Who Can It Be Now?
Patrick John Underwood was born on February 9, 1957 in Kokomo, Indiana. He attended Kokomo High School in Indiana, and it is not hyperbole to say that he had an incredible high school pitching career. He still ranks first in Indiana High School baseball history in career strikeouts (637) and career shutouts (22), and he is still amongst the top 5 all time in complete games (40), consecutive scoreless innings (75), innings pitched (338), career no-hitters (6), shutouts in a season (8), and career ERA (0.58). Granted, that didn't make him a football star -- he was the quarterback who led Kokomo High School to an 0-10 season as a senior.
But, his baseball ability led him to a crossroads. He signed a National Letter of Intent to attend the University of Missouri on a baseball scholarship in 1976. But, the Detroit Tigers came calling with a $75,000 signing bonus after selecting Underwood with the 2nd overall pick in the June 1976 draft (one spot after Floyd Bannister).
Underwood took the money over the scholarship and signed with the Tigers. The Tigers assigned him to Lakeland in the Florida State League in 1976 after asking Underwood whether he would rather pitch in the lower-level Appalachian League. He pitched well there -- 6-2 record, 2.22 ERA in 77 innings with 32 walks and 45 strikeouts. That led the Tigers to push their young sensation to Double-A Montgomery for 104 innings in 1977, where Underwood's pitching got him promoted to Triple-A Evansville. While that 50 innings was not impressive, Underwood was nearly 5 years younger than the average player in the American Association. There was no need to rush him.
Perhaps Detroit agreed, or perhaps Underwood was injured in 1978. I can't find anything specific on it, but I am guessing that injuries limited Underwood to 104 innings at Evansville in 1978. In the late 1970s, teams weren't all that concerned with limiting innings and for a predicted future star like Underwood to pitch just 106 innings smacked of injuries.
By the time 1979 rolled around, however, Underwood must have been ready to go. He did not make the major league team right out of spring training. But, near the end of May that season, the Tigers summoned Underwood from Evansville and slotted him into the starting rotation. The need to call up Underwood came from the injury problems that plagued Mark Fidrych and caused the Bird to be put on the 21-day DL.
Underwood made his first start and major-league debut on May 31, 1979 in front of just 12,423 fans at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. On the mound for the Blue Jays was none other than Pat's older brother, Tom Underwood. In the end, the younger brother Pat went 8-1/3 innings, allowed just 3 hits and one walk, and struck out four to earn the win over his brother. Tom was undone by allowing a Jerry Morales solo home run in the top of the 8th inning -- the only run scored in the game. The Underwoods were also lucky that several members of their family and friends from Kokomo were able to attend.
Underwood started 15 games in 1979, throwing 121-2/3 innings for the Tigers at the age of 22 and just three years removed from his high school graduation. He spent all of 1980 with the Tigers, starting just 7 games for Sparky Anderson's team. Anderson preferred Dan Schatzeder to Underwood for his lefty in the starting rotation, and further preferred Jack Morris and Dan Petry to Underwood for other rotation spots.
1981 was a lost season in some respects for Underwood. He spent the entire year in Triple-A Evansville again. His strikeout rate had declined to just 4.9 per 9 innings in 1981 from his previous stints in Triple-A in 1979 (6.6 K/9), 1978 (6.3 K/9), and 1977 (6.7 K/9). Something seemed wrong.
It became apparent what was wrong in 1982 and 1983. Underwood was suffering from elbow trouble. Even in spring training in 1983, an AP story about the Tigers mentioned that Underwood was hobbled with a sore elbow but that he, "continues to throw, defying doctors' advice." The Tigers flew team physician Dr. Robert Teitge in to look at Underwood late in spring training, and he missed his last regular turn in the spring rotation.
Sadly for Underwood, the elbow problem eventually ended his career. He hooked on with a number of minor league clubs into 1984, but he was not able to pitch effectively. As a result, at age 27, he was out of baseball.
Mustache Check: Underwood has a mustache that only a 25-year old would grow.
Family Ties
As I mentioned above, Pat's older brother Tom Underwood pitched in the major leagues and, indeed, enjoyed a far longer career than Pat. Unfortunately, Tom passed away from cancer in 2010.
Pat's nephew -- Tom's son -- J.D. Underwood -- was a 5th round pick of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2013. He has pitched pretty unsuccessfully in the Pioneer League the past two years in Ogden.
Unfortunately, I do not believe that these Underwoods are related to country singer Carrie Underwood. Otherwise, I would put a photo of her here rather than just linking to this gallery of her on the beach.
The Message
Too many guys in professional sports take a short-term view and assume that they will have twenty-year careers and make tens or hundreds of millions of dollars playing the game they love. On the other hand, Pat Underwood did something incredibly smart: he took part of his signing bonus and set it aside so that he could fund his future college education. As the story in the alumni magazine for Indiana University at Kokomo mentions, he graduated in 1989 from IUK with a degree in business.
A Few Minutes with Tony L.
I remember Pat Underwood, mainly because of his brother being a pitcher as well. I was (and I guess I still am) fascinated by the families with such athletic talent that they could produce multiple major leaguers.
That said, and other than Underwood being a high draft pick 6 years earlier, I cannot understand why Underwood got a Topps card in 1982. Sure, he pitched in the majors all year in 1980, but he did not even sniff the big leagues in 1981. It's just a strange inclusion in the set.
The best thing for Underwood was that he was both smart and lucky. He was smart for putting away money enough to fund his education in recognition that he would not be able to play baseball his whole life. He was lucky in that he could re-settle in his hometown, Kokomo, go to college, get married, and get a job as a quality engineer with Delphi Electronics in Kokomo.
This past summer, he also got to play baseball again in a great charity event in Kokomo that involved 30 other former big leaguers such as Hall of Famers Rollie Fingers and Ferguson Jenkins along with George Foster, Darrell Evans, Mark Whiten, Ryan Thompson, Wes Chamberlain, Anthony Telford, and Ron Robinson. The story quoted Underwood as saying that he was apprehensive about the game because he hadn't "pitched in any kind of competition in 30 years." The event raised money for a charity called The Greatest Save, which is focused on helping kids to be safe and aware and help avoid child abductions and, further, teen dating abuse as well.
In addition to that charitable appearance, Pat and his wife appeared in the local Kokomo Tribute a couple of years ago for adopting a dog that had been seized from a farm in north Kokomo. That farm was the home of an animal hoarder; the ammonia levels from urine and feces in the house were so great that people coming into the house experienced burning eyes and throats.
While Pat's big league career was cut short, he was honored at both the county and state levels in Indiana with induction into their respective baseball halls of fame. Sometimes, as the country song goes, it's good to be itty-bitty and live a good life.
Who Can It Be Now?
Robert Michael Bailor was born on July 10, 1951 in Connellsville, Pennsylvania. (The excellent SABR Biography about Bailor and the Earl McRae biography from the Montreal Gazette provides the background information here.) Bailor was born to a third-generation Polish immigrant family whose name was changed from Bialkowski to Bailor. Bob's father, also named Bob, was a train engineer for his entire life -- completing a three-generation family tradition of working for the railroad companies in Connellsville. Connellsville was also the hometown of Notre Dame and Chicago Bears football legend Johnny Lujack, and that fact gave town kids hope that a Polish kid with athletic talent could get out of the Southeastern Pennsylvania mountains and make something of himself.
Bob Jr. was brought up by his family with a baseball bat and glove in hand. He learned to hunt and fish at an early age as well. Bailor's father told the story in 1977 of how little Buzz (as he was called in Connellsville) loved baseball so much that he wanted to play catch in the snow with his dad. Bob's dad's words oozed parental pride from the pages of the Montreal Gazette profile: "Y'see, this is the first time it's happened to a baseball player. We've had our football stars, Jim Braxton and Bo Scott? Right from Connellsville. But this is the first time a baseball player has gone from Connellsville to the majors. Why, the old ball patches are going to be crawlin' with kids this spring."
Bailor starred in basketball for his hometown Geibel High School, and he played baseball for American Legion teams in the area during that time as well. That's right -- he did not play high school baseball because his school did not have a team. After he graduated high school in 1969 and to avoid going to Vietnam due to his low draft number, Bailor enrolled at California State College near Pittsburgh and, not having been drafted by baseball with the same vigor as Uncle Sam's draft (that would be, at all), Bailor resigned himself to a life without baseball as an occupation.
But, his American Legion manager, August Herman Welsh, arranged for him to play on a tournament team for a tournament that Welsh knew would draw a Baltimore Orioles scout. Welsh's friend was the scout, and Welsh hoped that Bailor would impress the scout enough to get a contract. That's exactly what happened, and Bailor signed with the Orioles as an undrafted free agent.
After signing, Bailor slowly and steadily rose up through the Orioles system. He tried his hand at pitching in his first season in the Appalachian League with Bluefield, and that went horribly, horribly wrong -- 1 inning, 7 hits, 2 walks, 8 earned runs, and 1 strikeout for a 72 ERA -- but his hitting was pretty good. He never hit for power at any point in the minor leagues, but his batting average was always around .290 and his OBP hovered steadily around .350.
His 1973 season was cut very short by a severe hamstring pull, however, and that year may have been pivotal for his later development as well. Because of that injury, Bailor may have missed out on a 1974 call-up to the big club. As Bailor told The Pittsburgh Press in 1977, 1973 was, "[a] pivotal year. Baltimore was going to need a utilityman the next season. Tim Nordbrook . . . had a good year, and he got the job."
Bailor got his first taste of major league action in 1975 with the Baltimore Orioles in a September call-up. His family was rightfully proud, as the Montreal Gazette article described:
As soon as the season ended, he went back home to Connellsville, happier than he had ever been in his life, convinced the dream of a lifetime was close. His mother stuck a color photograph of him in his Oriole uniform on the refrigerator door and his dad wore an Oriole cap when taking his train down to Cumberland.
That winter, after three months of baseball inactivity, he was called and asked to report to Venezuela to play second base for Magallanes. He was inserted immediately into the lineup at an unfamiliar position and ended up injuring his shoulder -- an inflamed rotator cuff, according to Dr. Robert Kerlan, to whom Bailor was referred by his teammate Jim Palmer.
The shoulder issue effectively ended his Orioles career. While he made the Orioles roster in 1976, he was unable to play in the field. Add in the fact that the Orioles had an infield with Bobby Grich, Mark Belanger, and Brooks Robinson, and you have the reason that, along with the shoulder issue, the Orioles chose to leave Bailor exposed in the 1976 Expansion Draft. The Seattle Mariners picked Ruppert Jones as their first expansion pick. The Blue Jays then selected Bob Bailor, making Bailor the first ever Toronto Blue Jay major league player.
Bailor became an instant fan favorite for the Blue Jays. He went on an early season hitting tear, batting .381 in late May and trailing only all-time great Rod Carew, who was flirting with .400 that year. Bailor ended up having his best season in the majors in his rookie year. In 122 games (523 plate appearances), Bailor went up to the plate swinging and making contact. He slashed at .310/.335/.403, walking just 17 times and striking out a meager 26 times. He stole 15 bases, hit 5 triples, and hit 5 of his career 9 HR in 1977. He did all that while appearing in 54 games at shortstop, 15 games in leftfield, 47 games in centerfield, and 2 games in right field.
Bailor's versatility kept him employed in major league baseball, serving both as a curse and as a godsend. The only positions at which he did not appear in the major leagues were first base (being 5'11" tall apparently led managers not to put him there) and catcher -- and he hit all the other positions including pitcher (3 games) during the 1979 season alone for Toronto. In his biography for the Fayette County (PA) Sports Hall of Fame, Bailor is quoted as saying that he ended up using his versatility was probably the reason why the Blue Jays selected him:
I think the big reason Toronto took me in the expansion draft was because I could play everywhere. I started out playing shortstop with them, but then when they started building the foundation and getting a new player - well, then I'd move somewhere else - third base and second, centerfield, all over the place. Well, finally they got good and they traded me.
Bailor became a New York Met, traded to the Mets for pitcher Roy Lee Jackson and stayed in New York for three years, where once again he played all over the diamond and hit about .265 with no power and a little speed -- stealing 20 bases in 1982 and 18 in 1983.
His versatility led to all kinds of compliments from his then-manager, former Brewers manager George Bamberger, who called Bailor "a regular [who] doesn't have one position. He plays wherever I need him." For his part, Bailor would have preferred one position: "My dad told me the more positions you can play, the better. But it has its drawbacks, too. You never get a starting position."
The small town boy in Manhattan felt out of place but his next move did not make his world get much smaller -- making his way to Los Angeles as the player-to-be-named-later in a trade that involved Sid Fernandez going to the Mets in exchange for Carlos Diaz. When asked around that time about being the utilityman going to the Dodgers, Bailor quipped in response: "I hate to use the term 'utility player.' It sounds like a guy who changes light bulbs."
If Bailor felt out of place in Manhattan, he felt like a TV star going to Los Angeles. Well, maybe a TV character, as he said in 2010: "Once again, I went from New York City to LA. I felt like Jed Clampett going out there." Bailor stayed for two seasons with the Dodgers until the owners' decision to go to a 24-man roster cost him his job. He was the last cut from the Dodgers in 1986, and Tommy Lasorda called around to try to find him a major league job. Finding only Triple-A assignments, Bailor decided to call it a career.
Mustache Check: Being a member of the utility man's brigade must have meant that Bailor kept clean-shaven as a union rule of sorts. No mustache here.
Trivial Pursuit
Bailor's .310 AVG in 1977 for the expansion Blue Jays was at that time the highest batting average for any player on a first-year expansion team. I think it is still a record for the highest rookie batting average on a first-year expansion team, but it is not the highest average for any player on a first-year expansion team any more. In 1993 in the thin air and expansive outfield in Colorado, Andres Galarraga hit .370.
A Few Minutes with Tony L.
Bailor registered in my consciousness as a kid only to the extent that he was an original Blue Jay. For whatever reason, I remembered him for his 1979 season when he appeared regularly in the Toronto outfield in right field and, therefore, I always classify him as an outfielder mentally.
Also for whatever reason, I have a memory of him playing well against Milwaukee. The numbers don't necessarily support that or deny that -- I mean, he was just about at his own career averages as a player against the Brewers, and it's not like he hit one of his 9 career homers against Milwaukee. He did walk 8 times against the Brew Crew against only 1 strikeout, so perhaps I remember Bob Uecker making some line about how tough Bailor was to get out.
Since his retirement from baseball, Bailor was around baseball for a little while before getting away from the game entirely. When the Blue Jays traded him, Pat Gillick told Bailor that "if any when [Bailor] decided to retire as an active player, we would certainly welcome him back in an on-field position."
After taking a year away from baseball after his Dodgers experience "mostly fishing and water-skiing in Utah", Bailor accepted a position managing the Dunedin Blue Jays in the Florida State League. He moved up to Syracuse in 1988 and spent four years as the Chiefs' manager. When the Jays made a managerial change in 1989, he interviewed for the job that went to Cito Gaston.
Bailor then moved up to the big-league club as the first-base coach in 1992 through 1995, where he won two World Series rings. When the Jays fired Gaston after the 1995 season, they fired all of his coaches along with him. Bailor looked for a job for a little while, but then decided to retire. He and his wife -- a flight attendant for American Airlines whom he met in Los Angeles -- make their home in Palm Harbor, Florida. Bailor still hunts and fishes in his old hometown and he still has a home there.
Bailor is small town through and through. Indeed, as he said in 2010, "if it were up to me, I would probably be in Connellsville full time."
He's a splendid contrast to his fellow Pennsylvanian, Doc Medich.
