Card #147: Denny Walling

Who Can It Be Now?
Dennis Martin Walling was born on April 17, 1954 in Neptune, New Jersey. He attended community college in New Jersey before attending a second community college...er, Clemson University in South Carolina. 

He was drafted initially after his junior college days in the 8th round by the San Francisco Giants in 1974.  He did not sign and went to Clemson for a year where his efforts and ability made him the first pick overall in the 1975 June Secondary Draft by the Oakland Athletics. After signing with the A's, he went straight to the major leagues, going 1-for-8 in limited duty in September of 1975 for the AL West Champions.

Perhaps due to their "win-now" mentality, or maybe Walling just wasn't what they thought he was when they drafted him, but the A's gave Walling a grand total of 19 plate appearances over two year before trading him with cash to the Houston Astros at the trade deadline in 1977 for Willie Crawford.  

Crawford played the rest of 1977 with the A's, played two years in Mexico, and was out of baseball.  In comparison, Walling became a long-time Astro pinch-hitter for those Houston clubs of the late 1970s through the mid-1980s.  He averaged less than three plate appearances per game played for Houston (1072 G, 2929 PA) over eleven-and-a-half seasons (not counting his 3 game cameo in 1992 at the very end of his career).

Walling was never much of a power hitter, and he hit just 49 homers in his entire career. Some of that had to do with the cavernous Astrodome, certainly, but Walling was a guy who would come to bat and be willing to take a walk or, often, get the bat on the ball.  He struck out in less than 10% of his plate appearances in his career.

During the 1988 season, Walling was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for Bob Forsch. Apparently, the teams wanted to swap a hitter near the end of his career for a pitcher near the end of his career.  Walling stuck in St. Louis as a bat off the bench through 1990, played in Texas a little in 1991, then hung up his spikes after the 3-game, 3-plate appearance performance in Houston in 1992.

Mustache Check: Mr. Ginger, oh your mustache has grown. Don't you know that you're the only one to say, OK.  (Figure out that reference...)

Family Ties
According to the Baseball-Reference.com Bullpen, Denny Walling's older brother Gregory Walling played 47 games for Covington in the Appalachian League in 1967 in the Astros system. He walked a lot, but Gregory's .225/.363/.265 slash line did not convince the Astros to keep him beyond that one season.

A Few Minutes with Tony L.
Yes, I am going to resurrect this blog a bit.  I miss the history aspects of it.  

I remember Denny Walling from watching the postseason in the early 1980s and again in 1986.  Walling struggled mightily against the Mets in the National League Championship Series in 1986 -- .158/.158/.211 in 19 AB -- but he was far from the only one who struggled. Of players with more than 10 at bats for the Astros, only Craig Reynolds -- 4 for 12 -- hit better than .300.  Walling ended up picking up four at-bats in the epic game 6 of that NLCS -- the one that went 16 innings and finished with the Astros coming up one run short in their rally to tie the game again after the Mets scored 3 in the top of the 16th off Aurelio Lopez and Jeff Calhoun.

Since his retirement as a player, Walling has been a coach. He spent time with the Oakland A's and New York Mets when old pal Art Howe was the manager.  After that and from 2007 to 2014, Walling was a hitting instructor in the Orioles system -- first as a roving instructor, and then as the Triple-A Norfolk Tides batting coach from 2012 through 2014.  After the 2014 season, Walling -- now 60 years old -- decided to retire.

Card #90: Nolan Ryan

Who Can It Be Now?
Lynn Nolan Ryan was born on January 31, 1947, in Refugio, Texas.  It's the same Nolan Ryan as the one who set a record for most no-hitters in a career, as celebrated on Card #5. As mentioned in the extensive SABR biography for him, Nolan grew up in Alvin, Texas, from the age of six weeks old because his father was transferred to the Hastings plant for Stanton Oil Company.  

From the time that Nolan was a sophomore in high school, he was his team's star pitcher. He had wildness issues -- the SABR biography mentions a game in which he hit the leadoff batter in the head (cracking the batting helmet) and the second batter in the arm (breaking the boy's arm) before the third batter had to be shamed into standing in the batter's box for three perfunctory swings and a strikeout. 

Despite the schoolboy stardom, however, Ryan was not drafted until the 12th round of the first-ever June Amateur Draft in 1965. The SABR biography appears to blame this drop on a bad outing that Ryan had in front of scouts from the Mets in May of 1965 -- an outing that took place "less than a day after Coach Watson had death-marched the Yellow Jacket team through endless wind sprints over a perceived lack of concentration in practice." Maybe so. Ryan had to choose, though, between the University of Texas and the New York Mets.  

He chose the Mets.  

Ryan signed immediately and headed to Marion in the Appalachian League. Baseball Reference does not have strikeout totals for Ryan that year; the Baseball Cube does.  In his 78 innings, Ryan racked up 56 walks (6.46 per 9 innings) and 115 Ks (13.27 per 9) while yielding 61 hits (7.04 per 9).  In other words, a fairly typical Nolan Ryan season in many respects.  

His 1966 season was his breakout year in the Mets system. His overall stats between Greenville in Single-A and Williamsport in Double-A was 17-4, 2.36 ERA, 202 innings, 118 hits allowed (5.3 per nine innings), 127 walks (6.25/9 IP), and 272 strikeouts (13.38/9 IP). The year earned him a late-season callup to the Mets in September, where the 19-year-old got knocked around some.  The first hitter he faced was Atlanta's Pat Jarvis, whom he promptly struck out.  He closed his first ever inning pitched by striking out future Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews looking., though he did give up a home run to Joe Torre in his next inning of work.

1967 was a lost year for Ryan due to arm trouble. A team doctor recommended surgery, but Ryan refused to go under the knife. He chose to rehabilitate his arm on his own, and he did so successfully. When he came to spring training in 1968, he was ready to go and ended up sticking with the big-league club out of spring training.  Quickly, baseball men around the league sang his praises -- with then St. Louis manager and later Hall of Famer Red Schoendienst calling Ryan, "the fastest I've ever seen. Period."  Ralph Kiner said, "I haven't seen anybody like him since Bob Feller." Catcher Jerry Grote claimed that Ryan "is faster than Koufax. He's got twice the speed of Juan Marichal."  I don't doubt he threw hard, but twice the speed of Marichal? That would have put him solidly in the 160 to 190 MPH range.

In any event, Ryan pitched a total of 5 seasons for the Mets, finishing with a losing record but earning his one and only World Series ring in 1969. Indeed,  But, by the end of the 1971 season, Ryan had suffered with a number of various ailments and interruptions in his Mets career. When he wasn't sidelined by repetitive blisters -- solved, apparently, by pickle brine bought at a Bronx delicatessen -- he would have to report for Army Reserve drills. Even the article from 1968 singing his praises noted that in the spring of 1968, Ryan had a tender biceps, an inflamed elbow, and blisters.

As a 1980 news article about Ryan quoted a New York Times article as stating, "He has been on the military list and the disabled list more often than he has been on the Mets rooming list."  As a result, the Mets gave up on the young fireballer and traded him with Frank Estrada, Don Rose, and Leroy Stanton to the California Angels on December 10, 1971, in exchange for Jim Fregosi.  The trade was new GM Harry Dalton's second major move of the off-season, and it turned out to be a winner for the Angels.  After all, Fregosi played 146 games in Flushing; Ryan threw four no-hitters in Anaheim.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that Ryan was not as good in his years in New York as he would become later. After all, he was just about to turn 25 years old when the Mets traded him.  From 1972 through 1979, Ryan pitched with two good (1978 and 1979) and otherwise, with bad teams for Gene Autry. He still fought through some injuries, having bone chips removed from his elbow in the offseason before the 1976 season.

Ryan had some incredible statistical seasons with California -- 1974 in particular stands out. In that season, Ryan went 22-16 with a 2.89 ERA. He led the league in innings with 332-2/3, in walks issued with 202, in strikeouts with 367, in batters faced with 1392, in fewest hits per nine innings with 6.0, and in strikeouts per nine innings with 9.9.  In all, Ryan never had a season in California in which he walked fewer than 114 batters -- his lowest total was 114 in 1979. Despite incredibly low totals for hits allowed, he never had a WHIP (Walks plus hits divided by innings pitched) below 1.137 (his first year in California, 1972, when he allowed a miniscule 5.3 hits/9 IP).

During those years, however, Ryan was an All-Star on 5 occasions.  He did not pitch in the 1977 game, though, because he thought he should have been selected right off the bat.  Instead, he refused to play in the game only after he was selected as an injury replacement for teammate Frank Tanana -- a move which angered Billy Martin.  When Ryan was named to be the starter for the 1979 game against Steve Carlton, Ryan was quoted as saying that Martin had said that Ryan wouldn't have been on the team in 1978 even if Nolan were 40-0 -- so Bob Lemon being the Yankees manager helped Nolan become an all-star once again.

After the 1979 season -- a season which finished with Ryan having pitched one game in the ALCS -- Ryan became a free agent. Despite receiving significant interest from a number of teams, including the New York Yankees, the Texas Rangers, and the Milwaukee Brewers (!), he signed what was, at the time, the richest contract in American team sports with his hometown team, the Houston Astros, for a four-year, $4.5 million deal with a $1 million signing bonus and an additional $250,000 payment in 1984 with an option for 1984 at $1 million.  After the initial 5 years deal, Nolan inked for another four years with the Astros -- keeping him with the club through his age-41 season.

The signing was not universally loved.  In an article from the first ever issue of Inside Sports, now-ESPN loudmouth Tony Kornheiser wrote an article about Ryan and his big contract. A number of people were quoted being critical of Ryan.  Jim Palmer, for one:

Nolan's got so much more natural ability than the rest of us. He's like a child prodigy. You can't even comprehend what it's like to be that talented ... [but] he tries to intimidate people. I try to get them out. If you're going to lose, it's sure great to strike out 380 guys. I'm not saying he isn't a winner. Maybe his niche is 383 strikeouts. Mine is winning two-thirds of my games.

That's easy for Palmer and his incredible team defense to say.  Ryan even picked up on this in his response to that barb:

Don't tell me that Jim Palmer says he wouldn't throw a 3-2 curveball if he could throw 98; he wouldn't throw it down the middle if he could throw 98 -- and anyway, he couldn't know what it's like because he can't throw 98. He never stood on that mound with a bad team and no runs and knew if he threw one bad pitch he'd be beat. He was never in that position. Jim Palmer's always pitched for the best infield in baseball, and his team scored runs.

Ryan made another 2 all-star teams in Houston -- in 1981 and again in 1985.  He pitched for generally good teams in Houston, but he finished his 9 Astro seasons with a 106-94 record -- a .530 winning percentage.  In Houston, though, he was better able to harness his walks down to a far more manageable 3.9 BB/9 IP, which was 1.5 BB/9 lower than his totals in California.

If Ryan had quit after the 1988 season, he probably still would have made the Hall of Fame. By that time, he had racked up 4775 strikeouts and a 273-253 lifetime record. Instead, Ryan signed on with the Texas Rangers at the age of 42.  He made one final all-star team in 1989, and he picked up another 51 wins -- pushing his total to 324.  At the age of 42, he led the American League in strikeouts with 301 and in wild pitches with 19.  He gave up the fewest hits per nine innings in the American League in 1989, 1990, and 1991, and he led the American League in K/9 in each of those three seasons at the ages of 42, 43, and 44 respectively.  He did his pitching in 1990 while fighting a stress fracture in his lower back and a sore thumb injured by a car door being slammed on it.

He finally retired at the age of 46, after a 1993 season marred by ineffectiveness, wildness, and pain. He was then inducted into the Hall of Fame with Robin Yount and George Brett in 1999.

Mustache Check: Nope -- I've never seen a photo of Nolan with a mustache, and this one is no different.

Trivial Pursuit
Nolan Ryan's page at the Baseball Hall of Fame notes that Ryan is the only pitcher to have struck out the side on 9 pitches in both the American League and the National League.  

He did it in the National League, says the HOF, on April 19, 1968. Unfortunately, Baseball Reference does not have counts available for this game, so it could have been the first inning or the third inning in which Ryan performed the feat against the Dodgers.

His 9-pitch strikeout inning came in the American League on July 9, 1972, against the Boston Red Sox. Considering that Ryan pitched a one-hitter (1 walk, 16 strikeouts, game score of 100) against the Red Sox, that probably should not be a surprise.  Once again, without any information on the ball/strike count, it is impossible to know whether that 9-pitch inning came in the second or the third inning.

Incidentally, Ryan holds the record for most walks issued in a career, most strikeouts by a pitcher, and for the longest career in baseball, appearing in 27 seasons.

Louisiana Cookin'
A Texan like Ryan would bristle visibly at having his cooking abilities highlighted under a category named for another state.  But, when the recipe for Nolan Ryan's "Secret Barbecue Sauce" is published a newspaper article in 1983, is there any other place to put it?  The ingredients include onion, lemon, beer, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, and bottled pre-made barbecue sauce (which seems like cheating to me).

But that was 1983. Now, Nolan has his beef products available for purchase under the brand of Nolan Ryan's All Natural Beef. His website includes "Signature Recipes" which all call for beef, of course.  Four 20 oz. steaks can be yours for the low, low price of just $74.99 plus shipping.  Then, when you get those steaks, be sure to put some of his Signature Seasoning on it -- just $29.97 from Amazon!

The World According to Garp
Not only is Nolan selling food products, he's also writing cookbooks.  In May, Little Brown & Co. published The Nolan Ryan Beef & Barbecue Cookbook: Recipes from a Texas Kitchen. It has gotten good reviews on Amazon, though I'm not sure whether those recipes vary from his website's signature recipes.

Ryan has written at least 3 autobiographies. He combined with Harvey Frommer to write Throwing Heat: The Autobiography of Nolan Ryan in 1988. In 1992, he collaborated with Jerry Jenkins to write Miracle Man: Nolan Ryan: The Autobiography (a book title that looks like an SAT comparison question gone awry). Finally, in 1999 and to capitalize on his election to the Hall of Fame, Ryan worked with T.R. Sullivan and Mickey Herskowitz to write Nolan Ryan: The Road to Cooperstown.

He also lent his name and received authorship credit on a book written in 1991 by Jim Rosenthal and Ryan's then-pitching coach, Tom House, called Nolan Ryan's Pitcher's Bible: The Ultimate Guide to Power, Precision and Long-Term Performance.  

Ryan is credited with writing forewords for two books on top of all that -- Working at the Ballpark: The Fascinating Lives of Baseball People from Peanut Vendors and Broadcasters to Players and Managers and Once They Were Angels, a history of the Angels franchise.

Finally, in 1993, his name is on a book called Kings of the Hill: An Irreverent Look at the Men on the Mound.  I'm less sure on this book being his, since Amazon's summary of the book is, "An award-winning journalist probes the war of intimidation waged by American Express CEO James D. Robinson against banker Edmond Safra, as he used the resources of an entire corporation against one man. Reprint."  

Sounds pretty irreverent to me.

A Few Minutes with Tony L.
There isn't much you can say about Nolan Ryan that hasn't been said before. Longevity, stubbornness, a mediocre win-loss record, control issues, a three-true-outcomes pitcher -- all of them are true.  

Now, some of the things written about him, though, may not be true.  I hate to give this guy any web traffic, but this blog post from TODAY sounds like the biggest bunch of spurious guilty-until-proven-innocent crap I've seen in a while.  Basically, it's an exercise in two plus two equals seven (five is too close to correct).

The summary is the first sentence of the article: "Nolan Ryan could have been using steroids and other performance enhancing drugs (PED), not just late in his career, but also in the 1970s."

Proof?

Tom House was Ryan's pitching coach in the early 1990s. House used steroids in the 1970s, as he admitted in 2005. House estimated that six or seven pitchers per team were at least experimenting with steroids or human growth hormones. Ryan pitched into his mid-40s. He threw fastballs by players years after other players his age had retired. Ryan's SABR biography does not mention the word steroid, nor does it "even . . . refute the idea that Ryan used PED."  Ryan was Jose Canseco's teammate in 1992 and 1993.

Summary: "How come no one challenges Nolan Ryan? He played long enough to have used steroids. His longevity is suspicious. . . . Ryan's final seasons leading the league in strike outs [sic] were at the ages of 40, 41, 42, 43. His previous age as league strike out [sic] leader was 32. Ryan went seven years without being strike out [sic] king until he recovered the touch at age 40. Ryan pitched a record seven no hitters at these ages: 26, 26, 27, 28, 34, 43, 44. This anecdotal evidence is completely ignored. Did Nolan Ryan use banned and/or illegal stuff to enhance his performance? I have no idea but I find it odd that the steroid zealots have such narrow vision."

My short response: Shouldn't you have more of an idea than "no idea" before you start throwing out your "anecdotal evidence" that has been "completely ignored"? I have no idea whether Ryan used steroids, HGH, Viagra, Valium, Penicillin, or injected himself with the blood of 15-year-old virgins, and neither does anyone else other than Nolan Ryan and perhaps his family and friends.  

The man was fanatical about working out, lifting weights, throwing all the time, and staying in good shape. Find someone who says, positively, that Ryan took steroids before you start throwing darts.  I mean, if Canseco knew Ryan took steroids, you know that Nolan's name would have been the first one on the cover of the book. It wasn't.

I've probably wasted too much energy and time thinking about that post, but the leaps of illogic are incredible.

On a brighter note, if you are interested in supporting Nolan Ryan's charity to assist the city of Alvin, Texas -- and the Nolan Ryan Exhibit Center at the Alvin Community College -- then check out the foundation here.  Part of the fundraising efforts consist of selling autographed balls and jerseys -- and the balls are only $80.  Considering the costs for autographs at the recent National Collectors Convention, that is a reasonable cost.  

Card #66: Houston Astros Team Leaders

Who Can It Be Now?
It's Astros team leaders Art Howe and his .296 batting average and future Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan for his 1.69 ERA from 1981.

Coming in to 1982, the Astros had high hopes.  They had lost out to the eventual World Series Champion Los Angeles Dodgers in Divisional Series in an epic five-game series in which the Astros blew a 2 games to zero lead.  Whether the team in 1982 suffered from a year-long hang over, or whether they simply got a year older without getting a year better, their 1982 was a year to forget.  

They started their season with Nolan Ryan on the mound against the eventual champion Cardinals at home in the Astrodome in front of just 33,521 fans.  Ryan promptly gave up 6 runs, 8 hits, and 2 walks in three innings before the immortal Gordie Pladson replaced him. To be fair, they rebounded and won the final two games of that series, and were 1 game over .500 -- which was their high-water mark for the season.  They dipped as low as 14 games under .500 on August 8, and "rallied" to finish 8 games under .500 by the end of the year -- a 77-85 season.

The season unraveled for the Astros at the plate.  In 1981, the team finished 9th (of 12 NL teams) in runs scored, 5th in batting average, 6th in OBP, and 8th in SLG.  In 1982, all those numbers regressed -- 11th in runs scored, 11th in batting average, and dead last in the National League in OBP and SLG. 

For its part, the pitching did not help matters either.  The team's ERA jumped from an NL-leading 2.66 in 1981 to a fourth-place finish at 3.42. Strikeouts per nine stayed about the same, but the team regressed in its league standing in batters struck out -- moving from 1st to 6th.  The big problem here came from the bullpen -- by the Wins Above Average ranking, Houston had the worst bullpen in the National League.  Further, the team did not perform well either in one-run games -- 22-29 record, a .431 Pct. -- or in games that were blowouts (winning margin of five runs or more) -- 8-16, .333 Pct.

The only real change of note that had happened from 1981 to 1982 was that the team jettisoned long-time first baseman Cesar Cedeno, trading him to the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for Ray Knight.  In the end, that trade was pretty much a wash.  Perhaps the biggest problem offensively was that CF Tony Scott proved that his 1981 numbers with Houston -- .293/.338/.396 -- were a smaller-sample-size mirage and that Tony Scott really was the .249/.297/.327 hitter where his career numbers finished.

Mustache Check: Nope, neither Howe nor Ryan sported a hairy upper lip.

Don't You Want Me
On August 10, 1982, Astros chairman of the board John McMullen fired manager Bill Virdon. At the time, Virdon had been the manager of the Astros longer than any other manager in the National League.  The next longest tenure at that time was shared by Pirates Manager Chuck Tanner and Dodgers Manager Tommy LaSorda, each of which was in their sixth season as manager in 1982. 

According to the story about his firing, Virdon predicted at the beginning of the season that the 1982 team would be "the best team I ever had in Houston." Oops.

On his way out the door, however, Virdon diagnosed the team's problem as being exactly what the statistics said it was: the bullpen.  He noted that injuries had decimated the bullpen -- as the Astros lost Joe Sambito to an elbow problem and Dave Smith to back issues while Frank LaCorte was ineffective.  He added in a quote: "we couldn't close out anyone.  The seventh, eight[sic] and ninth innings have been misery."

Virdon landed on his feet, though, as he was named manager of the Montreal Expos just days after the regular season ended and on October 11, 1982.

Totally Gnarly
I don't really like Danny Sheridan of USA Today.  I feel like his statistical models are created in a way that he builds in his own inherent biases to the exclusion of relevant information.  I really did not like how his numbers were used for the BCS College Football determinations either.  

Now, my bias out of the way, it's funny to me to look back when he was making baseball predictions in 1982.  According to his numbers, the Yankees and the Houston Astros should have reached the World Series.  Some other numbers that were off: he said Milwaukee was "good on paper but haven't produced" and that the abysmal Texas Rangers were "deep everywhere, but not overpowering; best third baseman in baseball -- Buddy Bell."  I think George Brett would beg to differ with that assessment.

A Few Minutes with Tony L.
Since 1982 is a decade and a half before the onset of interleague play, the Astros and Brewers did not play one another.  Looking at the Astros for whom they did play, it is interesting to see against which clubs they played well or struggled.  Keep in mind: the scheduling in 1982 was done at the league level rather than at the Commissioner's Office level.  So, while the 14-team American League had fairly even scheduling -- 13 games against each divisional opponent, 12 games against each team in the other division -- the 12-team National League had weighted scheduling.  That meant playing divisional opponents 18 times during the year versus 12 games against the teams in the other division. 

The Astros had losing records against five opponents, winning records against four teams, and .500 records against two teams. Their two worst records came because the Astros really struggled against the San Francisco Giants (who finished 87-75; Astros went 5-13 against them) and the Chicago Cubs -- with the Astros having a 3-9 record against a team that finished 73-89.  Turn those records around, and the Astros pick up fourteen games against .500.  

Now, it's time for the Brewers Countdown.

Former Brewers on the Checklist
No one appearing on this checklist had pulled on a Brewers jersey prior to 1982.

Former Brewers Who Played in 1982 for the Astros
The Brewers and Astros made a trade at the end of August in 1982.  So, coming to the Astros from Milwaukee and appearing in 1982 for the Astros were two players who had appeared previously for Milwaukee:  outfielder Kevin Bass and pitcher Frank DiPino.  Otherwise, the Astros stayed away from former Brewers, it appears.

Future Brewers on the Checklist
As I mentioned, the Brewers and Astros made a trade at the end of August in 1982.  Going to the Brewers -- and becoming an integral part of the September and post-season rotation -- was thirty-seven-year-old Don Sutton.  Sutton stayed in Milwaukee through 1984.  After that season, the Brewers traded Sutton to the Oakland A's for two minor leaguers and Ray Burris.

Another future Brewer was shortstop Dickie Thon, who finished his career with an 85-game stint in Milwaukee in 1993.

And, while he did not play for the Brewers, Phil Garner spent eight years -- from 1992 through 1999 -- in Milwaukee as the Brewers manager, finishing with a record of 563-617 (.477 Win Pct.). His first season saw the Brewers enjoy a 92-70 record and a second-place finish in the American League East behind the eventual World Series Champion Toronto Blue Jays.  

Future Brewers Appearing but Not on the Checklist
He did not get a card in the 1982 Topps set, but second baseman Bill Doran got 100 at-bats in September of 1982.  He finished fifth in the Rookie of the Year voting in 1983.  Then, in 1993, he capped off his career with a 28-game stint for the Brewers with Dickie Thon.  

Future Hall of Famers on the Checklist
The starting rotation featured two future Hall of Famers -- Don Sutton and Nolan Ryan. Sutton started 27 games for the Astros and Ryan started 35, and both pitched fairly well. Indeed, even though Ryan was 35 to start 1982, he still had another eleven seasons to go in the major leagues.  And, even though Sutton was 37 to start 1982, he pitched for another six seasons.

Future Hall of Famers appearing in 1982 but not on the checklist
No one else on the roster got any real consideration for the Hall of Fame, nor as far as I can tell should they have gotten any consideration.  

The only players with even a shout at being looked at would be Joe Niekro -- who simply did not pile up enough counting statistics in his 22-year career to merit consideration -- or perhaps Jose Cruz, whose career numbers were harmed significantly by playing in the cavernous Astrodome.  Still, that argument for Cruz only gets you so far, and it isn't far enough.

Card #57: Craig Reynolds

Who Can It Be Now?
Gordon Craig Reynolds was born on December 27, 1952, in Houston, Texas.  He attended John H. Reagan High School there -- a school which also produced Dan Rather and Mary Kay Ash (the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics).  Reynolds starred in both baseball and basketball at Reagan, and in a later interview called basketball his first love.  

But, he was better at baseball and the scouts found him.  His plan coming out of high school was to play baseball in Waco at Baylor University.  The Pittsburgh Pirates changed that plan, however, by drafting him with the number 22 pick overall in the 1971 June Draft.  Reynolds decided that being a professional baseball player was what he wanted to do, and so he signed with the Pirates.  

In his time in the Pirates system, he spent the better part of six seasons in the minor leagues.  To be clear, the issue generally was not whether he could hit.  He reached Triple-A for the first time for a 4-game showing in 1973 at the age of 20, and then spent an additional two-plus years there starting in late 1974 through 1976.  In over 1100 plate appearances at Triple-A for Pittsburgh, Reynolds posted a .301/.343/.375 line. 

The issue to the Pirates, though, was that Reynolds was not a slick-fielding shortstop in a decade of the 1970s which featured a bunch of good-field, no-hit shortstops like Mark Belanger.  Based on advanced metrics for his major league career, Reynolds appears to have had good range (and I understand that sabermetrics still has problems evaluating fielding based solely on numbers, so that observation is not dispositive).  Yet, he was charged with a ton of errors in the minor leagues.  For example, at Single-A Salem in the Carolina League in 1973, he racked up 50 errors at shortstop and added an additional error in one of his games in Triple-A.  

As a result, despite having what appeared to be a major-league bat, the Pirates kept dithering about on whether to call him up or not.  He was called to the majors in 1975, though, and made his first major league appearance on August 1 of that year.  To make room for Reynolds, the Pirates sent down their version of a good-field, no-hit shortstop: Mario Mendoza.   

In his first official major league at-bat on August 3, Reynolds notched his first big-league hit against Tom Seaver.  And, though he played sparingly in September, he did get one at-bat in the NLCS that year in Game 5 of the series loss to the Cincinnati Reds.  It appeared to be the start of something good for the one-time first round pick.

Yet, in Pittsburgh, it was not.  Despite hitting .375 in spring training in 1976, he did not make the club out of spring training -- a move called "the only bona fide shock of the abbreviated spring training" by one sportswriter.  Frank Taveras took advantage of the opportunity he was given and provided more offense than he ever had previously -- perhaps the Pirates were persuaded by his 128 stolen bases over two seasons; it certainly wasn't Taveras's .314 SLG.  Even so, by September of 1976, Reynolds was being told to work at shortstop but also to play third and second base in winter ball in a move that The Pittsburgh Press called, "typical Pirate stuff.  Keep the troops guessing.  Even if they wanted Reynolds as their third baseman, they might not tell him to concentrate on the position until there was a week left in spring training."

Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that Reynolds didn't make it out of 1976 as a Pittsburgh Pirate.  The team had chosen Taveras as its shortstop -- along with Rennie Stennett at second base and Phil Garner at third base to replace Richie Hebner -- so Reynolds was surplus to requirements.  So, during the winter meetings in 1976, the Pirates sent Reynolds to the expansion Seattle Mariners with fellow shortstop Jimmy Sexton in exchange for 34-year-old reliever Grant Jackson.

Freed from Pittsburgh, Reynolds got the opportunity to play regularly on two terrible Seattle teams.  Reynolds made the Mariner shortstop position his own in 1977 and even made the All-Star team in 1978.  Even so, the Mariners ended up trading Reynolds away after the 1978 season.  During the winter meetings in 1978 and on December 5, the Mariners made another trade with the Pirates and obtained, among others, Reynolds's old foil Mario Mendoza.  Obsessed, it seems, with the idea of having a slick-fielding shortstop who eventually had the .200 batting average named for him, the Mariners sent Reynolds to the Houston Astros in exchange for Floyd Bannister.

To Reynolds, this had to have been a dream come true in many respects.  At the age of 26, Reynolds returned home to Houston to play for the team he had grown up watching as a boy. He made the NL All-Star team in 1979 as a replacement for Garry Templeton, who apparently threw a little hissy-fit when he was not selected by the fans to be the starter at shortstop.  Reynolds also played in three post-season series for the Astros -- poorly in the 1980 NLCS, from the bench in the 1981 NLDS, and well against the Mets in the 1986 NLCS. 

Reynolds stayed in Houston for the rest of his career after 1979 and retired after the 1989 season.  He is second all-time in Houston Astros club history in games played at shortstop with 926. 

Goody Two Shoes
During his career, Craig Reynolds was well-known for being a strong Christian.  In 1979, he received the Danny Thompson Award for "exemplary Christian spirit in baseball."  The award was named for a former Twins shortstop who dies of leukemia in 1977. And, from 1980 through 2002, he served on the Board of Directors for Pro Athletes Outreach -- a group which today includes athletes such as Trent Dilfer, Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila, Josh Hamilton, John Kasay, and Eddie Taubensee on its board.

Trivial Pursuit
According to one web biography, Reynolds was or is the only shortstop in major-league history to be selected to the AL All-Star team in one season and then to be selected to the NL All-Star team in the very next season.  Please don't shoot me if that's not correct, as I did not have time to fact check it!

A Few Minutes with Tony L.
Craig Reynolds was one of the few National League players that was not in any way a star whose career I followed and whose name I knew even as a 10-year-old kid in 1982.  The reason for that is simple and personal: he was the only player in the 1982 Topps set with whom I shared a birthday.  Since then, other 12/27'ers have included at least a few more somewhat noteworthy players -- in particular Dean Palmer, Michael Bourn, and Cole Hamels all were born on December 27.  No one, though, was born on the exact same day and same year as me though.

These days, Craig Reynolds has moved on to a second career: he is a pastor at Second Baptist Church's Kingwood campus.  The video from MLB.com at the link shows the huge "campus" at which he is the pastor and speaks at three sermons each Sunday.  If that's a side campus, what must the main campus look like?  Well, Forbes called it the second largest Megachurch in America in 2009 and gave us a picture there, so take a look.

From all indications, Reynolds uses his sports background as a way to make analogies and tell stories to teach others about the Bible and his faith.  He calls getting involved with Second Baptist his "favorite thing [he's] ever done -- even more than baseball."  To be that happy in a job is truly a blessing. 

Card #34: Joe Sambito

Who Can It Be Now?
Joseph Charles Sambito was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 28, 1952.  Sambito grew up in typical Long Island fashion -- he attended Bethpage High School in Bethpage, New York, before attending Adelphi University in Garden City, New York.  And, he was a Yankees fan.   He was not drafted out of high school, and was selected in the 17th round of the June 1973 Amateur Draft by the Astros.  

He signed nearly immediately and progressed through the Astros farm systems reasonably quickly.  When the Astros needed pitching help with a flurry of doubleheaders facing them at the end of July in 1976, Sambito was called up.  In his second major league start against a terrible St. Louis Cardinals team on August 29, 1976, Sambito threw a four-hit shutout in front of 7,098 fans in the Astrodome.  Despite this initial success as a starter, Sambito started just 3 more games after this shutout.  

Instead, the Astros moved him into the bullpen -- mainly, according to an old Sports Illustrated article about his hair, because Sambito was a left-handed pitcher and the Astros did not have any lefties in the bullpen.  In multiple interviews, including the SI article but also from a radio interview from February of 2014, Sambito said he really did not care that he was put into the bullpen -- he was just happy to be in the major leagues.

Sambito may have been a guy who was "just happy to be here, hope I can help the team" in true Bull Durham style, but he flourished when he went to the bullpen.  By 1979, Sambito was the Astro's only real closer.  He finished with an 8-7 record, a 1.77 ERA, 22 saves, and a K/BB rate of 3.61 over 91-1/3 innings.  During that year, he kept opposing teams scoreless for 40-1/3 straight innings and made his only appearance on the All-Star team.  In an interview in 2001, Sambito recalled how he felt in that game (and, he got the details correct!):

Please keep in mind that as I looked across the clubhouse locker room at Rose, Morgan, Winfield, Carlton, Brock, Schmidt, etc. I was trying to understand how and why I was there.  I recall sitting in the NL bullpen early in the game and looking directly into the AL dugout.  Sitting on the bench, with his bat, was Reggie Jackson, fresh off of three successful seasons with the Yankees.  He was the biggest thing in baseball at the time.  I turned to Joe Niekro and told him all I wanted to do was face Reggie.  As it turned out, in the sixth inning, Gaylord Perry ran into some trouble and with Reggie announced as a pinch-hitter, Tom Lasorda brought me into the game.  Reggie and I had quite a battle as he fouled off 4 or 5 pitches with two strikes; he then grounded to 2B.  I intentionally walked Roy Smalley and got George Brett to fly out to shallow centerfield.  When Don Baylor was announced as the next hitter, Lasorda took me out.  I had my fun and maybe my most satisfying memory in my baseball career.

Along with Dave Smith and Frank LaCorte in 1980, Sambito formed one of the best bullpens in baseball at that time.  The Astros made it all the way to the NLCS, but the bullpen -- Ken Forsch in particular, but Sambito pitched too -- could not keep the three runners that Nolan Ryan left on base from scoring, and the eighth inning in game 5 of the best-of-5 series turned into a nightmare for Houston -- 5 runs in that inning gave the Phillies the lead.  The Astros stormed back to tie the game and send the game to extra innings, but the Phillies scored in the top of the 10th to win the game and the series.  

Sambito pitched extremely well again in 1981 -- but, perhaps, all the toil out of the bullpen over those five seasons had taken their toll on his arm.  Sambito pitched in 422-1/3 innings out of the bullpen between 1977 and 1981 -- an average of 98 innings per 162 games.  And, it was not like these were low-leverage innings, either.  Sambito finished 200 of his 292 games in that time, and only 94 of the 292 games were "low leverage" appearances according to Baseball-Reference.

As of 1982, then, Sambito was recognized as being the key guy in the Astros bullpen in many respects.  He started 1982 well -- an 0.71 ERA through 12 innings.  But, after locking down his fourth save of April on April 27 -- and being interviewed by Sports Illustrated in an article which quotes pitching coach Mel Wright as saying, "I can't ever recall his having a pulled muscle or sore arm" -- Sambito felt pain in his elbow.  At first, it was diagnosed as tendinitis.  In reality, Sambito had bone chips in his elbow and had ruptured the ulnar collateral ligament.  Yup, it was Tommy John surgery for Sambito.  

In 1982, TJS meant that a player missed at least 18-24 months, and that is what Sambito missed -- 24 months.  He did not make another appearance in a major league game until May 25, 1984.  By that point, the Astros had Frank DiPino (along with Dave Smith, Bill Dawley, Mike LaCoss, and Vern Ruhle) closing games for them. Sambito pitched in 32 games that year.

By early 1985, the Astros lost confidence in Sambito's ability to pitch and released him during spring training.  Sambito signed with the New York Mets on April 27, 1985, after tryouts with the Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Montreal Expos.  Sambito was not the same pitcher after 1984, though, and his Mets experience was not a good one.  Neither were his two years at the end of his career with the Red Sox in 1986 and 1987.  After the 1987 season and at the age of 35, Sambito called it a career.  Not bad for a guy who was just happy to be there.

Orange You Smart
While he was with the Red Sox -- and perhaps seeing his career was winding down -- Sambito joined Bill Buckner and Marc Sullivan at Northeastern University in continuing their respective college educations.  While the story does not mention what Sambito was taking for classes, it's pretty clear that what he was doing was preparing himself for life after baseball.

And what is that life after baseball?  Being a player agent.  His career has been spent with SFX Baseball, which is now known as Relativity Sports.

Here's a list of players -- past and current -- whom I can find Sambito being referred to as being their agent:  Andy Pettitte, Ryan Klesko, Jeff D'Amico, Morgan Ensberg, Will Middlebrooks, the infamous John Rocker, Paul Goldschmidt, Evan Meek, Daniel Nava, and Casey Kelly.

A Few Minutes with Tony L.
I knew who Joe Sambito was back in 1982 -- and he's fairly well described above.  He was a lefty closer who had a bad elbow.  I remember the NLCS back in 1980 as well.  I was hoping that the Astros would win that series because I really felt bad for them having to go through the trauma of having their best pitcher -- J.R. Richard -- have a stroke before a game that year.  But, that was not meant to be.

Sambito is a genial guy, from all indications I have found through interviews and news stories.  I mean, the Long Island Business News went out of its way in 2000 to distance its native son from the whole John Rocker/Sports Illustrated interview.  The story is told, certainly, from the fan boy perspective -- I mean, when one of the paragraphs says, "He was 14 the first time I ever saw him pitch, an eighth-grader brought up to play for our freshman team", well, you know it will be a favorable column.

That said, the story from the LIBN talks about how Joe Sambito went to his first major league spring training -- by leaving behind his father who was dying of cancer. It's tough to dislike the guy with that story out there.

Then again, he is a player agent.  That might change at least a couple of minds.

Card #5: Nolan Ryan Highlight

Who Can It Be Now?

It's the one, the only Lynn Nolan Ryan, whose fifth of seven no-hitters is highlighted in this card.  It had been over 6 years -- since June 1, 1975 -- since Ryan had thrown a no-hitter. Ryan spent his childhood throwing rocks and other objects at "any target", according to Wikipedia.  

In the 1950s, that was called being a kid.  These days, that would be called being a vandal.  

Trivial Pursuit

Since this card celebrates Ryan no-hitter #5, let's look at some of the trivia about all of Ryan's no-hitters.

• Ryan threw his first four no-hitters within the space of two calendar years plus 17 days -- between May 15, 1973 (#1) and June 1, 1975 (#4).
• Despite this fact of timing, Ryan never had the same catcher behind the plate twice for any of his no-hitters.  In order from 1 through 7, the catchers were Jeff Torborg, Art Kusnyer, Tom Egan, Ellie Rodriguez, Alan Ashby, John Russell, and Mike Stanley.
• The Angels lineup for Ryan's first no-hitter featured three future major league managers: Jeff Torborg, Frank Robinson (who, at age 37, hit 30 HRs and drove in 97 RBI), and Bobby Valentine.  In Ryan's second no-hitter two months later, none of those three played.
• There was a gap of 6-1/2 years between no-hitter four and five.  Between no-hitter five and six, there was a gap of just over 8-1/2 years.
• In Ryan's first three no-hitters, his second baseman was Sandy Alomar.  In Ryan's last no-hitter, the opposing second baseman was Roberto Alomar.

A Few Minutes with Tony L.

It's no secret that the sabermetric community believes that Nolan Ryan is overrated due to the love affair that baseball fans have with Ryan's strikeout records.  The reason for this belief is that Ryan (a) is first all-time in walks allowed with 2,795, and second place among Hall of Famers -- Steve Carlton -- isn't really close as Carlton is over 960 walks behind; (b) Ryan is first in the modern era with 277 wild pitches; (c) Ryan has the most losses in the post-1920 era; and (d) Ryan hit 158 batters. 

Look, Ryan is one of the best pitchers of all time by any measure.  He may have mediocre stats in some respects, but his lifetime K/BB ratio is still over 2.0 -- a measure of a good pitcher, though the best guys these days tend to have a ratio closer to 3.0 K/BB.  He had such good stuff that hitters couldn't hit the ball hard against him even if they could put the ball in play -- only 6.56 hits per nine innings prove this.

Statistics can be used to prove any argument you want.  Ryan didn't pitch on very many good teams, which could be either a defense for his rather poor win-loss record or an indictment of Ryan to say that either he chose low-stress situations with Texas teams (since as a free agent he signed first with the Astros and then with the Rangers) or he didn't do very much to make his team better, whatever that means.

I am of the opinion that Ryan is one of the best pitchers ever if only for his longevity and his strikeout totals.  Even in the swing-from-the-heels 2000s, he's still far and away the all-time strikeout king -- only Randy Johnson is within 1000 of him.  Saying he lost a lot of games is like saying that Christie Brinkley has trouble staying married -- they both are still fun to watch.