Who Can It Be Now?
Ronald LeFlore was born on June 16, 1948, in Detroit, Michigan. He was the son of an auto worker who found himself on the street early. This was not because his family could not provide for him -- he just chose to veer away from the straight and narrow. He claimed that, at age 11, he was stealing around $1,000 out of a supermarket cash register using a stick with gum on the end of it to pull dollar bills out of a cashier's box.
LeFlore told People magazine that at the age of 15, a People magazine article says that he was involved with prostitution, shoplifting, and con games. At age 16, according to LeFlore, he was snorting heroin. LeFlore said that he and some buddies needed money for drugs, so, at the age of 17, they held up a check-cashing service in particular. They were caught and sent to jail.
If there is one thing that baseball fans know about Ron LeFlore, it is that he was "scouted" or "discovered" in the Jackson State Penitentiary in Michigan by Billy Martin. LeFlore never played baseball before his incarceration on an armed-robbery conviction, but when you have 5-to-15 years to spend behind bars, I imagine you might try a few sports that you hadn't played before too.
Prison officials convinced Martin to watch LeFlore and give him a tryout. Sufficiently impressed, the Tigers signed LeFlore the day he was paroled in July of 1973 and assigned him to Single-A Clinton -- a town of around 20,000 people on the Mississippi River about 45 minutes away from the Quad Cities. That must have been culture shock to LeFlore. He only spent 32 games there in 1973 before the season ended. The next year, LeFlore was assigned to Lakeland in the Florida State League. There, his speed was on display -- 42 steals in 46 attempts -- and he hit very well too: .339/.398/.451. After just 93 games in Lakeland, the Tigers promoted him first to Triple-A Evansville for 9 games and then right to the major leagues with Detroit.
When he was first called up to the major leagues in 1974, LeFlore's story preceded him. In fact, that People article about him recounted all of the facts above. The story put LeFlore's age at 22 years old. The only problem was that LeFlore had lied about his age to the Tigers. I know -- shocking that a convicted felon in prison for robbery with a chance to get out and make gobs of money playing a game would lie about something. He told the Tigers first that he was born in 1952. Later, his story changed to being born in 1950. Only in 1976 did all the facts come out to confirm that he was born in 1948.
As the facts developed later, yes, he was arrested at age 17. That was for "attempted safe-breaking." That arrest happened in 1965, however, and not 1970 as he had claimed initially. He went to jail in January of 1966, was paroled in July of 1967, re-arrested in May of 1968 for a parole violation, paroled a second time in September of 1969, and then, in January of 1970, he was, in fact, arrested for armed robbery of a bar on Detroit's East Side.
The response to these facts from the Tigers was that they really did not care how old LeFlore was and that their only concern was whether he could play baseball. By the time these facts came to light, LeFlore had already played in 195 games for the Tigers and stolen 51 bases (against 29 CS...a terrible percentage). In those days of overlooking OBP, LeFlore's was not what you would want from a leadoff man -- .302 over 863 plate appearances.
To be fair, though, LeFlore was still learning the game (if his stories about not having played baseball before prison were true). Indeed, in 1976, LeFlore's story became even more heartwarming, if your heart can be warmed by a former armed robber becoming an All-Star. In 1976, America's hearts could be, leading to LeFlore starting the All-Star Game (with teammate Mark Fidrych starting the game for the American League).
That 1976 season was probably his best as a major league baseball player. While he couldn't field his position very well, he hit well -- .316/.376/.410 -- and stole 58 bases in 78 attempts. The whole thing was straight out of Hollywood, it seemed -- so much so that CBS couldn't help itself and made the story into a TV movie called "One In A Million: The Ron LeFlore Story" starring as LeFlore a young LeVar Burton. Go here to see some clips from it, including cameos from Norm Cash, Al Kaline, and Bill Freehan and starring Billy Martin as himself.
In 1977, LeFlore continued his hot-hitting ways, racking up 212 hits, in a "triple-double" season: he had 30 doubles, 10 triples, and 16 homers to go with his 39 SB (in 58 attempts, mind you). He walked just 37 times in 698 plate appearances, striking out 121 times.
But, you can see how it appears that LeFlore really was learning to play baseball while in the major leagues. 1978 solidified that belief. At the age of 30, LeFlore led the American League with 126 runs scored and with 68 stolen bases in 84 attempts -- far more respectable than his previous years -- while drawing 65 walks in 741 plate appearances. Even his fielding was improving somewhat, as his speed made up for occasionally lacking fundamentals. While his SLG lagged in 1978, it really seemed that LeFlore had come of age as a player.
Come 1979, however, LeFlore had a problem. His previous manager, Ralph Houk, had been fired. In June, Sparky Anderson was named manager after the team fumbled around with Les Moss and Dick Tracewski. If LeFlore and Houk agreed to disagree about team rules, well, Anderson just got upset and wanted him shipped out. So, despite LeFlore's 78 SB (in 92 attempts, an 84.78% success rate that was good enough for third in the league) and a slash line of .300/.355/.415, he was traded during the Winter Meetings in December of 1979 to the National League's Montreal Expos for pitcher Dan Schatzeder.
As one sportswriter put it the next spring, there were three reasons for the trade. The first was the Tigers' desire to bring up local football star Kirk Gibson. The second was Sparky Anderson and his rules -- no beards, no jeans, no long hair, and lots of rules. As LeFlore put it, "Obviously, he didn't feel I fit his mold. He felt I was a threat to his authority. Otherwise he wouldn't have authorized the trade." The final reason was that LeFlore was asking for a lot of money and a long-term contract.
LeFlore responded well to the trade, leading the National League in stolen bases with 97. His batting average dipped to .257, but his new-found batting eye kept his OBP at a respectable .337. That was not enough, however, to convince the Expos to make him an offer of a long-term contract.
Into that breach stepped the Chicago White Sox, who signed him to what was called a "multi-year, $2-million offer" which turned out to be a three-year deal. Interestingly, in both this article and the previous story about LeFlore, the myth of his birth being in 1952 was still being carried forward. Apparently those sportswriters -- and probably the Expos media guide -- did not get the memo from 1976 about his 1948 birth. This would continue to be the case throughout his career -- some newspapers used 1948 and others used 1952.
LeFlore thought that the Expos were making an example out of him with Gary Carter, Steve Rogers, and Warren Cromartie all coming up for new contracts. More likely, though, this was just a move similar to what the Tigers had done since the Expos had a 20-year-old left field prospect named Tim Raines chomping at the bit for his opportunity.
Perhaps the White Sox thought they were getting a thirty-year-old outfielder. I can't imagine that was the case, but maybe that is what they thought. Or, perhaps they didn't quite understand the decline phase for a player starts around 32 and that, for guys like LeFlore who rely on their speed, that decline is often extremely swift.
Indeed, that is exactly what happened. 1981 went reasonably well healthwise for LeFlore, but the bottom dropped out of his ability to take walks -- just 28 in 369 plate appearances. Then, in 1982, LeFlore's inability to follow rules came back again. He butted heads with Tony LaRussa by failing to show up for a full-team pregame workout the day after the All-Star Game and for showing up late for a day game (just minutes before game time) over the next weekend. That led to his being suspended for three games and costing LeFlore $10,000 of his estimated $625,000 salary.
Then, at the end of the season, LeFlore got in trouble with the law again. After a three-month surveillance, LeFlore was arrested in Chicago for possession of Quaaludes, a stimulant, and two unregistered .25 caliber derringers. A "reliable source" tipped off the police that LeFlore was purchasing narcotics, so the police followed him around. The White Sox placed him on their "suspended list" as a result.
That was the start of a terrible six months for LeFlore. On January 16, 1983, LeFlore's six-week-old son John Christopher died from sudden infant death syndrome. Two days later, he was ordered to stand trial for the charges from October of 1982, for which he was eventually acquitted.
Then, after a horrible spring training on top of everything else (.152 AVG, 5 for 33), the White Sox told LeFlore on March 28, 1983, that they were going to eat his salary and release him. No one else in baseball wanted to take a chance on the nearly 35-year-old outfielder with dwindling hitting ability and an attitude to match his rap sheet, and that was the end of his playing career.
Mustache Check: Ron LeFlore sported a mustache throughout his career.
Family Ties
LeFlore's cousin, Todd Steverson, was the first round pick of the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992 out of Arizona State University. Steverson was a Rule 5 pick of the Tigers in 1994, and then was traded to the Padres in spring training in 1996. He got one at-bat with San Diego that season before spending a couple more years in the minors.
The World According to Garp
When you have a story good enough for a TV movie, usually that means you have a story worth telling in book form. LeFlore worked with ghostwriter Jim Hawkins to produce a book titled Breakout: From Prison to the Big Leagues in 1978. It was 180 pages long, and the lone review of the book on Amazon says:
It is a very fast read. There are few words on each page, and it reminds me of the type of thing that I would check-out from my elementary or junior high school library when I was that age. . . . One more caveat, if you're looking for a hero or an inspirational figure look elsewhere. The subject offers little in the way of advice, lessons learned or even contrition for the things he did in his life. He seems to take the attitude of, "Hey, this is my life, this is what happened, it is what it is."
Trivial Pursuit
Ron LeFlore was the first player to lead both the American League and the National League in Stolen Bases. He led the AL in 1978 and the NL in 1980.
A Few Minutes with Tony L.
Because of his story, I was very aware of who LeFlore was. I recall being blown away at the idea of someone stealing 97 bases as well -- LeFlore and Rickey Henderson went neck-and-neck all year before Henderson ended up edging out LeFlore by hitting exactly 100 steals. Even then, I always had a bit of trepidation about LeFlore. I mean, he was a convicted felon, after all.
The intervening years since 1983 have not been kind to him. The link in that previous sentence is to a long-form story from last year that appeared in the Toronto Sun which talks about the struggles LeFlore has had since his release.
He tried to be a minor-league coach, but no one would hire him. As a result, he got a job as a baggage handler (Wikipedia says with Eastern Airlines, if you buy that). He went to umpiring school, but failed to perform well enough at that task to get hired by professional baseball. He was arrested twice for failing to pay child support -- one time in Detroit in 1999 after ceremonies to honor former Tigers players on the closing of Tiger Stadium.
Then, to cap things off, he had a hip replacement in 2009. That wasn't the worst part, though. LeFlore was a heavy smoker for his entire life and, in 2011, that piper came calling. As the Sun article quotes LeFlore:
I started having problems walking on my right leg and it started swelling up and my toes started turning dark. I had trouble getting my shoe on, so I started soaking my foot in warm water and wearing sandals all the time. Being an athlete, I had built up a high tolerance for pain...I just let it go.
When my toe turned black, I started picking at it -- and a piece of my toe came off in my hand. When I saw that, I said, "Oh, my God!"
I went back to see the doctor who had done my hip replacement and he said, "You need to get to the hospital right away. This is serious."
No blood could get to my foot. That's when they started amputating. First they cut off my baby toe. Then they removed the toe next to it, trying to see if they could save my foot. [After an artery transplant to try to save the leg], finally they amputated my leg below the knee in the third surgery.
The article closes with LeFlore wishing that someone would have given him the guidance he needed to get over his past problems. He complains that "I had no support from anybody. I don't know if they were afraid, because I was an ex-inmate, but nobody ever went out of their way to really help me."
Not to be snarky or preachy or negative, but isn't that what all the managers and teams who tried to get LeFlore to conform more to their rules were doing? Show up on time, don't miss workouts, not have the attitude that others have to conform to you?
I feel bad for his current situation in that no one deserves to lose a leg. But almost all the bad stuff in his life happened because he made choices -- choosing to smoke, to take drugs, to rob bars, to miss workouts, and to fail to pay child support. Actions have consequences, and it sounds like LeFlore has found that out over and over again.
Who Can It Be Now?
Carlton Ernest Fisk was born in Bellows Falls, Vermont, on December 26, 1947, which makes him 3 days younger than my mother. Fisk actually grew up five miles away from Bellows Falls in Charlestown, New Hampshire. As with many things in his life, Fisk was adamant about his being a New Hampster, I mean, a New Hampshirite. This point was driven home by way of a story told in his SABR biography. Fisk forced the Red Sox to recast his $3,000 plaque for the Red Sox Hall of Fame to change the reference of being a "native of Vermont" to reflect that he was raised in New Hampshire. So, don't call Carlton a Vermonter.
Anyway, Fisk was one of six children of Cecil and Leona Fisk. Cecil was a tool-and-dye engineer and a farmer, and Leona was a champion in candlepin bowling. That's about as New England as it gets, I think. Carlton was tall already as a youth, and he excelled in basketball as well as baseball, leading his high school to the Class M Semifinals in 1965 before losing to Hopkinton. Fisk scored 42 points and pulled down 39 rebounds in that semifinal game before fouling out with a minute to go. His school lost by 2 points, and Fisk's dad was upset with Carlton for missing four free throws in the loss.
Even in high school, Fisk played baseball as well. He spent his summers playing American Legion ball -- first for Claremont, New Hampshire, for a year in 1964 before switching over to Bellows Falls in Vermont (which had won the Vermont American Legion title the previous year). Despite his success as a player in both high school and American Legion, Fisk was not drafted out of high school. Instead, he accepted a basketball scholarship to attend the University of New Hampshire, where his older brother was the All-Yankee Conference sweeper for the soccer team.
Fisk spent a year and a half at UNH before the Red Sox drafted him with the fourth pick overall in the January Regular Draft in 1967. Fisk signed with the Red Sox because, as he put it, "I could never be a six-foot-two power forward and play for the Celtics."
Baseball-Reference has Fisk playing in the Florida Instructional League in 1967, while The Baseball Cube makes no reference to this (perhaps because stats don't seem to exist for that league) and the SABR biography skips right to Fisk's assignment for 1968 in Waterloo, Iowa. I will too. Fisk went to Iowa and hit well -- .338/.403/.600, 12 HR in 195 AB -- but apparently was "despondent" over the fact that the Waterloo team sucked, finishing 12 games under .500 and 26.5 games out of first.
Fisk played both in the Florida Instructional League and in Double-A with Pittsfield in 1969. Here, my sources differ on Pittsfield's level of play; I'm going with Baseball-Reference because I trust their historical facts more than The Baseball Cube, which says Pittsfield was a low-A ball team. Anyway, Fisk didn't exactly hit well -- between those two stops, he hit .243/.328/.418 with 14 HR in 465 plate appearances. Still, it was enough for the Red Sox to give Fisk 5 at-bats in September of 1969. Of course, making his major league debut hitting 8th against eventual 1969 Cy Young Award winner (undeserved, mind you, but still) Mike Cuellar didn't help Fisk. He went 0-for-4 in that game and did not get a hit that September.
Fisk went back down to Double-A, this time in Pawtucket, in 1970. His hitting was decent, as Fisk got on base and hit with power -- .229/.337/.426 versus league averages of .253/.345/.374. He then moved up to Triple-A Louisville in 1971 and got a call-up to the big leagues in September. This time, he went up to the plate flailing -- 1 walk in 49 plate appearances but .313/.327/.521 overall.
Before I leave his minor league time behind, what strikes me as somewhat odd was the fact that the Red Sox had Fisk catch over 100 games just one minor league season out of four, and that was when he spent time in the Florida Instructional League and in Double-A in 1969. Otherwise, it was about 95 games a year and 350 plate appearances. I guess they wanted to save his knees.
Whereas Fisk's minor league career might be seen as somewhat disappointing at the plate, he was an instant star in the major leagues. He was an All-Star, won a Gold Glove, and finished fourth in the MVP race in 1972 -- oh, and he did that as a rookie. He was named Rookie of the Year, and did it by winning every single vote.
Overall, though, his time in Boston was up and down. He played 130 or more games in 6 seasons of the 9 full seasons in Boston. In those other 3 seasons, however, he played in 52 (1974), 79 (1975), and 91 (1979). Then again, perhaps it was more remarkable that he was disabled more. He hit the DL in 1974 due to a groin injury and a knee injury. He spent most of the first half of 1975 on the DL as well after being hit by a pitch in spring training. He was disabled in 1979 for what was called a persistent right elbow ailment, which caused him to catch just 35 games that season.
And yet, despite having been born and raised as a New Englander, and despite wearing a Red Sox hat on his Hall of Fame plaque, he left the Red Sox before the 1981 season. The reason he left was due to a paperwork technicality. The Red Sox sent Fisk a contract for his option year two days too late after the 1980 season. The same happened with Fred Lynn's contract.
As the AP wire story linked above mentions, the issue came about under the 1976 collective bargaining agreement and was unique to Lynn, Fisk, and two other players at that point. But, to enforce the collective bargaining provision, Marvin Miller and the MLB Players Association filed a grievance on the players' behalf, alleging that missing this deadline meant that the Red Sox were required to arbitrate the players' salaries or the players would become free agents. any rights to the players' services that they may have had.
Now, in 1981, the Red Sox were seen as cheap bastards -- just ask Rick Burleson -- so the Red Sox traded their rights to Lynn to the Angels and, further, let Fisk leave in free agency. Fisk signed a 5-year, $2.9 million contract with the Chisox, keeping him on the South Side through at least the age of 37.
In his first year with the White Sox, Fisk played 96 games and hit reasonably well. Still, a 5-year contract for a 33-year-old catcher seemed like a foolish decision by the White Sox. How would his knees hold up? Would he even be in the league at the end of the contract?
With Carlton having an In Action card, we'll talk about those White Sox years tomorrow.
Mustache check: Fisk breaks the streak. I think he took the game too seriously to grow a mustache. I mean, I can't even find a Fisk photo with him wearing a mustache.
Family Ties
As I mentioned, Fisk came from an athletic family. Saying it and showing it, though, are two different things.
His father Cecil was an excellent tennis player and played semi-pro baseball and basketball. Mother Leona was a fast-pitch softball pitcher in Minnesota before moving east. She later became the high school softball coach for her daughters.
His brother Calvin was drafted in the 49th round of the 1965 draft with the 758th pick overall by the Baltimore Orioles. He came back from Vietnam at the age of 25, and the Orioles were no longer interested in his services.
Calvin's daughter Erica played tennis at Ohio State University in the early 2000s, graduating in 2003.
Carlton's brother Cedric played baseball and hockey in high school but, according to his parents, did not care much about baseball.
Another brother, Conrad, played baseball at Keene State, graduating in 1972. He had helped lead his high school, Fall Mountain, to back-to-back state titles in baseball in 1968 and 1969.
Carlton's nephew (and Conrad's son) Carrington Fisk (a name which sounds like he should have some sort of trust fund "back east") pitched collegiately at Indiana University and at the University of Tampa after being drafted in the 39th round of the 1999 June Draft by the New York Mets. Carrington now serves as the Executive Director of the Fisk Foundation.
Carrington's brother Cameron played football at the University of New Hampshire before transferring to play basketball at Keene State College. Cameron was named girls' basketball coach for Keene High in 2012.
Carrington's and Cameron's sister Carrah Fisk-Hennessey played softball and soccer at Keene State as well. She is now the head softball coach and assistant athletic director at New England College.
Carlton's son Casey played at Illinois State University as a pitcher, catcher, and first baseman in the early 1990s. He eventually got his degree and started a performance training center for athletes with professional ambitions located in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Carlton's youngest sister, Janet, also has ties to sports. She was a high school tennis player, and she helped lead her high school to four straight state titles in basketball. In one of them, he made clutch free throws to win the final game. In addition, she married into sports as well by marrying Carlton's teammate Rick Miller.
The Verdict
In 2012, Carlton Fisk was charged with DUI when he was found unconscious behind the wheel of his Ford F-150 pickup truck. The jokes write themselves about the "Field of Dreams" scenario here, but Fisk's truck was found in the middle of a corn field near New Lenox, Illinois, outside Joliet.
Granted, it was in late October, so I'm pretty sure that the corn field had been harvested at that point. He ended up resolving the case by pleading guilty to a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge. He was assessed court costs of $1250, received one year "court supervision" (probation), and had to undergo a drug and alcohol evaluation and counseling.
A Few Minutes with Tony L.
Full disclosure: I never liked Carlton Fisk. Despite my love for catchers, which has manifested itself in my baseball card collecting to include collecting Gary Carter cards and cards for Brewers catchers Charlie Moore, Ted Simmons, Dave Nilsson, Jonathan Lucroy, and B.J. Surhoff, I could never warm to Fisk.
Certainly, this is the result of the teams for which he played in combination with Fisk being the slowest damn catcher on the face of the planet. Setting aside his playing for Boston (a Milwaukee divisional rival) and the White Sox (with whom the Brewers had a mutual hate relationship spilling over from the Packers-Bears rivalry in the NFL), let's talk about how slow Fisk was. None other than friend and former teammate Bill Lee said this about Fisk in Lee's book, The Wrong Stuff:
(In Single-A Waterloo,) Carlton Fisk and I shared an apartment in town with a couple of outfielders from Massachusetts. Fisk was always late, the last one to get to the ballpark, the last one to leave. Very methodical. He was also slow at putting down signs. I used to think, Jesus, what's taking him so long? I've only got two pitches. I had my revenge later on, when we were both on the Red Sox. During one game I shook him off six consecutive times. He came out to the mound and yelled, "How the hell can you shake me off six times! I've only got five fingers!" My point exactly.
Carlton still catches the longest games in the majors. That's because he takes things in stride and likes to consider all options. He'll live to be a hundred and five, there's no doubt about it. Fisk comes from hardy stock and never gets frazzled.
Maybe so. Lee might be on to something about how long Fisk will live, though -- Fisk's father Cecil lived to be 97 years old.
Fisk also got on my nerves a bit as one of those self-appointed "protectors of the game." I know a lot of folks probably appreciated his send-up of Deion Sanders back in 1989 (here's a link to an interview between Fisk and his fellow self-appointed protector of the game Joe Morgan from last year about it).
I mean, this started back in 1973. As Bill Lee again tells the story:
Young and idealistic when he first joined us, Carlton had a utopian view of the game, viewing the majors as a large-scale version of the minors. He could not understand the clique situation on our club. The social polarization that occurs on a team is not an unusual or even necessarily a bad thing. Twenty-five guys can only stay in the same room with each other for so long. But Fisk didn't understand this. He thought everybody would be going out to eat together and be more of a group off the field. It upset him when he discovered that things weren't like that up here. He also expected Yaz and [Reggie] Smith, the team's two biggest stars, to be the club's leaders. When he didn't see them taking up the reins, he really let them have it in the papers.
Speaking out like that is okay, I suppose. But, did Fisk's mother have to pop off about Reggie Smith too? Well, she did.
His "protecting the game" did not end when he retired, either. He spoke out -- and completely messed up the facts -- about Mark McGwire's and Barry Bonds's use of steroids back in 2010.
Getting back to the Deion Sanders thing for a moment, Fisk complained to Joe Morgan about how Deion drew dollar signs in the batters' box before hitting and lollygagged to first base on a popup. As a result, Fisk screamed at Sanders that "There's right way and a wrong way to play this game." The next time up, Sanders -- and if you have seen Deion on TV, you know that he's not the wittiest guy on the planet -- says as his retort that "slavery ended years ago." That set Fisk off and started a brawl.
The only problem I have with that whole scenario is this: why the hell should Fisk want his opponent to run balls out? Wouldn't it be better for Fisk's team for Sanders to loaf around and not take things seriously? I mean, only if Sanders is on Fisk's team should Fisk care about how Sanders acts.
That's one of my problems here. Why does Carlton Fisk -- or Kirk Gibson, or Gerrit Cole, or Brian McCann, or Joe Morgan -- get to be the arbiter on what these unwritten rules of "the right way" to play the game is?
It's a game. It's not fighting ebola or the so-called Islamic State or Al-Qaeda. Lives are not lost if Deion Sanders draws a dollar sign in the batters' box or loafs when he pops out, nor are they lost if Yasiel Puig flips his bat, nor are they lost if Carlos Gomez watches a home run for its entire flight over the fence.
It's just a game.
Who Can It Be Now?
Lynn Everett McGlothen was born on March 27, 1950, in Monroe, Louisiana. McGlothen grew up on a farm seven miles outside of Grambling, Louisiana, and he attended Grambling High School.
In high school, McGlothen was a fantastic athlete. Yes, most baseball players are excellent athletes, but McGlothen was incredible. He earned sixteen varsity sports letters as a member of the football, basketball, baseball, and tennis teams. He was named to the football All-State team in 1967, and he was the state high school tennis champion as a sophomore, junior, and senior.
As the newspaper story from 1974 linked above points out, McGlothen did that while walking to school every day for two years -- seven miles each way every day. That is dedication. McGlothen either was shy or was embarrassed by the walking, because no one knew about his daily walks for two full years. After that, his coaches made sure he got at least one ride a day.
These days, he probably would have turned pro in tennis, or gone to college for football, or maybe just "focused" on one sport, but in 1968 the Boston Red Sox drafted him in the 3rd round of the June Draft.
He signed almost immediately and was assigned to Waterloo in the Midwest League. As he tried to harness his pitches and to learn control, the Red Sox kept him in Single-A ball through 1970. Throughout his minor league career, McGlothen struck out a lot of hitters -- averaging over 7.0 K/9 from 1968 through 1973, but control was his bugaboo. Between his 1969 performance at Winter Haven and his 1970 performance at Winston-Salem, McGlothen cut his walk rate from 5.3 BB/9 to 3.6 BB/9 -- leading to his ERA dropping from 3.92 in 1969 to 2.24 in 1970.
As a result, he skipped right past Double-A and went to Triple-A Louisville at the age of 21 in 1971. He did okay there, but his performance (10-10, 3.72, 179 IP, 13 HRA, 98 BB, 151K) did not earn him a September call-up. The next season, however, McGlothen's control returned, and it earned him a trip to the major leagues when Boston needed a starter at the end of June.
His first major league appearance was a loss to the Brewers, but it took him only three starts to notch his first major league win -- a complete game shutout of the Minnesota Twins on Independence Day in 1972. Despite pitching reasonably well during his rookie year for the Red Sox, however, he did not have a long leash in 1973.
It started poorly in spring training, as he hurt his knee trying to get out of the way. After that, he struggled out of the gate in his first three starts -- 13 innings, 20 hits, 14 earned runs, 6 walks, 6 strikeouts -- so the Red Sox moved him to the bullpen. McGlothen's results in three bullpen appearances were bad as well -- an ERA of "only" 6.30 with 19 hits allowed in 10 innings of work. Once it was clear that the knee wasn't healing properly on its own, he had surgery to remove cartilage from the knee and he went to Triple-A to rehabilitate.
With that demotion, his Red Sox career ended. On December 7, 1973, he was traded with John Curtis and Mike Garman to the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for Reggie Cleveland, Terry Hughes, and Diego Segui. McGlothen enjoyed his three most productive years in the major leagues while in St. Louis, finishing with a 44-40 record, a 3.49 ERA, and a 1974 season in which he was named to the National League All-Star team and pitched a scoreless 8th inning which included striking out Reggie Jackson. He even got some consideration for the Cy Young Award, picking up a vote, for a season in which Mike Marshall's 200 innings in relief convinced the BBWAA to vote for him as Cy Young -- even though McGlothen, Buzz Capra, Andy Messersmith, and Phil Niekro all had better years.
It was a tumultuous 1976 for McGlothen, though. First, he was suspended for five days and fined $300 for admitting that he threw at Mets players Del Unser and opposing pitcher Jon Matlack. Matlack retaliated, hitting McGlothen. As a result and as all the news stories of the day noted, both Matlack and McGlothen were fined an immediate $50 for intentionally hitting a batsman after being warned.
The year ended with McGlothen having his ties to the Cardinals severed. As the Cardinals looked forward at the end of that season, they decided that they needed an upgrade at third base more than they needed McGlothen. So, they traded McGlothen to the San Francisco Giants for their former third baseman Ken Reitz because their one-year Hector Cruz experiment did not work out as planned.
It was not a trade that worked out well for McGlothen. The Giants were, at best, an okay baseball team, and McGlothen's control issues reared their ugly head once again. McGlothen suffered from arm problems and spent time on the disabled list. By mid-1978, the Giants had decided that McGlothen was expendable, so McGlothen packed his bags and made his way to Chicago's North Side with the Cubs.
In Chicago, McGlothen pitched decently -- not great -- and was not helped out by the team's defense. In both 1979 and 1980 (his two full seasons with the Cubs) McGlothen served as a swingman, starting some and relieving some. In those years, his FIP was nearly a third of a run lower than his ERA -- and an extra run every 27 innings will make a difference over the course of 400 inning pitched.
The 1981 strike-shortened season saw McGlothen change teams again midway through the season. This time, though, he only changed ballparks and not area codes, as the Cubs sent him to the White Sox on August 15 -- just days after the strike ended. By this point, McGlothen was viewed strictly as a reliever.
After spring training in 1982, though, the White Sox had seen enough of McGlothen to feel that he was expendable in another way. The Sox wanted to add backup catcher Marv Foley to their roster, and McGlothen was the guy who was designated for assignment to make room. A week later, on April 13, McGlothen cleared waivers and was released.
The New York Yankees gave McGlothen one last chance, signing him to a minor league deal in May. He was called up in mid-August and pitched in one close game (giving up a home run in 1/3 of an inning) and three lost causes. After that quick look, the Yankees decided they had seen enough and released him before the end of the 1982 season. That was the end of his major-league baseball career.
Mustache Check: Yes, McGlothen went with the closely trimmed look here, but he definitely has a mustache.
Nanu Nanu
This card was McGlothen's only baseball card in 1982 and, therefore, the only card on which McGlothen appeared as a member of the Chicago White Sox. Well, sort of -- because this uniform looks like a poorly painted version of those old late 1970s White Sox uniforms, I'm pretty sure that the original photo showed him on the Cubs. It was also his final baseball card during his major league career.
He did have one card in 1992 when The Wiz put out a set of all the Yankees from the 1980s. Otherwise, nothing.
A Few Minutes with Tony L.
Lynn McGlothen is a player whom I associate with his days on the Cubs in the late 1970s. As my late aunt was a big-time Cubs fan, I would hear about the exploits of King Kong Kingman, Bill Buckner, and Rick Reuschel, so I followed them a little bit -- as much as an 8-year-old with a winning team nearby in the Brewers could. McGlothen was not someone who made much of an impact, though.
Time for a little "inside baseball." In researching this or any of the posts here at 1982 Topps, I read through a number of sources -- blogs, videos, interviews, news stories, Google's newspaper archives, and SABR biographies are the main ones -- and I use bits and pieces of those stories that I find interesting and which illuminate my subject. I try to link to all of the sources as well in case anyone is interested in seeing the source material.
If a blog or news story does not have a link for a particular fact, I do my best to try to verify it. There are times I will be right, and there are times that I will be wrong. But trying that for Lynn McGlothen was frustrating. I say that because I found three items of interest or note that I would have loved to write more about or read more about, but which I either could not find a source to back up the written information or, worse, I found the source material incorrect.
First, what I believe to be an incorrect item. Generally, BaseballLibrary.com is a decent source. It includes only squibs on most players, and McGlothen's biography is no exception. But there was one interesting fact that I wanted to use. In the BL write-up, the writer says that, "on August 19[, 1975,] against Cincinnati, [McGlothen] struck out the side on nine pitches." So, I went to Baseball Reference to find the box score and the play-by-play to highlight that feat.
The problem I encountered was that I could not find an inning in that game in which McGlothen had a one-two-three inning with three strikeouts. I'm guessing that the BL writer may have been referring to the Reds' second inning, in which Cesar Geronimo, Darrel Chaney, and Gary Nolan all struck out looking -- but the problem there is that Tony Perez led off the inning with a single. That, to me, is not striking out the side on 9 pitches. Does anyone know if MLB records track that feat and, if so, whether MLB cares if there are hits in the inning? I mean, theoretically, Chan Ho Park could have struck out the side on 9 pitches in the Fernando Tatis two-grand-slam inning in 1999, but would anyone ever count that toward the record book?
The second item came from a book review on a blog called Sleeping Hedgehog about a book by Dan Epstein called Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America In The Bicentennial Summer of '76. It makes reference to a passage in the book in which the story is about how "icon of the game Joe Torre cold-cock[ed] Cardinals pitcher Lynn McGlothen." I'm sure that this passage came from oral histories or interviews of some kind that the author had, but I just could not find a reference to it. That may be my own bad researching, but perhaps I just need to buy that book.
The final item was one of futility. Recently, Ryan Vogelsong had four straight starts in which the Giants failed to provide any runs in support of him. In the San Jose Mercury News article about this terrible hitting -- which has cost my fantasy baseball team several wins, I'll add -- the writer said that Vogelsong was "the first Giants starter since Lynn McGlothen in 1977 to get zero runs of support in four consecutive starts."
My problem here: once again, the game logs do not seem to support this. I mean, perhaps there were four straight games in which the Giants did not score while McGlothen was on the mound or was the pitcher of record -- maybe the first four games of the year? But even that is contorting facts -- since he won the fourth game of that streak when the Giants scored three in the top of the 7th and McGlothen was credited with the win. I like statistical quirks as much as anyone, but I also like those quirks to be verifiable. I just couldn't do it.
I would have liked to have written more about and learned more about McGlothen. He was a fastball pitcher with some control issues, and those control issues left him as a free agent at age 32. I could not find why Baseball Reference said he attended Grambling University -- perhaps that was what he was doing after he retired?
In any case, McGlothen passed away far too young. Less than two years after he retired, his life came to a sudden and tragic end. He was spending the night with a woman called Gloria Smith Reed in a mobile home in Dubach, Louisiana. The mobile home somehow caught on fire (no foul play was suspected) and Ms. Reed was able to save her two children, but she was not able to save McGlothen or herself. McGlothen and Reed both were overcome by the heat and flames, and McGlothen died of smoke inhalation.
He was 34 years old.
Who Can It Be Now?
Gregory Russell Pryor was born on October 2, 1949 in Marietta, Ohio. According to his articles on the website of the nutrition company he co-owns, Pryor was the fourth of six children born to a math teacher and a housewife. He was never a big man and claims that he was 5'9" tall and weighed 149 pounds when he graduated from high school in 1967 from Orlando Evans High School.
Pryor says in that same article titled "The American Dream" that he was not a highly regarded prospect coming out of high school. He certainly was not drafted, and Pryor claims that the only reason he got a baseball scholarship anywhere was because his older brother Jeff was a great pitcher with a scholarship to NCAA Division II Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida.
It turned out to be a good move for FSC and for Greg. Pryor was named to the NCAA Division II All-American Team twice and, in 1971, he led the FSC Moccasins to the first of their nine Division II National Championships (along with four other runner-up finishes) through 2014. FSC honored Pryor by inducting him into its Sports Hall of Fame in 2002 and retiring his number 17 jersey.
On the strength of his collegiate career, the Washington Senators selected Pryor in the 6th Round of the 1971 June Amateur Draft. Pryor signed almost immediately and was assigned to a low-level Single-A team in the New York Penn League at Geneva. From there, Pryor slowly worked his way up through the Texas Rangers system after the Senators moved to Arlington after the 1971 season. He struggled in two different years in Double-A -- slash of .227/.325/.310. But, the Rangers moved him up to Triple-A in 1975 anyway, and Pryor played adequately there -- .263/.324/.364 is pretty much the definition of Triple-A adequacy but not stardom, certainly. Pryor even got a look-see in an injury fill-in situation in June of 1976 with the Rangers.
At the end of 1976, however, the Rangers used Pryor and fellow utilityman Brian Doyle to obtain the remnants of Sandy Alomar, Sr.'s career. According to an interview that Pryor gave with White Sox Interactive, this did not make Pryor happy:
I finally got to the big leagues at the end of the 1976 season with the Rangers but that offseason I was traded as part of a deal involving Sandy Alomar Sr. I wound up going to Syracuse, the triple A club of the Yankees and I was angry. I was ready to play major league baseball but with New York, especially at that time, there was no place for me. This was my third year in triple A, I was in my late 20's and I knew I had to get out.
For Pryor, this meant screaming at Gabe Paul, the Yankees GM, breaking and protesting against the Yankees' minor league policy against facial hair, and telling Syracuse manager Pete Ward that Pryor "was going to be [Ward's] worst nightmare." It takes a lot of cojones to be a utility infielder type to be a pain in the ass to his organization, but that is what Pryor pledged to be.
As it turned out, Pryor had to cool his heels in Syracuse for the entire 1977 season. After that season, the collective bargaining process allowed 11 guys including Pryor to become free agents. Again from White Sox Interactive:
I was in the major leagues in 1976 and was sent back to the minors in 1977, so according to the labor agreement we were allowed to test free agency. I couldn't believe it! Shortly afterwards I got a call from the Yankees saying that they wanted me to come to New York for a meeting so I did.
I went to the Yankee offices where I met with Gabe and Mr. Steinbrenner. They offered me a two-year contract at thirty thousand dollars a year plus they would bring me up every September to be with the team. I told them that I'd think about it but that I really wanted to try free agency. Mr. Steinbrenner looked at me and said that for the rest of my life I'd be able to have 'New York Yankees' on my resume and that if I didn't take the offer, I'd move to the top of his dumbass list!
Pryor refused the offer and signed with the White Sox. He said in that interview that he did wonder going forward how things might have worked out for him, but believes he made the right decision. After all, as he put it, he "didn't turn out like George Zeber. He's the guy the Yankees did call up in September. He played a month, got a ring, and you never heard of him again."
Once Pryor got to the White Sox, he turned into a typical utility man. Outside of 1979 -- when he played 143 games and notched 525 plate appearances -- he never was a regular with any team for which he played despite making appearances at every single infield position and a few spot starts as a DH.
He was traded in spring training in 1982 to the Royals, and he spent five seasons there as George Brett's and Frank White's injury replacement. He got to appear in the 1985 World Series and picked up a World Series Ring for his efforts. If you don't believe me, just take a look at his Twitter page or, for that matter, some of his photos on Facebook.
Pryor's career came to an end when, at the end of spring training in 1987, the Royals released him. By that point, he was 37 years old and had enjoyed a nearly improbably 10-year career that in 1977 never looked like it would happen.
Mustache Check: Pryor's smiling face shows the pride with which he wears his mustache. That pride probably results from his 1977 protest, but chalk up another one for the hairy-faced.
Everybody Wants You
As I mentioned above, Pryor was traded to the Kansas City Royals in March of 1982. The White Sox received pitcher Jeff Schattinger in return. Schattinger made one appearance with the Royals in September of 1981 but never made another appearance in the major leagues again.
A Few Minutes with Tony L.
I couldn't have picked Greg Pryor out of a police lineup before I wrote this bio, but he comes across as a guy who genuinely enjoyed his time as a baseball player and, further, as a guy who wasn't afraid to step up and take a chance on something when it meant a lot to him. The conversation with Steinbrenner in 1977 is rich -- even if it happened with Pryor being half as much the hero as the story makes him out to be, the look on Steinbrenner's face must have been priceless.
In the interviews I've read and heard from Pryor, the one thing that strikes me about him is that he comes across as a true baseball fan. From his sheer delight in working with Hall of Famer Bob Lemon as a manager to watching the Pine Tar game in 1983 from the bullpen as the emergency catcher (this link has a radio interview with Pryor where that is discussed) to his position as the starting shortstop on Disco Demolition Night in Chicago in 1979, Pryor lived a truly rich baseball life.
For the past twenty years or so, Pryor's business life now revolves around two companies. First, for the past twenty years, Pryor has co-owned a vitamin supplement company called Life Priority. He writes monthly articles about the supplements, and he also has some background information about himself on that page.
His other endeavor is called Sports-aholic. They appear to have been granted a license by the University of Washington, the University of Missouri, and Kansas University to use those logos in selling t-shirts and other tchotchkes. The Life Priority supplements are also available for purchase there. There's even a video greeting from Pryor on that website front page.
Who Can It Be Now?
Robert Britt Burns was born on June 8, 1959, in Houston, Texas. Don't let that birthplace fool you though -- Britt Burns is a Birmingham native. He attended Huffman High School in Birmingham and graduated at the age of 19 in 1978.
Why was he older than the rest of his classmates? When he was 13 years old, he missed an entire year of school due to the fact that he needed pins inserted into his hips to stabilize the growth centers at the upper ends of his femurs. As a 1982 Sports Illustrated article put it, Burns still "lurches from side to side as he walks, as if he were on stilts." Despite this, Burns was an incredible high school pitcher at Huffman -- in 139 innings, he had a 20-1 record with 292 strikeouts, 30 walks, and just 30 hits allowed.
Even so, the only reason that the White Sox had even heard of Burns was happenstance. As a senior, Burns threw an 18-strikeout no-hitter in the rain in front of two dozen scouts. Burns said that he had hoped that the game had impressed the scouts enough but, if it had not, he was prepared to take Auburn University up on its scholarship offer and play baseball there.
Burns never got to Auburn, because the White Sox drafted him in the third round of the 1978 June Draft. Oddly enough, the White Sox were not one of the teams represented by a scout at Burns's no-hitter. That organization heard about the game thanks only to former Chicago Tribune book editor Robert Cromie sending a newspaper article of the game to Bill Veeck. In response, Veeck then sent a scout to Birmingham. The scout (later pitching coach Ken Silvestri) was sufficiently impressed and the Sox drafted Burns.
Bill Veeck was not one to let potential revenues stand in the way of player development. Burns spent all of 51 innings in the minor leagues in 1978 at Single-A Appleton and Double-A Knoxville before the White Sox called Burns up to start a game against the Detroit Tigers on August 5, 1978. Even though he had been drafted just two months prior, Burns was not the first player from his draft class to debut in the majors -- the Braves pushed third-baseman Bob Horner directly from the campus of Arizona State University into the lineup at Fulton County Stadium.
Putting it lightly, Burns was overmatched entirely -- as you might expect that most high school pitchers would be. He sported a 12.91 ERA in 7-2/3 innings, giving up 14 hits and striking out 3. Those results convinced the White Sox to let Burns develop somewhat more in 1979 in the minor leagues. He didn't enjoy great success in Double-A or Triple-A that year, though he did display fairly good command and a high strikeout rate for the time.
The White Sox, though, were not a good baseball team in the late 1970s or into the early 1980s. So, having very little to lose by blooding new talent, the White Sox decided to start 1980 with Britt Burns in their starting rotation. Burns responded fairly well, throwing 238 innings and finishing 15-13 with a 2.84 ERA -- a finish which put him fifth in the Rookie of the Year voting behind Joltin' Joe Charbonneau.
Looking at more advanced metrics, though, shows how good of a year Burns really had -- he led American League Pitchers in Wins Above Replacement at 7.0 WAR. That number put him fifth overall in the AL behind George Brett's 9.5, Rickey Henderson's 8.7, Willie Wilson's 8.5, and Robin Yount's 7.1. The BBWAA was distracted by the loud noise and shiny stuff that was Steve Stone's 25-7 season (WAR: 2.4) and handed Stone the Cy Young Award.
When the calendar turned to 1981, the White Sox were pleased with their young starting pitching led by Burns, Rich Dotson, and Steve Trout. Burns turned in another good season in that strike-shortened year. He went to his one career All-Star game after the strike ended in August of 1981. Burns finished seventh in the Cy Young race with two vote points and fifth in WAR with 4.0.
However, 1981 was a very bitter one for Burns. On July 16, his father was struck by a car outside his family's summer home. He never recovered and passed away at the age of 51 on September 9. From the time that baseball began again in August, Burns was on airplanes regularly as he commuted back-and-forth between Chicago (or wherever the White Sox were playing) and Birmingham. In retrospect, Burns found that his father's condition gave him "strength and determination [that he] never knew [he] had."
Many prognosticators saw the White Sox pitching staff in 1982 and thought that certainly they would be contenders in the American League West. And, they did finish 87-75, 6 games behind the division winning California Angels. Burns missed time due to injuries, and LaMarr Hoyt took over as the staff ace. Certainly, 1983 was a happier season for the Sox, even if Burns again missed time with various ailments. The White Sox won 99 games and the AL West, but they then lost out in the ALCS against the eventual World Series champion Baltimore Orioles.
Burns pitched two more years in Chicago, finishing 1985 with another seventh place Cy Young finish after an 18-11 record. At age 26, Burns was a man in demand. The White Sox recognized that another similar year like that from Burns would make him very expensive. So, the Sox traded him in December of 1985 to deep-pocketed Uncle George Steinbrenner and the New York Yankees.
The Yankees viewed Burns as the missing cog to push them over the top to the AL East Division title. Unfortunately for Burns, however, his hips became a problem again. As a New York Times story from 1985 mentions, Burns was examined by Dr. Dan Kanell (who is the father of former NFL Quarterback Danny Kanell); the doctor told Burns and the club that Burns risked being left "a cripple" if he continued to pitch.
Burns was afflicted with osteoarthritis, a disease which made even putting on his shoes an extremely painful process. After 1985, Burns got divorced and spent a lot of time alone elk hunting. The elk hunting made him realize that he might yet have a chance to pitch again because he was reasonably mobile out in the wilderness. So, in 1990, he tried. Despite his best efforts, though, Burns never did pitch for the Yankees in the regular season.
Trivial Pursuit
While he apparently spent a lot of time hunting elk in the American West, Burns did not content himself to a life of leisure and hunting camps. Indeed, he saved most of his salaries from the early 1980s and owned and operated "a dude ranch" in Colorado during that time. I can't help but see Billy Crystal in City Slickers whenever someone mentions the term "dude ranch."
A Few Minutes with Tony L.
I was well aware of Britt Burns, Richard Dotson, Steve Trout, LaMarr Hoyt, and the rest of that White Sox rotation in 1982. After all, the Sox were that team that was located just 90 miles south of Milwaukee County Stadium. I'll let you in on a little secret: people in Wisconsin aren't particularly enamored with their more urban and urbane neighbors to the south. If you doubt me on that, try attending an NFL game between the Bears and Packers and see how that goes.
After his aborted attempts to come back and pitch despite his hip condition in the early 1990s, Burns followed the path that Mike Cubbage took -- he became a "baseball man," a lifer. When his old pal Dave Dombrowski was named the General Manager of the new Florida Marlins in 1993, Burns gave Dombrowski a call to see if the Marlins had any room in their organization for Burns to be a coach.
The Marlins hired Burns and assigned him to the Gulf Coast League. From there, Burns worked his way up the chain and became the Marlin's minor league pitching coordinator before Jeffrey Loria bought the team. Burns went on to work in the Astros organization. Finally, in December of 2012 at the age of 53, Britt Burns was signed again by the Chicago White Sox. Burns found himself back Birmingham after a long trek around the minor leagues of America. As of this writing, Burns is still the pitching coach in Birmingham.
