{"id":1659,"date":"2009-10-04T12:39:51","date_gmt":"2009-10-04T19:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/04\/touring-the-bases-with-ray-sadecki\/"},"modified":"2009-10-04T14:29:37","modified_gmt":"2009-10-04T21:29:37","slug":"touring-the-bases-with-ray-sadecki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/04\/touring-the-bases-with-ray-sadecki\/","title":{"rendered":"Touring the Bases with Ray Sadecki"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ray Sadecki threw 2,500 innings in 18 major league seasons with the Cardinals, Giants, Mets, Royals, Brewers and Braves. He took the time to sit down for a Seamheads.com interview over the phone from his home in Arizona.<\/em><\/p>\n

Who were your baseball heroes growing up?<\/strong>
\nWhen I was growing up, I was born in 1940, we were in Cardinals territory. My early days, baseball was strictly on the radio and I was a Stan Musial fan. The Polish part is coincidental. Major league ball wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the most important thing in the world, though, because it just wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t there, it was a fairy tale. My first major league game was the Browns with my dad.<\/p>\n

Did you feel pressure being signed to a big bonus out of high school?<\/strong>
\nMostly among my peers, I felt pressure. When I was sent out to Class C Northern League [in 1958 in Winnipeg], my concern was how I would be accepted by my peers. I was a 17-year-old joining a team with 24, 25, 26-year-old veteran minor leaguers. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think the press really pushed it, though they mentioned it every game, but luckily I did well so there was no reason to really pick on me.<\/p>\n

Have you ever thought of how your career or life might have been different had you gone to college?<\/strong>
\nYou have to remember, the college programs were zilch in those days. They didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have indoor facilities; you were lucky to start playing baseball before school was about out. Another thing people forget is that freshmen were ineligible to play. It worked out well so I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think about that much. College probably wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as big a deal just in life. We were still post-war people who thought, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hey, go get a job.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

What would your advice be to a young Ray Sadecki?<\/strong>
\nI think the main thing from my era and in my case, they handed me the ball and I went and pitched. The name of pitching is innings, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how you learn, and the name of hitting is at-bats.<\/p>\n

For instance, in my case I played Class C ball, then I went to winter instructional league. I pitched over 200 innings at the age of 17. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a believer in that. I was no specimen with any special body\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwe all did that, all the journeymen and the guys who didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make it.<\/p>\n

For some reason today the guys are stronger and better coached and better fed and with their video rooms, and someone came up with the 100 pitch count. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to get out there and tell the kids to get out there and pitch. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not their fault. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no substitute for innings, innings, innings.<\/p>\n

So you feel that all that work early in your career helped you?<\/strong>
\nAbsolutely, and the main thing is no one was counting pitches or innings. They gave you the ball and you did accordingly. I was an average pitcher\u00e2\u20ac\u201dif I were better I would have thrown more.<\/p>\n

They handed me the ball and it was trial and error. You didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look over your shoulder for a setup man; you were the pitcher until you couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get them out anymore. Now, they put a 50-pitch limit on a 17-year-old\u00e2\u20ac\u201dyou can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hardly get through two innings with that if you throw hard and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re wild.<\/p>\n

In 1962, you got the reputation as somewhat of a malcontent. To what extent did that label stick with you?<\/strong>
\nThey fade away, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s certainly true that I had a clash with management. Maybe I was who I was. I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a bad guy. I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an extra tough guy but I was stubborn. All I ever asked for was the ball.<\/p>\n

It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an interesting thing; you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see this in a lot of walks of life. You can take pitcher A, and I might be him, and you say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How come you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not using me?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And the manager says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Get out of here, I make the lineup.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Now pitcher B comes in and says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hey, how come you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not using me?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And he walks out and the manager says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Boy, I like that pitcher B, he wants to play.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Maybe it was something about my attitude that people didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like, maybe it was my youth, and I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t supposed to chime in as much as a 19 and 20-year-old, but it happens. Certain coaches at all levels in all games always seem to have a whipping boy. Anyway I survived it. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always easy or always fun. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think that anyone has looked at me as a no-good-nik or anything.<\/p>\n

When everything was all said and done, I never spent one day on the DL in 18 years in the big leagues. Yet through all those years I had many coaches question my training habits: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not running enough\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You weigh two pounds too much.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whatever I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m doing works for me. Your guys who run so much are on the DL twice a year.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And there you go again, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ray\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bad guy, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being bullheaded.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Later in your career, especially after being traded to the Mets, you were seen as a mature veteran presence in the clubhouse. What changed?<\/strong>
\nIt may come with maturity. See, that particular deal, of which we had no control in those days, I went from the Giants to the Mets. When I was with the Giants I was the youngest pitcher on their staff, and the next day I was the oldest pitcher on the Mets staff. In Gil Hodges\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 words, and I love the man, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ray, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to do with you. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got the finest young pitchers in baseball.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m 30 years old; he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s addressing me like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m 40 years old. I was in my prime.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest compliments anyone paid me\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsomeone called me a staff saver. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a spot starter, a short reliever, a long reliever if you need him, and if you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need him, you can sit him for two weeks.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

After you had success early in your career, some people suggested you could have a Hall of Fame career. Did that have any effect on you?<\/strong>
\nMy early numbers were outstanding. Not many players, especially in that era, even got an opportunity at age 19. Warren Spahn, the winningest left-handed pitcher of all time, won his first big league game at age 25 or 26. I got an eight-year head start on him. My numbers were as good as Greg Maddux I think for the first few years, right alongside with Bob Gibson.<\/p>\n

I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have that attitude about the game [and getting into the Hall of Fame]; I just loved it. Just give me the ball. I was learning in the big leagues. Naturally you wanted to make a little money, but there wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a lot of money out there.<\/p>\n

I was convinced my stuff was good enough [early in my career], but I was walking too many people. For a period I took a little off my fastball to not walk people, and that was the wrong approach. The coaches said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You just throw the ball and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll learn to corral it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

In 1964 I won 20 ballgames, we won the World Series, and I was offered a $4,000 raise, at a time when I was making $18,000. Do you know how many years you have to have like that to make $40,000? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost like they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want you to succeed when you were young because they couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford you.<\/p>\n

You never even think about it until it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all said and done. I played 20 seasons and never doubting that I would play the next year on a one-year renewable contract. Nowadays they say you need security: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t play because he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have that long-term security.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

What do you remember about your first big-league game (May 13, 1960 against the Pirates<\/a>)?<\/strong>
\nI was going to pitch before that, and I was waiting for that turn on pins and needles, and they changed it and pushed me back. It seemed like ages. I thought [after the game, a loss], \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hey, they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly beat me to death.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I was wild but not \u00c2\u00adwild<\/em> wild\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI was wild in the strike zone.<\/p>\n

And what about starting Game 1 of the World Series in 1964?<\/strong>
\nThe excitement of the World Series was pitching against a team you hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pitched against before. I knew nothing about the Yankees\u00e2\u20ac\u201dno clue. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not saying the scouting reports were good or bad, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just your own knowledge.<\/p>\n

I was having a good year and I had no real fears of any kind. I had the anxiety and excitement of getting going, and I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pitch that well.<\/a><\/p>\n

Of all of the hoopla when we won and beat the Yankees, the thing I remember a lot is that for the whole season, almost to the end, we were not in the pennant race. We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really have a chance to panic or choke. We weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even drawing fans, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when the Phillies fell apart. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite go to the ballpark thinking, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is a big one tonight.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d [The Phillies] only needed to win one game to win it all, really. It was not a true pennant race.<\/p>\n

When you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on a staff with a dominant pitcher like Bob Gibson in St. Louis or Tom Seaver in New York, what effect does it have on the other pitchers?<\/strong>
\nYou\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re watching guys on their way to the Hall of Fame. But you have the feeling, if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re right behind them in the rotation, these hitters are going to take it out on someone. [The ace] might get them 0-4, but then they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 4-8 against the rest of us. You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pitch the way they pitch.<\/p>\n

When I went to New York, Seaver and Ryan were on the staff. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have a meeting about the other team\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hitters, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How we gonna pitch him?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll blow him away with fastballs.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The next guy, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Eh, bust him inside with fastballs,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the next guy, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Give him fastballs.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all well and good for you, but what about the rest of us?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

One day Seaver got roughed up and I mopped up for him. He and I were in the locker room after, and he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You want to walk back to the hotel?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to meet with the press and I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t blame him. He was telling me how lousy his fastball was, his control was lousy, his breaking ball wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worth a damn, and I was just listening, then we got across the bridge and I said to him, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the stuff I take out there every time\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhalf your fastball and half your curveball. You want me to feel sorry for you? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s me at my best.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

They all pitch like that, the good ones. I pitched with several Hall of Famers. As a rule, though, when they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have their good stuff they still beat you. They rarely got a butt kicking. Marichal rarely did, but when he did he went home and went to sleep and came back like it never happened. He knew it wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happen twice.<\/p>\n

In 1968, you developed what you called a slip pitch. What was that, and why did you start throwing it?<\/strong>
\nI never had a real good change of any kind and it just became a different kind of off-speed pitch. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a curveball and it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a fastball. It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do any tricks but it helped me at that time. I kind of mixed that into the middle of things and you could see hitters shaking their heads like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What the hell was that?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Kids these days are a lot more polished with their changeups. Our era didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t throw as many. When I coached I recommended [the slip pitch] to people who didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have anything else. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a poor man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s split-finger. You grip it between forefinger and thumb, just throw it and pull down on it.<\/p>\n

You bounced around a lot in the last few years of your career. What was that like for you?<\/strong>
\nI no sooner got [back to St. Louis] than we picked right back up fussing about money. Here they traded Torre straight up for me, he was making $100,000 and I was making $30,000. That was the first or second year of arbitration so I went to arbitration and it was here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that bad guy Sadecki again, but I went and I won $52,000, and immediately they knew they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want me for $52,000, so I was gone right away.<\/p>\n

In 1977, I still felt like I could make a club. I went to spring training and I made the Mets\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI was cheap help, $25,000.\u00c2\u00a0They had some players on the DL and I knew I was probably the first in line [to go], but I went down there and it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t last long. I said goodbye and I had no gripes. By the time the Mets released me, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even try to find something else. My arm was healthy but I was done.<\/p>\n

Who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a batter who you had a hard time with?<\/strong>
\nJim Hickman,<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0who played with the Reds and the Cubs.\u00c2\u00a0He hit three home runs off me one day<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthree home runs off of three different pitches. He was a hard out for me. I saw him not too long ago.<\/p>\n

Who do you still stay in touch with from your career?<\/strong>
\nI talk with Ernie Broglio some, and Mike McCormick. I used to be pretty close with Dick Dietz [before his death in 2005]. Not as many guys from the Mets. I was kind of a limbo Met\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI came the year after they were the Amazin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Mets, so I kind of didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t belong. All the old-timer games are for the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc69 Mets and I just missed out.<\/p>\n

What did you do after retiring in 1977?<\/strong>
\nWhile I was still playing baseball, I was offered a job to stay in the game. I had two young kids, 7 and 11, and immediately I knew I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to go travel anymore if I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to. Then it was really easy to make when I learned the job only paid $5,000. I went home. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been 20 years at it, I was happy from that end, to come home.<\/p>\n

Luckily, I found a sales job with an office products company, and made more than I made playing in the big leagues. I had no education but I had no problem selling something. I dabbled in sales from 1977 to 1990, raised the kids [his son,\u00c2\u00a0Steve<\/a>, pitched for Vanderbilt and in the Rangers’ farm system].<\/p>\n

They were both in college and I was going through a divorce [in 1990] when a couple of my buddies got beered up one night and called me and said I should get back in the game. They said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not great, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s better than it used to be.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Okay, tell me some more. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have an excuse now, my kids are in college and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going through a divorce.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

So, long story short, I took a job coaching with the Cubs from 1990 to 1993, then in 1994 I went and coached for the Giants [as a roving instructor]. I really enjoyed working with the kids. I was a little hardheaded; I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t agree with a lot going on. I entered the game not like I left the game\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnow we were into weightlifting, strength and conditioning, arthroscopic surgery, 50-pitch limits. I had trouble adjusting, and I spoke out.<\/p>\n

I lost that job in 1994\u00e2\u20ac\u201dit was the strike year and they very respectfully said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know if there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be baseball next year, so we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to cut back.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rough getting out there riding them buses again and banging around. I enjoyed working with the kids but I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like the game as a fan today.<\/p>\n

You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have many ex-major league people coaching anymore. You can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford to pay them and they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to go ride the bus, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t blame them. Player development isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite what it used to be because you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not getting the ex-big leaguers involved. A George Brett isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to show these kids how to hit; a Randy Johnson isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to go teach in the minor leagues. Even if they do, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in the big leagues, and I question that. Baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s missing out on that.<\/p>\n

I know baseball is being run by computers and Harvard executives, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tough. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tough to sit in the meeting when the computer is going to argue with me. They say you need a radar gun; I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need a radar gun to know if this pitcher is good enough. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need a stopwatch to know if he can run. I hope I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sounding like an old fart croaking here. Things change, I understand that. But every now and then someone slides and gets his pants dirty and they say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, he plays like the old days\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbecause the other guys play without getting their pants dirty.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Mr. Sadecki for his time, and to baseball-reference.com for stats.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ray Sadecki threw 2,500 innings in 18 major league seasons with the Cardinals, Giants, Mets, Royals, Brewers and Braves. He took the time to sit down for a Seamheads.com interview over the phone from his home in Arizona.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-touring-the-bases-with"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}