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Bar Chat

06/30/2011

Frank McCourt...a-hole

Baseball Quiz: 1) Bert Blyleven holds the major league record for giving up 50 home runs in a season, 1986, while with Minnesota. Who holds the N.L. mark at 48? [Hint: Did it in 2000 while going 7-16.] 2) Roger Clemens holds the A.L. record for most seasons with 200 or more strikeouts at 11. Who holds the N.L. mark at 10? 3) Who is the only pitcher to strikeout 10 consecutive batters in a game? 4) In 1959, relief pitcher Roy Face went 18-1 for the Pirates, the most wins by a reliever in major league history. Name the two who won 17 in relief in the American League. Both post-1970. Answers below.

Dodger Blues

The Los Angeles Dodgers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday in Delaware, bringing the whole messy issue of ownership to a head with current owner Frank McCourt on the brink of losing his team. Major League Baseball forced the issue by scuttling a 17-year TV-rights deal, which McCourt valued at $3 billion, after it was clear he was going to get a huge upfront sum from Fox Sports that he’d be using largely for personal reasons, including his divorce settlement with Jamie.

McCourt’s immediate need is to meet June 30 payroll, including deferred salary obligations, and his filing says he secured a $150 million loan from an affiliate of JPMorgan Chase. But the loan didn’t come cheap. 10% interest plus a $4.5 million fee.

And then on Tuesday, the Bankruptcy Court granted McCourt use of $60 million to pay his immediate bills, “but only after a requirement to auction the team’s cable television rights within 180 days ws removed from McCourt’s loan agreement.

“The court set a July 20 hearing to decide whether McCourt can access the rest of a $150-million loan or whether the Dodgers should be funded during bankruptcy proceedings by Major League Baseball.” [Bill Shaikin and Michael Oneal / L.A. Times]

The mutual distrust between the two sides is palpable, but for now, MLB is pulling back to allow the process to play out a bit more before moving in for the kill and stripping McCourt of all rights of ownership.

“The Dodgers are not broke. Do not believe the message coming from Monday’s legal maneuverings. Do not get sucked into the horror of the word ‘bankruptcy,’ or the doom associated with their owner declaring it.

“The Dodgers are not broke. It is Frank McCourt who is broke. His schemes are broke. His understanding of this franchise is broke. His ties to Los Angeles are broke….

“The Dodgers pulse too deeply through a city’s soul to ever be broke.

“The Dodgers are rich. They are wildly, unimaginably rich. On yet another dark day in this darkest of blue summers, I prefer to remember why.

“I bumped into him in the press box the other day, and I literally mean bumped. He was rushing to get back to his booth. He couldn’t wait to get to work. The game didn’t start for an hour. If Frank McCourt can’t pay Scully, I will, and I’m guessing I can find about 3 million people who will pitch in.

“ ‘I get to watch baseball and I get to tell people about it,’ he said. ‘How lucky am I?’”

“How many organizations have an 83-year-old Hall of Fame manager who still manages that organization every day of his life? He gives pep talks to ushers, scolds vendors, spars with writers, and prods players who laugh until they realize he is serious.”

Among the creditors in the bankruptcy filing are Manny Ramirez, still owed nearly $21 million from a two-year $45 million deal he signed before the 2009 season, and Andruw Jones, now of the Yankees but owed more than $11 million.

Lastly, it was kind of funny how in their first game since the Ch. 11 filing, the Dodgers destroyed the Twins, 15-0, racking up 25 hits (tying their highest single-game total since their move to Los Angeles in 1958), as for the first time since then every player in the starting lineup had at least one hit, one run and one run batted in. [It was also the most hits ever given up by the Twins in a 9-inning game.]

Ball Bits

--South Carolina won its second straight College World Series championship as they closed out Florida, becoming the first team to ever go 10-0 in an NCAA tournament, thus extending their tourney streak to 16 and 11 straight in the CWS, both also the longest ever. Gamecock hurler Michael Roth has a 1.17 ERA over 38 1/3 innings the last two years in the World Series.

But Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal notes that the CWS suffers from a major lack of parity, “Perhaps more than any other major NCAA sport.”

“In the past 20 years, 79 of the 160 participating schools in the CWS hailed from Florida, California and Texas [Ed: referring to the final eight that comprise the CWS, not the overall NCAA tournament]. Eleven of the past 22 champions came from the Southeast, including the victor of this year’s finals between South Carolina and Florida. Meanwhile, no Big Ten team has reached the series since Michigan in 1984.” Wow.

“Forty-five states (plus the District of Columbia) have at least one Division I team, yet only 20 have appeared at the College World Series since 1992.”

By comparison, “Of the 41 states that have teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, 29 have been represented in the top eight of the final Associated Press poll in the last 20 years. Thirty-three states, plus D.C., have reached the Elite Eight of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament during that span.”

--Unbelievably, the New York Mets had gone 299 games without a grand slam (spanning a Duane Kuiperesque 280 plate appearances, while the opposition had hit 18 over that time) until Tuesday night in Detroit and then hit not one, but two, within 18 minutes as Jason Bay and Carlos Beltran went deep with the sacks filled.

As for Jose Reyes, who on Tuesday had his second straight 4-hit game and leads the league in hitting in this his walk year, Tuesday also represented the 1,000th game of his career. Check this out.

In Ty Cobb’s first 1,000 games, he had 106 triples and 391 stolen bases. Next after 1,000 games is Reyes…98 triples and 360 steals. Not bad company to keep, forgetting that Cobb was the ultimate dirtball.

Reyes also hit his 15th triple of the season, Tuesday, in the Mets’ 79th game. Now when it comes to doubles and triples and fast starts, invariably the players slow down as the season progresses, in no small part because of the toll the heat takes. [Trust me, casual fan, this is true. You just don’t see players stretching as many doubles into triples, and singles into doubles, when it’s 90 degrees with 70% humidity.]

But while Chief Wilson’s all-time mark of 36, set in 1912, is undoubtedly beyond reach, only three players have hit 26 triples, post-1900, and since 1925, no one has hit more than 23, Curtis Granderson being the last to do so in 2007. So if Reyes gets to, say, 25, that would really be remarkable (just being conservative). It’s also an increasing impossibility that Mets management would consider trading him at this point. Not only are the Mets a legitimate wild-card contender (at least for another week), Reyes is the only player the team has that puts fannies in the seats.

--The Phillies’ Cliff Lee has now thrown three straight complete game shutouts, 32 scoreless innings in all, and completed the month of June with a 5-0 record and 0.21 ERA. Since the end of World War II, only four other pitchers have gone 5-0 with an ERA of 0.21 or better.

Roy Halladay…10-3, 2.40
Cole Hamels…9-4, 2.49
Cliff Lee…9-5, 2.66

Tough to make a case for any opponent come playoff time when starting pitching rules.

[Major League Baseball starters are on pace to throw 194 complete games this season, which would be the most since 2003, as reported by the Journal’s Jared Diamond.]

--Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal had a story on interleague play and how it hasn’t been fair to the Mets in the 15 years of it. Since it began in 1997, “the Mets’ American League opponents have had an average year-end winning percentage of .527 – the highest in all of baseball.”

Of course this is largely due to the fact since 1999, the Mets have played the Yankees six games each year. During that span, “the Yanks have compiled a sterling .597 winning percentage and won three World Series titles. Meanwhile, the Nationals play the Baltimore Orioles six times per year, and the Marlins are paired with the Tampa Bay Rays. Other than the Mets, no NL East team plays the Yankees once this season.”

So do you understand when I say I hate interleague play! It’s not fair, I tell ya!

By the way, the teams with the easiest interleague schedules since 1997 are Minnesota and St. Louis, both of whom have faced teams with average winning percentages of just .480.

--Watching the Greek protests in Athens, I don’t see a lot of great arms in the crowd, either from the anarchists or the riot police. No wonder the country couldn’t suck more these days.

But wait…I did just see a guy throw a rock with real authority…maybe 91-92 mph and with good movement.

--Interesting piece from Dave Anderson / New York Times

“60 and 714, Babe Ruth’s home run totals for the 1927 season and for his career.

“But until Derek Jeter’s countdown, the number 3,000, as in 3,000 hits, was never part of the Yankees’ lore. Over the years, only four major leaguers with 3,000 or more hits have worn a Yankees uniform during their careers, but each got his 3,000th hit for another team. Three of those four should come to mind quickly: Dave Winfield, Rickey Henderson and Wade Boggs.

“You may be a dyed-in-the-pinstripes Yankees fan, but if you haven’t peeked a paragraph or two ahead, chances are you have no idea. It’s doubtful that even a clue or two would help, but here are a few. He was a Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder for virtually his entire career. He had a .333 career average. He joined the Yankees late in the 1944 season. Early in the 1945 season, he was released after appearing in one game.

“The answer is Paul Waner, who had 3,152 hits and won three National League batting titles, notably his .380 average with 237 hits in 1927, the year the Yankees of Ruth and Gehrig swept the Pirates in the Series.”

At the very end of his career, Waner had 10 at-bats with the Yankees, going 1-for-10, with the last hit a single as a pinch-hitter, Sept. 1, 1944.

“Jeter will be the first player to get his 3,000th hit while wearing a New York Yankees, Giants, Mets or Brooklyn Dodgers uniform.”

Winfield got his while with the Twins, Boggs with the Devil Rays, and Henderson with the Padres.

--Davey Johnson is 0-2 thru Tuesday as he takes over the reins of the Washington Nationals.

“The Nats don’t know what just hit them. Maybe GM Mike Rizzo doesn’t either. When you get Davey Johnson, you have your hands full – full of fun and knowledge, arrogance and a piratical glint. You get intelligence and compassion, insolence and a passion for victory that has set teams ablaze with his contagious confidence.

“Also, at previous stops, but maybe not this time at age 68, you get a long fuse that, after many wins, tall tales and laughs, finally reaches the dynamite with Davey sitting atop it. Nobody else gets hurt. Just him. He’s a man made entirely of baseball scar tissue….

“Johnson’s defining qualities, at least in his halcyon hellion days, were a dazzling lack of accountability to any entity on earth except his players, and the most contagious, cocky self-confidence of any boss in baseball. He took ‘player’s manager’ to a new level. In a tight spot, the organization, the owner, the GM, the media, the fans, could all take a flying leap if Johnson had to take a stand with his players. When the going was good, that was rocket fuel to his teams. When things went bad, Davey took the fall, usually alone.”

--Jerry Crowe of the L.A. Times had an interesting bit on former pitcher Larry Jaster; specifically, the rookie left-hander’s 1966 season.

Jaster was only 35-33 for his career, but in his first full season, ’66, he pitched five shutouts in going 11-5 with a 3.26 ERA in 151 innings. The thing is, all five shutouts were against the National League champion Los Angeles Dodgers! As Crowe writes:

“So rare was the feat – shutting out an opponent five times in one season – that it hadn’t been done in 50 years and has not been duplicated in nearly 50 years since.

“ ‘The longer it went on,’ Jaster says, ‘the more they were pressured to stop it, which worked in my favor. They were pressing and I kind of rolled along, thinking there was nothing to it.’”

Granted, the Dodgers were not an offensive powerhouse, getting shut out 17 times that year before the Orioles did it three more times in their 1966 Series sweep of L.A., but still, quite an achievement.

Jaster gave up only 24 hits in 45 innings… “none for extra bases. He struck out 31, walked eight.” His feat had been equaled most recently by Grover Cleveland Alexander of the Phillies, who pitched five shutouts against Cincinnati in 1916.

“His wife actually sent me a letter congratulating me,” Jaster says of Alexander’s widow. “I have it in my closet.”

By the way, Jaster had only two other shutouts in his career, the last a two-hitter against Tom Seaver and the Mets in May 1968. That year he gave up a grand slam to Jim Northrup in Game 6 of the World Series. He was then claimed by the Expos in the ’69 expansion draft but by that time he had developed arm problems and his career was essentially over.

--So you know how I recently wrote of Ichiro, one of my two favorite current players (along with Adam Dunn) and how he finally got hot after Seattle benched him one game amidst a horrible slump? And remember how I noted his streak of 200 hits?

“As you grow older – and I started growing older earlier than most people, sometime in junior high – you grasp onto a handful of things to feel safe and comfortable. I no longer have my boyhood exuberance for baseball, but I still enjoy cherry-picking the box scores, whether online or in the morning newspaper, looking for tidbits of joy.

“Over the last decade, Ichiro Suzuki has been my guaranteed daily morsel of joy.

“This year, that agate-type happiness is being threatened – perhaps by the ravages of time.

“In all 10 of his seasons with the Seattle Mariners since coming to Major League Baseball from Japan at age 27, Ichiro has batted over .300 and accumulated at least 200 hits.

“As we reach midseason here in 2011, Ichiro, now 37, is batting only .271 and is on pace for a 181-hit season….

“Hey, 60 might be the new 50 and 50 might be the new 40, but on a baseball diamond, 37 just might be too old.

“The thing is, Ichiro Suzuki might be the most underappreciated great player of his generation….

“Just think about Ichiro’s 10-year MLB career again: 10 straight .300 seasons, 10-straight 200-hit campaigns, 10 straight Gold Gloves, 10-time All-Star.”

--Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak, 1941, continued…

Game 43…July 1 (1)…Boston…2 for 4…1 RBI
Game 44…July 1 (2)…Boston…1 for 3…1 RBI
Game 45…July 2…Boston…1 for 5…1 HR 3 RBI

--Finally, kudos to Detroit Tigers fans. I was watching the Mets destroy the Tigers on Tuesday night, 14-3, but there in Comerica Park, in the ninth inning, the seats were all still filled behind home plate. Had that been either Citifield or Yankee Stadium in New York, you would have seen about four people remaining, the prime seats often being empty at the start of a game, let alone the end. Actually, I’m sure you would see that in St. Louis, too, Midwesterners just being the best people in the country.

[Your editor defines a Midwesterner as hailing from western Pennsylvania over through the Dakotas and down through Oklahoma.]

--Monday was a disastrous one for NBC Sports as the Williams sisters, along with No. 1-ranked Caroline Wozniacki (she of the nice butt, and zero majors), all lost in round four at Wimbledon.

But at least Maria Sharapova is back.

“With the Williams sisters heading out of town, the earplugs and the migraine tablets were a small enough price for Maria Sharapova’s reassertion of the aura and the nerve she brought here as a 17-year-old champion in 2004….

“Certainly, no one looked more likely to invade the vacuum left by the Californian hoarders of silverware than Sharapova as she bombarded her Slovakian quarter-final opponent Dominika Cibulkova with some ferociously maintained brilliance.

“That it was accompanied by the familiar high-decibel shrieks is an issue which will have to await some sane adjudication by the rulers of tennis, but in the meantime the women’s game can only murmur its relief that it heads towards the climax of the most prestigious tournament with a figure of authentic intrigue and competitive allure.”

So in the Women’s semis, we have these totally uninteresting matchups:

Sharapova (5) vs. Lisicki
Azarenka (4) vs. Kvitova (8)

But in the Men’s, what’s this? Roger Federer blew a 2-0 lead against Jo Wilfred Tsonga?! The second straight year six-time champ Federer has lost in the quarterfinals?!

So in the Men’s semis it is:

Tsonga (12) vs. Djokovic (2)
Murray (4)* vs. Nadal (1)

*This is Andy Murray, not Hall of Fame baseball player Eddie Murray. Just didn’t want the casual fan to be confused.

--Tiger Woods finally gets it. Appearing at a news conference before the AT&T National, which benefits his foundation, Woods said, “Usually I set a timetable when I want to come back and play when I’ve had injuries before. This one is different. I’m going to learn my lesson from what I did at The Players and apply it this time and come back when I’m 100 percent. I don’t know when that’s going to be. That’s kind of the frustrating thing about it right now is I don’t know.”

The British Open, which begins July 14, doesn’t look good for Tiger.

Tiger added that had he not played at The Players he’d be playing today.

“I’ve played in pain before and I’ve played injured, and I’ve played through it, and I’ve been very successful at it….I just felt that it was good enough to give it a go, and I did. And I hurt myself.”

Woods said he’s working out three times a day, but the only golf activity he’s doing is putting.

--The hero of the 1983 NCAA National Championship basketball game between North Carolina State and Houston, Lorenzo Charles, died on Monday when a bus he was driving in Raleigh, N.C. crashed on Interstate 40 with no passengers aboard.

Charles will forever be etched in the memories of hoops fans, through tape, for the next century, I imagine, as he grabbed Dereck Whittenburg’s 30-foot desperation shot and dunked it at the buzzer, giving Wolfpack Coach Jim Valvano his title, as Jimmy V. scrambled all over the court, looking for someone to hug.

--According to ESPN.com’s Chris Mortensen, Terrell Owens needed surgery to repair his ACL, thus ending his career in all probability, after suffering an injury while taping a reality television show. Owens is a workout fiend but hurt himself while filming a show for VH1. His agent, Drew Rosenhaus, denied there was an injury when ESPN first contacted him last month, but none other than Dr. James Andrews performed the surgery. So bye-bye, T.O. 

--Kentucky rewarded John Calipari with a two-year contract extension. He had originally signed for $31.65 million for eight years, but after taking the Wildcats to a Final Four and Elite Eight in his first two seasons, the new deal is $36.5 million over a new eight-year tenure. It seems his base salary is $400,000, but then he receives $3.4 million in media and endorsement money.

Calipari said, “Ellen and I have tried to be good stewards with the blessings we have received and will continue to invest in the Commonwealth and the Lexington community.”

Coach Cal, who has a habit of coaching teams that later have wins taken off their official record, did have four players taken in last week’s NBA draft, which is why he is able to get the recruits.

And I was just informed Ellen is probably Cal’s wife.

--I forgot to note a tragedy last time. Last Saturday, six mountaineers died in the French Alps. A British hiker found the bodies at 8,850 feet. The local mayor said, “The victims were climbing roped together in two groups. It looks like there was a slide of snow and stones mixed together.” The weather was good. One of the victims was a 16-year-old boy, plus three were women. It’s estimated they fell 650 feet. Or about 100 feet more than Mickey Mantle’s longest home run.

Mixing baseball history and mountaineering tragedies… another Bar Chat exclusive.

--In going through a stack of articles I had cut out over the past month, Runner’s World had a piece on what to do when you come across an animal on your jog. Dale Oberlag of the U.S. Forest Service in Fort Collins, Colorado, reminds us, “Don’t run, because that could trigger a chase instinct. Give them space so they’re not threatened.”

“With black bears and mountain lions, talk loudly and make yourself appear large by raising your arms over your head or waving a shirt or jacket in the air, Oberlag says.” Of course you already knew this. But if a mountain lion or black bear approaches, “prepare to fight back with rocks or branches or any other impromptu weapon.” Which is why we always recommend you carry the Official Bar Chat Bazooka.

Runner’s World always has these great photos of single runners in beautiful settings and I immediately think, I’d love to be there, but no way by myself! You just know you’re dead meat. And sure enough, Oberlag says, “Don’t go alone in grizzly bear country, and consider carrying a can of pepper spray,” or the BC Bazooka…now available in khaki, as well as the standard green.

“A water buffalo has gored an Australian pensioner to death in the Philippines after the man slammed into the beast while driving home from a nightclub on his motorbike, police say.

“The force of the blow to the man’s stomach detached the horn from the huge animal’s head.

“Terrence Binney, a 60-year-old retired soldier, accidentally rammed into the pregnant animal at night as he rode along a village road….

“The buffalo retaliated by impaling Binney with one of its horns, the officer said.”

The farmer could be responsible for allowing his beast, which can weigh up to 900 kilos (about 2,000 pounds), to roam free after it broke away from its tether.

--Brad K. passed along a Daily Telegraph story concerning 13-year-old Drew Hall, who was out fishing with his family in northern New South Wales when he was knocked unconscious by a whale’s tail.

The family had been observing some whales far out to sea when “a whale’s tail suddenly emerged from the water and swept along the top of the boat from bow to stern. It missed his parents, but hit Drew in the chest and sent him flying backwards.”

Drew was totally unconscious. His parents thought he was dead. But after five minutes, Drew came to, having suffered a broken collarbone “and an egg-sized swelling on his head.”

Drew has vowed to go fishing again. Your editor, on the other hand, vows never to go near the open water again, let alone take a boat on it.

Nope, the adult pool scene in Vegas is about my speed, know what I’m sayin’?

--So you know that guy Don Johnson, the one who took three Atlantic City casinos for about $15 million playing blackjack? Turns out he is good friends with Jon Bon Jovi and the two partied down in London the other night, at a well-known club there, One4One. Johnson ran up a bar tab of $269,040, which included $192,036 for a 30-liter jug of Armand De Brignac Midas champagne, believed to be the world’s most expensive bottle of bubbly, according to David Li of the New York Post. A 15% service charge of $35,902 was part of the bill.

--And now…Sperm Count…another irregular feature of Bar Chat.

Melinda Beck of the Wall Street Journal had a story titled “Surprising Causes of Male Infertility.”

“On average, the typical man makes about 1,000 sperm every heartbeat.”

Good lord! Did you know that, guys? So just give me a moment to get my resting heartbeat….about 80…or 80,000 sperm per minute, by my back of the beer coaster calculation. Huh.

“Yet a number of lifestyle choices, environmental factors and chance events can sabotage the sperm: an adolescent groin injury [Ed. Doh! Street hockey incident when I was a kid. Take off 35 per, I’m guessing], cigarette smoking [clear there], heavy drinking [uh oh…take off 865-869], intense cycling [Phewww…haven’t ridden a bike since I got my driver’s license, cars being more effective and safer], and even using a laptop directly on the lap [Ever since I saw the first study in this regard I’ve avoided the practice].”

By the way, “Men who run more than 100 miles a week have lower sperm counts.” I only run 12-15, so OK here. Still have 100 per heartbeat.

“Dr. (Marc) Goldstein (fertility expert) also advises male cyclists trying to conceive to ride for only 30 miles at a time – mainly to limit their time wearing tight bicycle shorts.”

Well, I already told you I stopped riding a bike when I saw the fuel-efficiency of a Honda, but I’ve also never been comfortable around any guy wearing bicycle shorts, like really uncomfortable. 

[There’s a guy at the track I sometimes work out on who likes to jog in bicycle pants, which I find very disconcerting, and needless to say I refuse to talk to him. Thankfully, he doesn’t attempt to talk to me…which might have something to do with me wearing my new favorite shirt, “Idaho Vandals Football.”]

--Four years ago, I was at the Iowa State Fair and I’m looking forward to returning there in August. But, alas, the ‘butter cow lady,’ Norma Lyon, has died. I have to admit I didn’t believe my eyes when I first saw the life-size sculptures of cows and the likes of Elvis in butter.

She produced her first butter cow in 1959 and it became a staple at the fair ever since, though Norma herself stopped producing them for the fair in 2006, turning the job over to an associate, so in actuality I never saw Ms. Lyon’s handiwork. Lyon did have a veterinary science degree and helped her husband with the family dairy and beef cattle operation.

Actually, I forgot the Iowa State Fair has featured a butter cow every year since 1911 as a promotion for its dairy products. Why this will be the 100th anniversary! I might have to sneak some beer into the viewing hall to celebrate (they are in refrigerated glass cases, as you can imagine).

Top 3 songs for the week 6/26/65: #1 “Mr. Tambourine Man” (The Byrds) #2 “I Can’t Help Myself” (Four Tops) #3 “Wooly Bully” (Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs…Sam looked like he could throw them down…)…and…#4 “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” (The Rolling Stones…entered top ten at this level…two weeks later began a 4-week run at #1) #5 “Wonderful World” (Herman’s Hermits…I really liked these guys, but not this one…) #6 “Crying In The Chapel” (Elvis Presley) #7 “For Your Love” (The Yardbirds) #8 “Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte” (Patti Page) #9 “Help Me, Rhonda” (The Beach Boys) #10 “Seventh Son” (Johnny Rivers…nothing like the 60s, kids)

Baseball Quiz Answers: 1) Jose Lima of Houston gave up 48 homers in 2000, while going 7-16 with an absolutely horrible ERA of 6.65. Lima gave up 251 hits in 196 innings. The only reason why he was allowed to do so was because the year before, Lima was 21-10, 3.58. Blyleven, by the way, went 17-14 for the Twins despite giving up the 50 home runs in 1986. 2) Tom Seaver had an N.L. record 10 seasons of 200 or more strikeouts, as well as the major league record for nine consecutive seasons in a row with 200 (1968-76). 3) And your editor’s favorite player of all time, Mr. Seaver, is the only pitcher to fan 10 in a row in a game, April 22, 1970, vs. San Diego. I distinctly remember rushing home from school, sixth grade, to see the ending of this one. 4) 1974: John Hiller, Detroit, went 17-14 in relief, with 13 saves, 2.64 ERA, 150 innings. 1976: Bill Campbell, Minnesota, 17-5, 20 saves, 3.01, 167 innings. You could live another 30 years and be assured no one during that time will come close to throwing 150 innings out of the pen, let alone 167.

And just a trivia note: The record for most consecutive innings without giving up a walk is 84, held by Bill Fischer, 1962, Kansas City A’s. Fischer only went 4-12 that year but had a respectable 3.95 ERA as a reliever/spot starter. Over the entire season he walked 8 in 127 innings.

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