17 year stretch of consecutive winning seasons. In that sorry 13 year span, Sox had 1 winning season and 1 .500 season in which Dick Allen won the AL HR title. In the 11 other seasons, there were 1977 S. Side Hit Men and 10 losing seasons.
Put another way, in 11 years Harry was on the mike, they had 3 winning, 7 losing, and 1 .500 record.
Another odd factoid of that era is that, prior to '71, they never had a HR champ. They had Melton in '71 and Allen in '72 & '74. I don't recall them having one since.
Juan Marichal had more complete games than wins for their entire careers. Think about that.
Look how many other pitchers had good ERAs and were below .500. Hoyt must have gotten good run support.
in those days, they couldn't catch, either.
Must have sucked to go 2-12 with an ERA more than half a run lower than the league average.
And three seasons later, Hoyt won the AL Cy Young.
You had two good fielders, at first (Mike Squires) and in center (Chet Lemon) and the young Harold Baines was serviceable, but the rest were largely terrible, maybe the worst fielding in baseball.
You made me curious. It seems in those three complete games he had:
1. a no decision against Texas on June 2 (1-1 called in the bottom of the sixth after a rain delay)
2. a 1-0 loss against Toronto on June 9
3. a 1-0 victory over the California Angels on July 2 (only victory of the season after winning his first start of the season on April 13)
Remarkably, I forgot Britt Burns (thanks, Tito Landrum and Slotts) when trying to guess a pitcher from that team whose last name started with a "B" and appeared on a list of highest single-season WAR.
Once I remembered Baumgarten, I wanted to refresh my memory about his career. He was a supporting actor in a favorite college memory.
A few friends and I were attending opening day at Comiskey Park in 1981. Lo and behold, we were sitting near David Israel, award-winning sports columnist for the Chicago Tribune at the time.
After Baumgarten threw a pitch that was called a ball to the first batter of the game Israel stood up and bellowed, "Throw a strike, you bum!!"
We've retold that story many of times, having spent our undergraduate years working in ND Sports Information and The Observer.
Only within the last year or so, as my buddy (who was in attendance) was working on a book chronicling his attendance at one (or more) MLB openers for 50 straight years, did we get the whole story.
Israel was in the stands with colleagues celebrating his imminent departure from the Tribune and move to LA. They had started drinking long before the 1:15 p.m. first pitch.
As it turns out, Israel and Baumgarten were friends.
And you thought my original post contained more than you wanted to know.
And nice Sydney Harris reference in your subject line.
he was out of MLB at the age of 26, due to hip issues. After the '85 season he was traded to the Yankees (for whom he never played) for Ron Hassey and Joe Cowley. Actually, the more interesting stuff pertains to Cowley. In his only season for the Sox he had two historical starts. In May, he set the then-MLB record by striking out the first seven batters he faced. In September he threw a no-hitter for his last MLB victory, becoming the first (and so far only) pitcher to throw a no-no for his last win.
...Back in the day when our local papers had a number of really good columnists--Harris, Kup, Dave Condon, Royko, et al.
those names would be in boldface.
Good DAY