before they finally broke through in the 13th inning against Pete Richert, who surrendered two hits and a walk, then committed an error that brought home the winning run. Sutton finished the ’72 season with a career best 2.08 ERA and led the National League with nine shutouts.

May 1:

• Ed Rumill reports in the Christian Science Monitor that Texas Rangers manager and baseball legend Ted Williams was more optimistic in spring than he’d ever been. “This is the best pitching I’ve had,” Williams insists. “Most of these men can throw hard, and when you’ve got the fast ball, you’re on your way. With just a little more experience—with just a few rough edges knocked off—they could keep us in every game.”

Rumill reported that Williams was especially impressed with 22-year-old hurler Pete Broberg, especially after Broberg tossed a 5-0 shutout against the Angels on April 22. In fact, Broberg faced the Angels in both of his first two starts and beat them both times, allowing only one run in 17 innings. Broberg was initially drafted out of high school by the A’s, who took him with the second pick of the 1968 draft, but the high school phenom chose to attend Dartmouth instead. He helped lead Dartmouth to the New England Baseball championship in 1970, posted a 1.89 ERA in two varsity seasons, and once fanned 20 batters in a game (vs. Boston College). He was the first pick of the secondary phase of the draft (reserved for players previously drafted who had not signed a major league contract) in 1971, going ahead of pitchers Burt Hooton and Steve Rogers.

Broberg received a $150,000 bonus from the Senators (they would become the Texas Rangers a year later). Williams fell in love with his newest ace right away, comparing him to Tom Seaver before he’d even thrown his first big league pitch. “He can throw like hell,” Williams gushed after watching Broberg’s first workout with the team. Broberg made his debut against Boston eight days later on June 20, 1971, and tossed 6 1/3 innings of three-hit, two-run ball in a no-decision. He went 5-9 the rest of the way with a solid 3.47 ERA.

Then he began the ’72 season with two straight fantastic games and was 2-0 with a 0.53 ERA on April 22. He pitched poorly against the Red Sox on April 28 in a no-decision and was 2-0 with a 2.45 ERA when Rumill’s story came out. But slowly the wheels began to come off. Broberg pitched well in May (2.92 ERA) but lost three of four decisions to fall to 3-3. From that point on, however, he got pounded and was eventually sent to the bullpen. He lost nine of his last 11 decisions to finish the season at 5-12 with a 4.29 ERA.

The rest of his career followed the same path as control problems began to dog him. In fact, his control got so bad that in 1976 he walked 72 batters in 92 1/3 innings and struck out only 28. In 1975 he walked 106 batters, plunked another 16 and threw 10 wild pitches.

In his eight-year career he never finished a season at or above .500 and never posted an ERA at or better than league average. He retired after the 1978 season with a 41-71 career record and an ERA of 4.56.

Oh yeah, despite Williams’ insistence that the Rangers staff of 1972 was the best he’d ever had, they finished last in the American League in ERA (3.53), runs allowed (628), runs allowed per game (4.08), walks per game (4.0), complete games (11), and shutouts (6). Not only was it not the best staff he’d ever managed, but it was the worst and it’s not even close.

• Red Sox utility infielder John Kennedy hits Boston’s first home run of the season in an exhibition game against the Naval Academy that Boston wins 14-2. Of course the home run doesn’t count, so the team needs to wait four more days for its first official home run of the season, which finally comes when Rico Petrocelli homers against Minnesota’s Jim Kaat in the sixth inning of the Red Sox’s 12th game of the year.

Despite their early season power outage, the Red Sox led the league in slugging (.376), runs scored (640) and runs per game (4.13) and fell only 10 homers behind the Oakland A’s, who paced the league with 134. Kennedy hit only two official home runs all year and hit only 32 in 12 major league seasons.

• Bob Addie reports in the Washington Post that Red Sox slugger Carl Yastrzemski “has just started to hit and thinks his timing is coming back.”

Yaz hit .146/.250/.146 with no extra base hits and only three RBIs in 11 April games, then hit .214/.313/.214 in four May games before straining ligaments on the inside of his right knee on May 9. He missed a month, then came back on June 9 and began to hit like a three-time batting champion, going .394/.471/.535 in 71 at-bats. But he still hadn’t homered. He slumped again in July and August—.224 with four homers and 24 RBIs in 209 at-bats—before enjoying an excellent September—.306/8/24. He finished at .264/12/68 with an OPS+ of 118. It was the fewest homers he’d hit since his rookie season in 1961 and the fewest runs he’d knocked in since 1963.

Despite his early season slump and un-Yaz-like season, Yastrzemski’s absence in May probably cost the Sox the AL East division title. Phil Gagliano, Rick Miller and Ben Oglivie played left field while Yaz was hurt and they were terrible, batting .184 and slugging only .306. They scored only six runs and drove in only nine in 26 games, and “boasted” an EYE (BB/K) of .21. Even at his worst, Yaz’s EYE was 1.52 and it dipped below 1.00 only once all season when it started at .80 in April. After April it was 1.62. Yaz may not have been hitting the ball the way he typically did, but he was still getting on base and I have to think he would have scored enough runs by himself to make up a half-game in the standings.

• Roberto Clemente goes 3-for-5 with a double, a homer, two runs and three RBIs, and the Pirates rack up 16 hits as a team, but still lose to the Astros, 9-8. Despite hitting third in all but one game, it’s the first time in 13 games that Roberto Clemente drives in any runs. By contrast, Houston’s Jimmy Wynn plates four more runners to give him 16 runs batted in on the year.

From that point forward, though, Clemente was a better run producer than Wynn. In his next (and last) 89 games , Clemente drove in 57 runs for an average of .64 RBIs per game. Wynn, on the other hand, cooled off considerably and drove in only 74 more runs in 130 games for an average of .57 ribbies per contest.

May 2:

• The Chicago Tribune reports that the Terry Forster “experiment” is working exactly as planned and that the White Sox’s decision to allow the 19-year-old to learn his craft at the major league level under the tutelage of pitching coach Johnny Sain instead of in the minors is paying off. “Last year at this time I only had two pitches—a fast ball and curve—and I used a big windup,” Foster recalls. “Now I have two fast balls, two curves, two sliders, and a changeup and I pitch with a no-windup delivery because it gives me better control and makes my fast ball more alive. Johnny Sain taught me all that.”

According to Forster, Sain also taught him how to make a fastball sink and how to throw his curve ball with both an overhand and three-quarter sidearm motion. Sain was one of the best pitching coaches in baseball history and Jim Bouton once called him the “greatest pitching coach who ever lived.” Forster responded to Sain’s tutelage by posting a 2.25 ERA in 100 innings and saving 29 games for the White Sox in 1972. Despite pitching for 16 years in the majors, Forster would never again save as many as 29 in a season, but he did lead the league with 24 in 1974 and was named the A.L.’s Fireman of the Year. Forster finished his career with 127 career saves and an ERA of 3.23 (115 ERA+).

• Former major league pitcher and author Jim Bouton is released by the Pittsfield Rangers of the Eastern League because there’s no room for a 33-year-old pitcher on a roster composed of “promising young hurlers.”

Bouton, who is more famous now for authoring the groundbreaking book “Ball Four” than for his pitching career, eventually worked his way back to the major leagues. He played for the Portland Mavericks of the Class A short season Northwest League in 1975, for Portland and Knoxville of the Double-A Southern League in 1977, and for Savannah of the Southern League in 1978 before being called up by the Atlanta Braves. By then Bouton was 39 years old and a knuckleballer, which helps explain his K/BB ratio of 0.48 (he walked 21 and fanned only 10). He went 1-3 in five starts with a 4.97 ERA before retiring from the majors for good.

One thing I found interesting, though, was that the pitchers on Pittsfield’s staff in 1972, while “young and promising,” ended up having very little major league success. It certainly made sense that the team would refuse to create a roster spot for a 33-year-old seemingly washed up former All-Star at the expense of a 20-something-year-old kid with a future ahead of him, but only one of Pittsfield’s pitchers, Rick Waits, was worth a damn in the majors and even that’s debatable.

The youngest pitcher on the team was 19-year-old Michael Steen; the oldest was 29-year-old Paul Campbell. Neither ever made it to the majors. The average age of the rest of the staff was 23.1 years old, 10 years younger than Bouton. Only three of Pittsfield’s pitchers made it to the bigs—Waits, Charlie Walters, and Jim Kremmel. Walters made six appearances for the Minnesota Twins in 1969 and posted a 5.40 ERA in 6 2/3 innings before being sent back to the minors where he spent the rest of his career. Kremmel appeared in four games for the Texas Rangers in 1973 (9.00 ERA in 9 innings) and 23 games for the Cubs in 1974 (5.23 ERA in 31 innings) before washing out of the majors. Waits spent 12 years in the majors and went 79-92 with a 4.25 ERA in 1427 innings.

• In an article titled “Kingman Just Loves New Candlestick Stands,” the Chicago Tribune claims that a second deck of grandstands added to the outfield stands at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park late in 1971 has helped Giants slugger Dave Kingman’s home run total in ’72. “‘I don’t believe those two balls would have been out last season against the wind,’ Kingman said after hitting a pair of homers one day against the Phillies.”

When the article came out, Kingman led the majors with six home runs. Five of those were hit at Candlestick and came in a five-game span from April 23-April 28. He finished the season with 29 homers and 17 came at the Stick in 215 at-bats (12.65 AB/HR), while 12 came on the road in 257 at-bats (21.42 AB/HR). In 1973, the trend reversed itself and Kingman was more prolific on the road (10.07 AB/HR) than he was at home (16.4 AB/HR). In 1974, he hit twice as many homers (12) at the Stick than away from it (6) in almost the same number of at-bats. Those three seasons were the only three he played for the Giants after the new grandstands were erected.

In those three seasons, Kingman was clearly better at Candlestick Park (one homer every 14.3 AB) than he was on the road (one homer every 17.8 AB), but I’m not convinced it had much to do with the new grandstands. While it’s true that Candlestick’s HR factor for right-handed sluggers went from 92 in 1971 to 117 in 1972, it’s also true that it had been 100 and 116 in 1970 and 1969, respectively, and was 109 from 1961 to 1966. Only three times (1967, ’68, and ’71) did it dip below 100. In fact, it looks like Kingman helped Candlestick more than Candlestick helped Kingman. The RH HR factor for the park during Kingman’s stay in San Francisco was 117. After he left, it hovered in the mid-60s during most of the next decade.

May 3:

• The Chicago Tribune reports that Joe Pepitone’s retirement is a complete surprise to the Cubs. “There’s not much you can do when a man tells you he’s disinterested in baseball,” Leo Durocher tells reporters. Ernie Banks, who became a full-time coach after the 1971 season, is seen toting a first baseman’s glove around, but the team denies rumors that he’ll be activated to take Pepitone’s spot on the roster.

Pepitone was a talented school boy player who hit 219 homers in 12 major league seasons, mostly with the Yankees, and was a three-time All-Star and Gold Glove Award winner, but was still considered a disappointment by those who expected him to be a superstar. From 1963 to 1970, he hit at least 26 homers five times, topping out at 31 in 1966, but he drove in 100 runs only once (1964) and never scored 100. He also rarely hit better than .250. In 1969 the Yankees traded him to the Astros, who sold him to the Cubs in July 1970. In 1971, he hit a career high .307, but with “only” 16 home runs, and by 1972 he had been demoted to part-time status, allegedly due to his drop off in power.

If that’s true, that would explain why the Cubs are the Cubs. Pepitone’s .482 slugging percentage in ’71 was no different than his 1970 mark and was the best of his career. So he was coming off back-to-back career best seasons (in terms of SLG) as well as a career high in OPS+ (122) and the Cubs reduced his playing time? It is true that Pepitone began the ’72 season in a 3-for-25 slump and it’s also true that 35-year-old Jim Hickman did a very good job at first base for the Cubs that year. It’s also true that Pepitone was a party animal who liked to stay out all night, so it’s not a stretch to think he simply wore out his welcome after only a season and a half.

About a month after announcing his retirement, Pepitone had a change of heart and returned to the Cubs. He appeared in the lineup on June 30 and split time with Hickman at first base the rest of the way and batted .262 with eight homers and 21 RBIs in 66 games. He came back in 1973, played in 31 games for the Cubs, was traded to Atlanta on May 19, and went 4-for-11 with the Braves before being released a month later. After a brief stint in Japan, Pepitone called it a career.

My favorite Joe Pepitone story comes from the book, “Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud” by Pepitone and Berry Stainback. When Pepitone joined the Yankees in 1962, his path to stardom was blocked by incumbent first baseman Moose Skowron, who’d been with the team since 1954. Pepitone was friendly with a group of mobsters who wanted to do what they could to help him, so they threatened to break Skowron’s legs so Joe would get more playing time. Pepitone rejected the offer and waited patiently for Skowron to be traded, which he was on November 26, 1962.

• Twins outfielder Bobby Darwin belts a three-run homer and drives in four of Minnesota’s seven runs and Bert Blyleven allows only four hits and strikes out 10 in the Twins’ 7-0 win over the Brewers. At day’s end, Darwin is leading the AL in hitting (.432), OBA (.500), slugging (.864), homers (6), and RBIs (19). Blyleven runs his record to 4-0 and is tied atop the leader boards in wins with Detroit’s Mickey Lolich.

Darwin began his career as a pitcher and came up to the bigs in 1962 with the Los Angeles Angels when he was just 19 years old. He started one game and lasted only 3 1/3 innings, allowing four earned runs on eight hits and four walks, and struck out six. He spent the next six seasons in the minors and had a great 1968 season with Elmira of the Double-A Eastern League (10-6, 2.21 ERA) before he was drafted by the Dodgers in the Rule 5 draft. The Dodgers called him up in 1969 and he appeared in three games for them, posting a 9.82 ERA in 3 2/3 innings. The Dodgers decided to convert Darwin to an outfielder and he responded by hitting .297 with 23 homers for Bakersfield in 1970, then batted .293 with 17 homers for Spokane in 1971.

The Dodgers traded Darwin to the Twins after the 1971 season, and Darwin was penciled into Minnesota’s starting lineup in 1972. He enjoyed his best season in ’72 (.267/22/80 with a 123 OPS+) and was good in ’74 (264/25/94, 115 OPS+), but didn’t do much otherwise.

The Hartford Courant’s Bill Lee wrote a glowing piece about Darwin on May 2, calling him one of Minnesota’s “stickout [sic] young hopefuls” and the “stickwork [sic] sensation of early 1972.” At 29, Darwin was hardly young. Unfortunately he couldn’t keep his momentum going and he batted .252 with 16 homers and only 40 RBIs from May through October. His biggest problem appears to be his EYE (BB/K), which went from .75 in April to .23 the rest of the way. In fact that would remain a problem for the remainder of his career, as he fanned once every 3.85 at-bats and finished with a career EYE of .28.

• The Los Angeles Times reports that Marvin Miller is “studying the Angels’ release of Billy Cowan and the high casualty rate among the player representatives. He believes he has a prima facie case of discrimination by the owners, of an attempt by them to undermine the players’ elected representatives.”

Frankly, I don’t know if anything ever came of this, but, on the surface, Miller may have had a case. Cowan was by no means a great player, but he was versatile—during his eight years in the majors he played every position but pitcher and catcher—he enjoyed his best seasons with the Angels, posting OPS+ of 152, 124, and 102 in parts of three seasons, and he batted well against lefties, hitting .293 and slugging .455 against southpaws from 1969 to 1971. He pinch hit three times in the Angels’ first eight games, went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts and was released.

The Angels called up 30-year-old, seven-year veteran right-handed hitter Andy Kosco from Salt Lake City, where he was hitting .239 with four homers and 11 RBIs. Kosco was also somewhat versatile, having played all three outfield positions, as well as first and third base, and he was three years younger than Cowan, but he wasn’t much better. He hit .239 with six homers and 13 RBIs in 49 games before being traded to Boston on August 15. Kosco was actually a better hitter against righties in ’72 than he was against southpaws and that may be why the team replaced Cowan with Kosco. The Angels’ right-handed hitters batted only .230/.282/.318 against right-handed pitching in ’72, while their righties were much better against lefties, batting .262/.311/.378. It’s possible they just needed a a player with a reverse platoon split to shore up their lineup against right-handed pitching and the fact that Cowan was a player rep made him more expendable than the others.

May 4:

• The Hartford Courant reports that Reds ace Don Gullet was sent home for a medical checkup because he’s feeling “under the weather,” but, despite manager Sparky Anderson’s claim that it’s nothing major, the team is concerned with Gullet’s performance after he goes 0-2 with an 11.40 ERA in his first four starts and fails to throw more than five innings. “He doesn’t have a sore arm or anything,” Anderson claims, “but he’s throwing about half as hard as he did in ’71.”

Gullet, as it turned out, had hepatitis. He battled the illness for most of the season and finished 9-10 with a 3.94 ERA. It was easily his worst season as a pro, and was the only time in nine years that he lost more than he’d won. Though Anderson might have been correct about the health of Gullet’s arm in 1972, it became sore not long after and ended his career prematurely in 1978 when the southpaw was only 27 years old.One interesting note, though, is that Anderson insisted that Gullet was throwing “half as hard” in 1972 as he had in 1971, yet his strikeouts refute that. In 1970, Gullet worked out of the bullpen and fanned 8.8 batters per 9 innings in 44 appearances. In 1971, he moved into the rotation and struck out only 4.4 batters per 9 IP. In 1972, his K/9 IP improved to 6.4. I wasn’t there and Sparky Anderson was, but it’s hard to believe that Gullet improved his K/9 IP by 45% despite throwing half as hard.

• Milt Pappas evens his record at 2-2 with a six hit shutout over the Atlanta Braves in an 8-0 Cubs win played in front of only 7,631 fans at Wrigley Field. Chicago’s Jim Hickman goes 3-for-4 and Rick Monday and Jose Cardenal both go 2-for-3 with two runs and two RBIs. Future Hall of Famers Orlando Cepeda and Hank Aaron account for four of the Braves’ six hits (all singles).

• The Reds break a 4-4 tie with the Cardinals when they plate five runs in the top of the eighth en route to a 9-5 victory. St. Louis outhits Cincinnati 12 to 10, but the Reds earn seven walks and a hit batter off three Cardinals pitchers and five of those runners eventually score. Pete Rose is the main culprit as he walks three times in five trips to the plate and scores all three times he reaches base.

• After ending his holdout and signing a new contract, A’s pitcher Vida Blue admits to reporters, “I’ll be lucky to win 10 games this year.”

Blue proved to be prescient, but not quite as lucky as he predicted. He went 6-10 in 1972 and threw only 151 innings after tossing 312 in 1971. He rebounded in 1973, however, and went 20-9.

May 5:

• Two days after settling on a $63,000 contract with the A’s, Vida Blue tells Ron Bergman of the Oakland Tribune, “Charlie Finley has soured my stomach for baseball. He treated me like a damn colored boy.”

That’s a pretty strong statement from a player who was making only $14,750 the year before. Blue initially demanded $115,000. Finley countered with an offer of $50,000. Blue lowered his demand to $92,000, and the sides eventually agreed on $63,000. Finley was a cheap-ass son of a bitch, but Blue had only one full year of big league service under his belt, albeit a spectacular full year, and should have been happy with a salary that was more than four times what he made in ’71.

By the way, if you ever want to win money from your friends, bet them that they can’t name the last switch hitter to win the American League MVP Award. Most will probably guess Mickey Mantle (1962), but the answer is Vida Blue, who won the award in 1971. Blue couldn’t hit worth a damn (.118 in 1971 and .104 for his career), but there was no DH in 1971 and Blue amassed a career high 102 at-bats that year.

• Los Angeles Dodgers ace Don Sutton is named National League player of the Month after he goes 4-0 with a 0.55 ERA in April. Cincinnati’s Bobby Tolan (.423 AVG) finishes second. Cubs pitcher Burt Hooton (2-2, 3.19), Astros outfielder Jimmy Wynn (.358/4/12), Mets pitcher Tom Seaver (3-0, 0.38), and Braves outfielder Rico Carty (.438 AVG) also received votes.

• The Kansas City Royals trade slugging outfielder/first baseman Bob Oliver to the California Angels for relief pitcher Tom Murphy.

The Royals got hosed in this deal, although I can see why they made the trade. Oliver led the Royals in home runs (27) and RBIs (99) in 1970, but landed in a platoon with Gail Hopkins in 1971 when he got off to a slow start. He belted only eight homers and drove in 52 runs in 128 games and complained openly about his lack of playing time. When the Royals acquired first baseman John Mayberry from the Astros in December 1971, Oliver was effectively out of a job. Murphy was brilliant as a rookie in 1968 (2.17 ERA in 99 1/3 innings), but went 32-46 with a 4.07 ERA from 1969-1971 and boasted a 5.40 mark through his first six games of ’72.

Oliver enjoyed two good seasons with the Angels (19 HR, 70 RBI, 126 OPS+ in 1972 and 18 HR, 89 RBI, 110 OPS+ in 1973), but was out of the majors by mid-July 1975. Murphy pitched well for the Royals (4-4, 3.07 ERA in 70 1/3 innings) in ’72, but was dealt to the Cardinals in 1973 for Al Santorini, who not only failed to pitch for the Royals that year, but never pitched in the majors again.

• Nolan Ryan walks five batters for the third time in four starts, but allows only three hits and fans 14 in a 3-0 win over the Brewers to even his record at 2-2. He also goes 1-for-2 with a walk to help his own cause.

• White Sox hurler Wilbur Wood gets two runs of support in the first inning, then holds the Indians to one unearned run on five singles in Chicago’s 2-1 win. Wood runs his record to 4-1 while Dick Tidrow takes the loss to srop to 1-2.

• The Phillies beat Juan Marichal and the Giants, 3-2, when they plate a run in the bottom of the ninth courtesy of a Mike Anderson double that follows a Don Money single. Marichal drops to 1-4 with the loss. Bill Champion improves to 3-0.

1972 was Juan Marichal’s worst year as a regular starter (at least in terms of wins and losses). He went 6-16, but posted a solid 3.71 ERA (95 ERA+) in 165 innings. Most of the problem was poor run support—the Giants scored only 3.3 runs on average in Marichal’s starts after scoring more than five a game in his previous two seasons. And by the time the ’72 season rolled around, Marichal was no longer the power pitcher he was in the 60s, so he couldn’t help himself out by way of the strikeout. As it turned out, Marichal was on his last legs and would win only 16 more games after ’72.

Champion’s run support was even worse (3.00 R/G), but he was no Juan Marichal and it showed as the season progressed. After winning his third game of the season, putting him only one victory behind three future Hall of Famers (Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver, and Don Sutton) and Houston’s Jim Ray, Champion’s season went to hell in one big, bad, ugly hurry. On May 5, he stood at 3-0 with a 2.43 ERA in 29 2/3 innings. From that point on, he went 1-14 with a 5.85 ERA and lost 11 straight decisions to end the season. He lost his first three decisions in 1973 while pitching for the Brewers, mostly in relief, before he finally won another game on June 12. He had two decent seasons in ’73 and ’74, splitting his time between the bullpen and the rotation, but was terrible in ’75 and ’76 and was released by Milwaukee after only 10 games of the latter.