This Week in Baseball: 1984

This week’s article chronicles the goings on during the week of April 15-21, 1984.

April 15:

• Texas starter Dave Stewart goes into the ninth with a five-hit shutout over the Blue Jays and a slim 1-0, but surrenders back-to-back solo home runs to Willie Upshaw and Cliff Johnson and loses 2-1.

• Dan Quisenberry enters the Royals’ game against the Brewers at the start of the eighth inning to protect a one-run lead and promptly surrenders the lead when he walks Robin Yount and gives up singles to Cecil Cooper and Ted Simmons. Dion James breaks the 2-2 tie with a sacrifice fly to left field that results in a double play when Ben Oglivie is caught in a run down between first and second. Rollie Fingers also enters the game in the eighth and retires five of the six batters he faces, fanning three in 1 2/3 innings to record his second save of the season.

Remember when closers pitched more than an inning to earn their saves? It’s interesting to note that both closers entered the game in the eighth inning and it’s also interesting that Quisenberry, despite losing the lead, stayed in the game and pitched the final two innings. Quiz appeared in 72 games for the Royals in ‘84, threw 129 1/3 innings (averaging more than 1 2/3 innings per appearance) and saved 44 games. He also walked only 12 of the 506 batters he faced, which makes Yount’s walk in the eighth all the more impressive. The 37-year-old Fingers, on the other hand, pitched in only 33 games for the Brewers and tossed only 46 innings (1 1/3 IP per appearance), but he saved 23 games and posted a very nice 1.96 ERA and an ERA+ of 198. His ERA+ in ‘84 was the second best of his career behind the incredible 332 he posted in the strike-shortened 1981 season.

• The Orioles and Indians score six total runs through the first eight innings of their game before plating five combined runs in the ninth in a game the O’s eventually win 6-5. Baltimore goes up 6-3 with a three-run ninth, but Cleveland comes back with two in their half of the inning thanks to walks to Ron Hassey and pinch-hitter Broderick Perkins and a single by Brett Butler that’s butchered by right fielder Jim Dwyer and pushes two runs across for the tribe. Butler goes to second on the error, then steals third, but is gunned down at the plate for the game’s final out by Dwyer who hauls in Tony Bernazard’s fly ball and fires to the plate to nail Butler and atone for his error.

• LaMarr Hoyt goes nine innings against the Yankees and allows only one run on four hits, but the White Sox lose in 10 frames when the Yankees rally for a 2-1 win. After three plus years as a starter, Dave Righetti begins his second career as a closer by earning the win in relief of Ron Guidry.

• The Angels ride four home runs, one each by Reggie Jackson, Brian Downing, Rob Wilfong, and Juan Beniquez, to a 12-8 win over the A’s. The game remains close (10-8 in the ninth) before Beniquez’s two-run shot off Tom Burgmeier gives the Angels more breathing room.

After the game, Angels manager John McNamara told reporters, “Homers are what this club is all about. If we get decent pitching we’ll win.” The Angels did win (sort of), finishing the season with a pedestrian .500 record, but only three games behind the A.L. West division champion Royals. They finished with 150 homers, good for sixth in the A.L., and scored 4.3 runs a game, good for seventh. But they also allowed 4.3 runs a game, good for eighth in the league, which explains their 81-81 record (Pythagoras would have been proud). The Angels reliance on the home run at the expense of other offensive categories most certainly killed them as they posted one of the league’s worst OBAs (.318), the second worst batting average (.249), and recorded the fewest doubles (211). And their pitchers didn’t pitch well enough to help them overtake the Royals. A 30-run swing in either direction (more runs scored or fewer allowed) would have given them 84 wins and a chance at the postseason. That’s only a .185 runs-per-game improvement.

• The Reds blow a 5-1 eighth-inning lead and lose 6-5 to the Astros when Houston scores four runs in the bottom of the eighth to tie the score and a run in the bottom of the ninth to win. Reliever Tom Hume allows three runs on five hits and three walks in 1 1/3 innings and gets the loss.

• Pinch-hitter Dusty Baker singles in two runs in the top of the ninth to give the Giants a 6-4 lead over the Dodgers, but L.A. responds with two runs of their own off reliever Doug Minton to knot the score at 6. San Francisco eventually plates two more in the top of the 11th against closer Tom Niedenfuer to take the contest, 8-6.

• Neither Atlanta’s Craig McMurtry nor San Diego’s Andy Hawkins last more than 2 1/3 innings in a game that features 10 runs in the first three innings, but none over the last six. Six relief pitchers combine to throw 12 scoreless innings to close out the game. Sid Monge earns his second win of the season for the Padres while Goose Gossage records his fourth save.

Monge’s win was his last for the Padres in 1984. He was sold to Detroit in June and would have faced his former team in the World Series had he made an appearance in the Fall Classic, but he didn’t. 1984 would prove to be Monge’s final season in the majors.

• The Cardinals manufacture a run in the bottom of the first off Pirates hurler Larry McWilliams (Lonnie Smith singled, Ozzie Smith doubled, George Hendrick grounded out), then use four pitchers to shut out Pittsburgh for a 1-0 win. The game takes only two hours and 12 minutes to complete.

This was an interesting game mostly because Bob Forsch was removed after only 4 1/3 innings despite allowing only three hits and fanning two. He coaxed Doug Frobel into a ground out to short to begin the fifth, then left in favor of Dave Rucker, who earned the win. Forsch started five more games between April 15 and May 21, pitched in relief on May 23, and started on May 31, but he was terrible, throwing more than five innings only once and posting a 5.40 ERA in 21 2.3 innings. Forsch was eventually diagnosed with inflammation of the sacroiliac and underwent back surgery in early June. Amazingly, he returned in September. He was still terrible, posting a 7.59 ERA in 10 2/3 innings, but that he came back from back surgery so soon is pretty incredible.

• Former Yankees manager Billy Martin is jailed by Newport Beach (California) police after they respond to a complaint from neighbors that an intoxicated Martin is standing on his front lawn screaming at a female companion. He’s charged with public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. Martin’s attorney, Eddie Sapir, tells reporters that he has no details of the arrest, but admits to being relieved that Martin hadn’t struck anyone during the altercation.

Billy Martin? Hitting someone during a fight? Never!

• When asked why they hadn’t staged a ceremony for Expos first baseman Pete Rose after he swatted his 4,000th career hit, a Montreal official answered, “only 12 of those hits are ours.”

• Tom Yantz reports in the Hartford Courant that the A’s are the most improved team in the American League West. New closer Bill Caudill credits their resurgence to an improved team chemistry.

The A’s won three more games in 1984 than they did in ‘83 and finished in fourth place. Their standing among A.L. West teams in 1983? Fourth place. Ironically the most improved team in the A.L. West in ‘84 proved to be Seattle, Caudill’s former team.

• After his team gets off to a 8-0 start, Detroit manager Sparky Anderson tells reporters, “I’ve been 15 years in this business. You just wait for these kinds of teams. It’s kind of a dream. Come October, they’re going to have a lot of fun.”

Anderson’s comments after only eight games smacked of braggadocio, but he certainly knew what he was talking about and, considering he managed Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine, he clearly knew talent when he saw it. The Tigers won 104 games in a season where no other team won more than 96 and only three others won 90. They went 18-2 in April and opened up a six-game lead over the rest of the division. By the end of May, they were 37-9 and were destroying everything in their path, except the Blue Jays, who were 32-15 and still only 5 1/2 games out of first place. Detroit came back to earth in June and won “only” 58% of their games over the rest of the season, but they pulled away from Toronto and finished 15 games ahead of the Jays. And Anderson was right about October; his team swept the Royals in the ALCS, then easily dispatched the N.L. champion Padres in the World Series, 4 games to 1.

April 16:

• A’s slugger Dave Kingman homers three times in Oakland’s 9-6 win over Seattle and drives in eight of the team’s nine runs. Mariners hurler Matt Young surrenders two of Kingman’s bombs and also gives up a solo shot to Joe Morgan before leaving the game in the fifth. The three-homer game is Kingman’s fifth and puts him one behind Johnny Mize, who accomplished the feat six times in his 15-year career.

• A day after hitting four homers in a win over the A’s, the Angels hit none and lose to Minnesota, 9-2. The Twins plate eight runs in the sixth inning, four of which come on a Kent Hrbek grand slam off Angels pitcher John Curtis. Hrbek records two hits in the inning, singling to start the rally, then plating the last four runs of the onslaught with his grand salami. Mike Smithson goes the distance for the Twins and fans a career high nine batters.

Smithson fanned as many as nine batters in a game three times in his career, but, oddly enough, fanned eight in a game only once. With a career K/9 IP mark of 4.85, Smithson clearly wasn’t much of a strikeout pitcher. In fact, he was almost twice as likely to strike out only one batter in a game as he was to fan at least seven.

• After rallying for a come-from-behind victory over the Reds on the 15th, the Astros find themselves on the wrong end of a come-from-behind win, courtesy of the Dodgers. Mike Marshall slams a two-run double in the top of the ninth off Houston reliever Frank DiPino to make the score, 5-4, in the Dodgers’ favor, then Burt Hooton throws a scoreless ninth to record his first save of the season.

Hooton was part of a closer-by-committee that had seven Dodgers pitchers recording saves in 1984. In fact, more L.A. pitchers recorded saves than not. Hooton recorded only seven saves in his 15-year career and four of them came in ‘84.

• The Hartford Courant reports that Red Sox third baseman Wade Boggs is taking muscle relaxants and whirlpool treatments for a sore lower back that he blames on the artificial turf at Seattle’s Kingdome. Boggs is reportedly in a 1-for-18 slump, but claims his back only hurts when he’s out in the field and not at bat.

The Courant came up with 1-for-18, but a quick check of Retrosheet.org shows that Boggs had played in all nine of Boston’s games and was 7-for-29 and batting .241 at the time the report came out. The longest he’d gone between hits was eight at-bats and after he started the season 5-for-12, he went 2 for his next 17. Yeah, I realize that’s a little nit-picky and maybe he was awarded a hit later on that was originally ruled an error. He batted .329 the rest of the way and finished with a .325 mark, which was good for third in the A.L. It was the only time from 1983 to 1988 that Boggs failed to win a batting title.

• “I like baseball because it’s the All-American game and it’s been good to the Gater“—Detroit Tigers batting coach Gates Brown

• The Chicago Tribune reports that Cubs general manager Dallas Green is trying to trade first baseman Bill Buckner, but that no one is willing to take Buckner’s contract. “It’s fairly logical that no one is interested in picking up a $2 million contract. At this stage, most teams want to see what their clubs will do. Most clubs that said no will stick to that answer.”

A little more than a month later, Buckner was dealt to the Red Sox for pitcher Dennis Eckersley and diminutive infielder Mike Brumley. Buckner wasn’t the same hitter that copped four top-25 finishes in MVP balloting from 1971 to 1983, but he batted .272 with 11 homers in ‘84 and followed that up with consecutive 100+ RBI seasons in ‘85 and ‘86. Of course, he committed one of the most infamous errors in baseball history, but, for the sake of Billy Buck and Red Sox Nation, I won’t recount the details here. Eckersley, of course, became one of the best closers in baseball history.

In hindsight, the deal was a horrible one for Boston. Buckner was a key component on their ‘86 pennant-winning team, but he played for the Sox for only three seasons and change, and had an OPS above 100 only once (106 in 1985). Eckersley recorded 387 saves after leaving the Red Sox and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2004.

But anyone who tells you that they expected Eckersley to become the era’s greatest closer is full of shit. When he was traded to Chicago he was suffering from arm problems and alcoholism. The Cubs thrust Eckersley into their rotation and he did well in his first two seasons, going 10-8 and 11-7 with ERAs of 3.03 and 3.08, respectively. Then in 1986, while Buckner was helping Boston win a pennant, Eckersley went 6-11 with a 4.57 earned run average. He finally sought help for his alcoholism, but was shipped to Oakland just prior to the 1987 season. The prescience of A’s manager Tony LaRussa combined with an arm injury to incumbent closer Jay Howell gave Eckersley a chance to establish himself as a relief pitcher and he made the most of it, saving 256 games in his first six seasons as Oakland’s full-time closer.

It was just one of those confluence of circumstances where everything bounced right and there’s no way anyone could have seen it coming.

• The New York Times reports that Minneapolis is afraid that it will lose the Twins because the team can break their lease at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome at the end of the season. “To be a baseball fan of the Minnesota Twins is synonymous with being a loser,” insisted a Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce Baseball Task Force report. Baseball in Minnesota has, at present, lost its luster.”

Jesus, some things never change. It’s twenty four years later and the Twins still play in that shit hole they call a stadium. They shed their “loser” status in 1987 when they defeated the Cardinals in the World Series, then repeated the feat in 1991, beating the Braves in the Fall Classic. In two years, the Twins will open a new ball park and will finally put to rest the rumors of their impending departure from Minneapolis.

• Mike Kiley reports in the Chicago Tribune that Yankees owner George Steinbrenner stuck it to the White Sox by waiting until the last minute before announcing Saturday’s rainout would be made up on Monday, which was supposed to be an off day for the Sox. Steinbrenner’s decision is allegedly in retaliation for Chicago’s decision not to start New York favorite Tom Seaver in the series.

April 17:

• Angels pitcher Tommy John beats the Twins, 6-3, and earns his 249th career victory, although not without controversy. John hits Twins first baseman Kent Hrbek twice with pitches, the second time after a Tom Brunansky homer, and starts a minor bean ball war, exacerbated by Twins reliever Pete Filson, who knocks down Angels third baseman, Doug DeCinces, with a shoulder-high fastball in the eighth inning. Filson and Twins manager Billy Gardner are ejected from the game and center fielder Darrell Brown has to be restrained and sent back to his position when he comes in to argue with umpires.

I was 17 years old in 1984 and had been following baseball with a passion (some would call it an obsession) since 1972 when I was only five. At one time in my life I could name every player in major league baseball and recite every team’s lineup by heart. My passion has only grown since then and yet I have no idea who the hell Darrell Brown is (or was). Neither did the Los Angeles Times who listed him as “Daryl.” Brown played in 95 games for the Twins in ‘84, batted 260 times and hit .273 with one home run and 19 RBIs. He was a very good glove man with great range (at least in ‘84), but he couldn’t stick in the bigs and ‘84 proved to be his last year in the majors. According to “The Scouting Report: 1985,” Brown was a “pesky contact hitter who’ll drive pitchers crazy…by getting not only his line drive hits but any number of bloopers and excuse-me grounders as well…Much as he is at the plate, Brown is undisciplined on the bases…Brown’s speed makes him a better center fielder than he would be otherwise because he lacks a great arm and still doesn’t know the hitters that well.”

Brown ended up in the minor leagues for two years, disappeared off the grid, then re-emerged in the independent Western League in 1995 at the age of 39. He played for the Sonoma County Crushers in ‘95, then for the Minot Rattlers in the independent Prairie League in ‘96 and hit .232 in 41 combined games before retiring for good.

• Blue Jays outfielder George Bell singles off Orioles reliever Sammy Stewart in the eighth inning with two men on and drives in the winning run in a 3-2 Toronto victory. Rookie reliever Jimmy Key earns his second career win in relief of Doyle Alexander and goes to 2-0 on the season.

Key moved into Toronto’s rotation in 1985 and for the next 14 years won at least 12 games 13 times and averaged 14 wins a year during a 15-year career in which he went 186-117 with a 3.51 ERA.

• Dodgers starter Rick Honeycutt holds the Astros to five singles and allows only two Houston runners past first base in a 1-0 complete game victory. Joe Niekro, Vern Ruhle and Bill Dawley surrender only one run on seven hits and, to add insult to injury, the run comes courtesy of a double play grounder off the bat of Honeycutt that scores Bill Russell in the third inning.

• Every Expo but Andre Dawson gets a hit and Gary Carter belts a grand slam in Montreal’s 10-0 win over the Mets. Bryn Smith tosses all nine innings and allows only five hits to earn his third win of the season.

Smith took the league lead in wins on April 17, but won only nine more games the rest of the way and finished at 12-13. In fact, he began the season 4-0, then went 8-13 the rest of the way. A quick glance at his daily logs shows why his season did an about-face in his fifth start. In his first three starts, the Expos scored 27 runs (nine per game) and won 8-5, 9-3 and 10-0. They scored four runs in his fourth start and beat the Cardinals 4-2 on April 22. Over his last 24 starts of the season, the Expos scored only 71 runs, which comes out to 2.96 runs per start. And from April 28 to September 2, a span of 20 starts, the Expos scored only 48 runs, or 2.4 runs per start, and plated more than four runs only twice. It’s not hard to see how a pitcher with a 3.32 ERA could lose more often than not. In 1985, his teammates scored 5.44 runs on average in each of his starts and he went 18-5.

• Mike Schmidt’s sixth-inning solo homer off Pirates lefty John Tudor gives the Phillies a 2-1 lead in a game they eventually win 4-1. The homer is Schmidt’s fourth of the season and 393rd of his career, putting him only six behind Al Kaline on the all-time list.

• The Padres score two runs in the top of the fourth inning in their game against San Francisco and the Giants respond with one in their half of the inning, but neither team scores again in San Diego’s 2-1 win. Goose Gossage records his fifth save of the season and earns it, throwing 2 1/3 hitless innings.

• The Chicago Tribune reports that White Sox manager Tony LaRussa is prepared to put Mike Squires behind the plate as a late-inning replacement for #2 catcher Mark Hill, who is currently starting in place of Carlton Fisk, who is suffering from a pulled muscle in his stomach.

Typically that wouldn’t have been news worthy, except that Squires was left-handed. Squires became a bit of a novelty during his career when in 1980 the southpaw caught two innings for the White Sox. Three years later, he played an inning at third base, then in 1984 he played 37 innings at third. In fact, he played five different positions in ‘84 and even pitched a third of an inning, retiring the only batter he faced (Tom Brookens) in a game the Sox lost 9-1 to Detroit. That particular game showed Squires’ versatility as he started the day at first base, moved to third in the eighth inning, then came on to face Brookens with two outs and runners on first and second.

Squires had a very good glove—in 710 career games in the field he committed only 23 errors and every one of them was at first base. He boasted a .995 fielding percentage at first base and was a perfect 1.000 at the others. His range factors were all over the map and, depending on which matrix you use (RF per game or RF per 9 innings), he was either atrocious (RF per game) or serviceable (RF per 9 innings). What was interesting about the whole Mike-Squires-playing-positions-traditionally-reserved-for-righties experiment is that his bat wasn’t so great that he demanded a spot on anyone’s roster. He posted a career OPS+ of 108 against right-handed pitchers, but only 65 against lefties and his career OPS+ overall was only 78. I suppose I can see why the White Sox kept him around for 10 years—he was a left-handed hitter who did well enough against righties to start him in spots and as a pinch-hitter, he had a sure-handed glove and he could play multiple positions—but ask anyone today what they remember about Squires and, more often than not, they’ll remember he was a lefty that once caught and played third base. Oh yeah, despite LaRussa’s announcement in ‘84, Squires never appeared behind the plate that year.

• Willie Mays Aikens is reinstated by commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who had suspended Aikens, Willie Wilson and Jerry Martin for a year after each plead guilty in October 1983 to charges of possessing or attempting to possess cocaine. According to the terms of the reinstatement, Aikens will be allowed to join his new team, the Toronto Blue Jays, on May 15.

Aikens, Wilson and Martin were sentenced to three months in prison and fined $5,000 for their offenses. Aikens joined the Blue Jays in mid-May, but he wasn’t the same hitter who’d posted an .837 OPS and averaged 20 homers and 75 RBIs from 1979 to 1983. Aikens batted only .205 with 11 homers and 26 runs batted in 93 games for the Jays in ‘84, then hit .200 in 20 at-bats in ‘85 before leaving the big leagues for good. Wilson rejoined the Royals and picked up right where he’d left off, hitting .301 with 47 steals, and finished 10th in MVP voting. Martin signed with the Mets and batted only .154 in 51 games before being released in September.

I bumped into Aikens outside of Fenway Park in 1984 after the Jays had just beaten the Red Sox in extra innings. I asked for his autograph and he seemed to be genuinely ashamed, embarrassed, and humbled by the whole cocaine scandal and was incredulous that anyone still wanted his autograph. I did, and I actually felt sorry for him.

April 18:

• Suspended pitcher Steve Howe’s attorney blasts Bowie Kuhn for reinstating Atlanta pitcher Pascual Perez, but refusing to do the same for Howe. Perez will be allowed to join the Braves on May 16. “Howe should be playing baseball on May 15 if there is any justice in the world,” said attorney James Hawkins.

Perez was arrested in the Dominican Republic in January 1984 after he was alleged to have had a half gram of cocaine in his wallet. He spent three months in jail after being charged with cocaine possession and fined $333. According to reports it wasn’t the first time he’d been arrested and he admitted to having a drug problem. Kuhn suspended Perez for only six weeks, the sentence to run retroactively from April 3 to May 16. Kuhn was criticized for being inconsistent in his rulings. “There is a clear differentiation of treatment of the criminal conviction cases and the purely medical rehabilitation case of Steve Howe,” Howe’s attorney insisted. “It’s unlikely any court system would prosecute a person who is a victim of an addiction without more than their own cries for help.”

Howe had been suspended for a year at the same time Kuhn suspended Willie Aikens, Willie Wilson and Jerry Martin. In 1983, Howe went 4-7 for the Dodgers, but saved 18 games and posted an excellent 1.44 ERA in 46 appearances. During the season, he admitted to drug use, which prompted Kuhn to suspend Howe for a month without pay and order him to enter a substance abuse clinic. Howe returned to the Dodgers, but was suspended twice more during the season, then he failed three drug tests in November, which prompted Kuhn to suspend him for a year. Despite his attorney’s criticism, Howe was not reinstated until 1985. He split time with the Dodgers and Twins in ‘85, pitched in the minors in 1986, returned to the bigs in 1987 to pitch for the Rangers, was out of baseball for all of ‘88 and ‘89 and most of ‘90, returned to the majors again in 1991, this time with the Yankees, was suspended for life in ‘92 but appealed and was reinstated, and pitched for the Yankees for the next five years before they released him in June of 1996.

By the time the dust had settled on his career, Howe had been suspended seven times for cocaine and alcohol abuse. He was killed in an auto accident on April 28, 2006 when his pickup truck rolled over in Coachella, California. Toxicology reports found methamphetamine in his system at the time of his death.

• Mariners rookie first baseman Alvin Davis doubles three times and drives in four of the five Mariners runs in a 5-4 win over the A’s. In his first seven major league games, Davis is 10-for-26 with five doubles, three homers and nine RBIs.

Davis was expected to be with the team for two weeks while Ken Phelps recovered from a broken thumb, at which time Davis would be returned to Triple-A. Phelps didn’t return for a month. By that time Davis had already established himself as Seattle’s best hitter—the rookie was batting .343 with nine home runs and 28 RBIs—and there was no way the Mariners were going to send him back down to the minors. Davis spent the rest of the year at first base, batted .284 with 27 homers, 116 RBIs and 97 walks, and was named the A.L.’s Rookie of the Year. Phelps became the team’s full-time DH and hit .241 with 24 homers and 51 RBIs and posted a team-leading 149 OPS+.

Davis had a very solid, albeit short career, hitting .280 with 160 homers and 683 RBIs in nine seasons before being released by the Angels in June 1992.

• The Tigers go to 9-0 on the season when they beat the Royals, 4-3, thanks to a Frank White error that allows the winning run to score in the bottom of the 10th inning. Willie Hernandez gets his first win of the season in relief of Jack Morris, who goes nine innings and allows his first runs in his last 28 innings.

Morris allowed a run in the third inning of his Opening Day start against the Twins, then went 28 straight innings before surrendering another, which came in the eighth inning of the above game when Jorge Orta touched him for a three-run homer. He entered the game with a 3-0 record and a 0.39 ERA and already had a no-hitter under his belt. Morris finished the ‘84 season at 19-11 with a 3.60 ERA, but, except for that four game stretch of success, he was actually below average, posting a 3.98 ERA in his last 208 1/3 innings (the league average ERA was 3.92 that year).

• 45-year-old knuckleballer Phil Niekro, the oldest player in the majors at the time, throws six innings of shutout ball over the Indians and is replaced by 18-year-old phenom Jose Rijo, who is the majors’ youngest player. Rijo completes the shutout with three hitless innings and earns his first career save in the Yankees’ 5-0 win.

Rijo turned 19 less than a month later and embarked on a solid if unspectacular 14-year career. He went 116-91 with a very good 3.24 ERA, fanned more than 7 1/2 batters per nine innings during his career and helped the Cincinnati Reds win a championship in 1990, earning him a World Series MVP Award.

The problem with Rijo’s career, or the perception of it, is that he’s considered a disappointment in some circles because he was unfairly compared to Mets ace Dwight Gooden, who did for the Mets at 19 what Rijo couldn’t do for the Yankees at the same age. George Steinbrenner allegedly promoted Rijo from the minors in 1984 hoping that he’d take some of the attention from Gooden. When he didn’t—Rijo went 2-8 with a 4.76 ERA—he was labeled a disappointment and shipped to Oakland in the deal that brought Rickey Henderson to the Yankees. It took him four seasons and a trade to the National League to get his feet under him, but from 1988 to 1994, Rijo was one of the best pitchers in the game. He posted the best ERA in baseball over those seven seasons (2.63) and only Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux saved more runs above average than Rijo. Unfortunately he didn’t win a lot of games (87 in those seven years), averaging only 12 wins a year from ‘88 to ‘94 at a time when the league leaders were winning 20-23 and 15 wins just barely qualified for the top 10.

Niekro pitched for four seasons after turning 45 and won 50 more games to give him 318 wins in his career.

• Atlanta outfielder Claudell Washington leads off the game with a homer off Reds hurler Mario Soto, then takes him deep again in the very next inning to stake the Braves to a 4-0 lead in a game they’d eventually win 5-4. The homers are Washington’s fourth and fifth of the season and gives him a one-homer edge over slugger Mike Schmidt for the league lead.

Washington homered only 12 more times in ‘84 and finished with 17, putting him in an 18th place tie among N.L. batters. Schmidt hit 32 more homers and tied Dale Murphy for first place. It was the seventh time Schmidt led or had a share of the lead in home runs in his career. He’d do it again in 1986, giving him eight home run crowns in his 18-year career.

April 19:

• The Hartford Courant reports that Kansas City Royals owner Ewing Kauffman is going to launch a drug abuse awareness campaign aimed at elementary and junior high school students in the Kansas City area. His announcement comes in the wake of a growing drug problem in baseball that resulted in the convictions and suspensions of four Royals players, including Vida Blue.

• The Major League Baseball Players Association files a grievance on behalf of Braves pitcher Pascual Perez a day after he’s given a six week suspension by commissioner Bowie Kuhn as punishment for his drug-related arrest in December. “Simply stated,” said the union’s executive director Don Fehr, “the players’ contract says you cannot have disciplinary action imposed on a player without just cause present, and we believe there was no just cause and that a contract violation exists.”

An arbitrator lifted Perez’s suspension on April 29 and ordered that Perez be added to Atlanta’s active roster. He made his first start on May 7 and though he got battered around, he won, and continued to do so all season, going 14-8 with a 3.74 ERA and leading the Braves in wins. His world fell apart in 1985, though, as he struggled to a 1-13 record and 6.14 ERA while battling a shoulder injury and his own personal demons. Perez jumped the team in late July 1985 and sent word through his brother that he was holed up in an unnamed hotel somewhere in New York, but wouldn’t say where, so the Braves suspended him indefinitely without pay.

Perez eventually resurfaced and rejoined the team, but not before voicing his displeasure with the team. “I don’t feel good,” Perez told reporters. “They take me out of a game, they don’t say anything to me. I been feeling real bad because I’ve been thinking I have no respect…I have no confidence. I lose everything on the mound. No motion, no location, no fastball, no wins.”

The Braves released Perez in 1986 and he missed the entire season before resurfacing with the Expos in 1987. He pitched for the Expos and Yankees from ‘87 to 1991 and did well, going 31-27 with a 2.81 ERA in 87 games, but he couldn’t stay healthy enough in his two seasons with the Yankees to help them much. And he failed another drug test in 1989, which didn’t help. He was suspended for a year prior to the 1992 season for violating the league’s substance abuse policy (his third failed test since ‘84) and he never pitched in the majors again.

• Red Sox center fielder Tony Armas homers twice while serving as the team’s DH, but Charlie Hough and the Rangers hold on to beat Boston, 7-4. It’s Boston’s seventh straight loss and puts them seven games behind the front-running Tigers through only 12 games of the season.

Boston began the ‘84 season 3-9, but went 83-67 over their last 150 games (.553) to finish in fourth place, 17 games behind Detroit. Armas crushed 39 more homers to finish with a league-leading 43 and he also paced the junior circuit in RBIs with 123. Boston’s problem that year had nothing to do with hitting—they led the league in AVG, OBA, SLG and finished second in runs—and everything to do with pitching.

On paper their rotation looked great, especially 24 years after the fact. It was anchored by 1986 postseason hero Bruce Hurst, ‘86 Mets ace Bob Ojeda, 24-year-old Oil Can Boyd, 21-year-old rookie Roger Clemens, and 25-year-old Al Nipper, and future Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley even started nine games. But the games aren’t played on paper and future performance doesn’t count. The Sox’s staff finished near the bottom of the league in most pitching categories and that was all she wrote.

• The Tigers finally lose their first game of the season when they fall to the Royals and some rookie pitcher named Bret Saberhagen, who makes his first career start after making three relief appearances in Kansas City’s first 10 games. Saberhagen holds Detroit to one run on six hits in six innings in the 5-2 win, then gets help from closer Dan Quisenberry, who throws three innings of one-run ball to earn his fifth save.

April 20:

• Ross Newhan writes in the Los Angeles Times that Angels reliever Don Aase is about to begin pitching simulated games during a rehab stint in an effort to strengthen a reconstructed right elbow that kept him out of the majors since mid-July 1982. Speculation is that Aase will be able to rejoin the team in June.

Aase blamed his injury on Angels manager Gene Mauch, who allegedly overused Aase in several games early in the ‘82 season. It’s easy to see why Aase was pissed. He had racked up 41 1/3 innings during the first two months of the season (17 appearances), went at least 4 2/3 innings in three games that he didn’t start (one was a six-inning stint) and went two or more innings 10 times. The previous season, he threw 31 innings in his first 17 games and went more than three innings only once. On the other hand, Aase was a starting pitcher for most of the first four years of his career and hadn’t become a full-time reliever until 1981. It’s easy to see why Mauch might have thought Aase had the stamina to handle the load. He didn’t and he blew his arm out. Regardless, Aase rejoined the Angels on June 18, 1984 and was brilliant, posting a 1.62 ERA in 39 innings. In terms of ERA and ERA+, it was the best season of his career.

• The Angels rally twice in the late innings to tie the Blue Jays, then plate four in the top of the 13th to beat Toronto, 10-6. The game features 31 hits, including eight doubles and a homer by the Angels, and 10 walks, takes almost four hours to complete and sees nine pitchers enter the fray before its conclusion. Luis Sanchez throws 4 1/3 innings of one-run ball to get the win in relief of Mike Witt, while Jim Acker, Toronto’s fifth pitcher takes the loss. The four plus inning stint would prove to be the longest outing of Sanchez’s season.

• Glenn Hubbard’s error in the top of the ninth allows Astros second baseman Phil Garner to reach base and eventually score the tying run, but Hubbard atones for his miscue when he singles with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth to rally the Braves to an 8-7 victory. Dale Murphy scores the winning run after doubling to lead off the inning, then moving to third on a rare bunt by slugger Bob Horner, who reaches first on the play. The Astros elect to walk Chris Chambliss to load the bases and set up a force at home, but Hubbard thwarts their strategy with a sharp single to left. Neither starter (Houston’s Nolan Ryan and Atlanta’s Ken Dayley) throws more than three innings and the teams combine to use seven relievers to finish the game.

• Kentucky baseball bat manufacturer Hillerich & Bradsby files suit against Worth Sports company over an advertisement that features Tigers catcher Lance Parrish holding a Worth bat in an August 1983 edition of The Sporting News. Hillerich & Bradsby is seeking $9,500 in damages. Parrish was signed to a 20-year contract in 1974 that called for a $300 set of golf clubs and paid him an extra $100 if he made it to the big leagues.

• The White Sox announce that Tom Brennan will move into their rotation for a week and will start against the Tigers on April 22 at Tiger Stadium.

Brennan, a 31-year-old career minor leaguer/journeyman with 180 2/3 major league innings under his belt, did, in fact, start the April 22 game and had his ass handed to him by the Tigers who knocked him out of the game in the third inning. Kirk Gibson smoked a two-run homer in the first to stake the Tigers to a 2-0 lead and, for all intents and purposes, Brennan’s day was over. He lasted 2 1/3 innings and allowed two runs on six hits and a walk.

The game didn’t get out of hand, however, until the eighth when the Tigers roughed up reliever Britt Burns for five runs on seven hits. By then, things were so out of hand that White Sox manager Tony LaRussa turned to infielder Mike Squires to get the last out of the inning, which he did. The start would be the first and last of the season for Brennan. He started four games for the Dodgers in 1985, went 1-3 with a 7.39 ERA in 12 appearances
April 21:

• “I’m not down. I’m not playing for Mr. Steinbrenner or (manager) Yogi Berra, I’m playing for God.”—Yankee infielder Bobby Meacham after he’d been sent down to the minors after committing a costly error in game against the Rangers.

Meacham may have been playing for God, but God clearly wasn’t playing for Meacham. He was sent to Double-A Nashville (Meacham, not God) and batted .290 in eight games before moving to Triple-A Columbus, where he batted .283 in 46 games. He was promoted to the Yankees (again) in June and batted .253 with little power in 99 games. From 1985 to 1988, he batted .230 with a .616 OPS, before being traded to Texas. He spent two more seasons in the minors (one with the Pirates organization and one with the Royals) and batted .218 and .225 before he washed out of baseball for good.

• Cubs pitcher Rick Reuschel comes off the 21-day disabled list and does a solid job against the Pirates, allowing three runs on seven hits in 5 1/3 innings. Reuschel leaves the game in the sixth with a runner on first and one out, but reliever Dickie Noles surrenders a walk and two singles and both runs are credited to Reuschel. Noles and reliever Rich Bordi get pounded by the Pirates in the seventh and the former leaves the game after allowing five runs in only two-thirds of an inning. The four-run seventh proves to be crucial as Pittsburgh holds off the Cubs to win by three, 8-5.

• Cubs catcher Jody Davis suggests to reporters that Pirates starter Rick Rhoden scuffed the ball during the Cubs-Pirates game on April 20 at Wrigley Field. “I had noticed one of the balls on the ground looked like it had been scuffed with sandpaper,” said Davis, who was batting in the sixth inning when umpire Bruce Froemming noticed the scuff and threw the ball out of play. “Rhoden has the reputation of being a guy who scuffs the ball,” claimed Cubs manager Jim Frey. “Apparently Froemming thought so too.”

• Detroit improves to 11-1 on the season when they beat the White Sox, 4-1, and end LaMarr Hoyt’s 15-game winning streak in the process. Lou Whitaker proves to be a thorn in Hoyt’s side as he homers to lead off the bottom of the first and scores three of Detroit’s runs.

Hoyt had won his last 13 starts of 1983, en route to a 24-10 record, and his first two starts of ‘84, and was only two wins shy of the A.L. record held by Johnny Allen (1937) and Dave McNally (1968-69). Of course, Roger Clemens broke that record when he won 20 straight games from June 1998 to June 1999, so even had Hoyt tied or broken the record, he would have held it for only 15 years. The loss to the Tigers on April 21 would be just one of many for Hoyt, who finished the ‘84 season with 18 of them. Surprisingly he wasn’t the only 18-game loser in baseball that year. Cincinnati’s Jeff Russell went 6-18 five years before he was mercifully turned into a full-time closer by the Texas Rangers.

• Former fireballer turned junk ball artist Frank Tanana holds the Yankees to two singles in eight shutout innings in Texas’ 1-0 victory over New York at Yankee Stadium. Ray Fontenot ends up being the hard-luck loser when an Andre Robertson error in the sixth leads to the Rangers’ only run.

• The Los Angeles Times reports that A’s pitcher Tom Burgmeier earns his 100th career save in Oakland’s 5-2 win over Boston.

The Times was wrong. Burgmeier’s fourth and last save of 1983 was his 100th. The save against Boston on April 21 was his 101st. The 40-year-old Burgmeier would save only one more game in his career to finish with 102.

• 42-year-old Tony Perez picks the perfect time to hit his only triple of the season and second to last of his career when he slams a three-bagger in the eighth inning that plates two and leads the Reds past the Giants, 5-4.