Amazing! Extraordinary! Unbelievable! Remarkable! Wondrous! Phenomenal! Incredible! Heroic!
The preceding burst of exclamations is a mere sampling af the terms of awe applied--or implied--by overwrought sports writers to Florida Marlins pitcher Josh Beckett's performance after his five-hit shutout of the New York Yankees in the decisive Game 6 of the 2003 World Series.
Beckett fashioned a complete-game triumph despite having relaxed his muscular fight arm for just three days after going more than seven innings in a Game 2 loss to the Yankees.
An admiring sports columnist wrote: "Three days' rest at the end of a year that had already reached 182 competitive innings, interrupted by eight weeks on the disabled list with a sprain in his pitching elbow." The appreciative observer went on to acclaim Marlins manager Jack McKeon for his audacity in defying current practice by handing the ball to Beckett on such a quick turnaround.
"That kind of managerial bravado just doesn't work anymore," he noted. No, it doesn't. Not because it can't, but mainly because what passes for current baseball wisdom militates against it. It's just not the prudent thing to do, not unless a manager is willing to risk widespread criticism and condemnation by horrified media vultures, loudmouthed sports talk show hosts, and nervous fans.
Numerous sports writers questioned McKeon's judgment, as well as his managerial competence, when he announced his decision to start Beckett in Game 6. One columnist went so far as to suggest that McKeon was becoming senile at the age of 72 in reverting to the customs of earlier generations.
The widespread reaction was understandable, if not justified, in this age of five-man starting rotations, and that recently popular precautionary contrivance, the pitch count that limits total tosses toward home plate to a specifcc number tailored to the pitcher's age, experience, work habits and arm strength.
Such well-intentioned restrictions are intended to protect pitching arms, as well as to extend their possessors' talents as long as possible. But are they entirely warranted, especially when it comes to almost universal application without taking into consideration differences of temperament, stamina and physical attributes among individual pitchers?
After all, there was a time when most starting pitchers were called on to work every fourth day, with three days' rest considered ample.
Additionally, they were usually expected to finish what they started. Complete games were not the rarity they are today, but were a reasonable expectation, even a norm, especially for standouts.
To put it bluntly, there was a time when they pitched till they dropped. What's more, they didn't drop all that quickly despite what today would be considered "overwork" and "gambling" with careers.
Never mind Roger Clemens, who announced last fall that he was hanging it up after the most prolonged of recent careers as a starter, 20 seasons in which he accumulated 310 wins. Clemens, the six-time Cy Young Award winner, no doubt might have continued to pile up victories at a respectable pace since he was a not too shabby 17-9 in 2003, and his arm apparently wasn't about to fall off even after having made 606 major league starts.
Clemens' career prospered, however, in the five-man rotation era, as well as during a time complete games are no longer expected. (Although he did post 18 complete games in 1987 and 14 in 1988, both seasons with the Boston Red Sox, totals unheard of today.) Accordingly, the duration of his effectiveness might not be all that surprising.
Still, you don't have to go back very far to name pitchers who worked successfully for two decades or more, even up to a quarter of a century, despite starting every fourth day. Many completed more than half of their starts, and pitched more than 300 innings in some seasons. As for pitch count, few, if any, paid attention to such a consideration.
Among the most durable starters of the last few decades have been Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Jim Hunter, Gaylord Perry, Phil Niekro, Ferguson Jenkins, Don Sutton, Jim Kaat, Bob Gibson, Jim Palmer and Warren Spahn. It could be truly said of them that they pitched till they dropped, but that didn't happen for a long time. In Ryan's case, he didn't retire until after 27 seasons as a major league pitcher. Kaat lasted 25.
Tim McCarver, now a top flight baseball broadcast analyst, caught Gibson and Carlton during his 21-year career behind the plate as a big leaguer, and either batted against or observed virtually all other pitchers since the early 1960s.
"Steve Carlton made start after start with three days' rest," McCarver wrote in his book, Baseball for Brains Surgeons and Other Fans. "His arm didn't tire. He struck out 16 Cubs in 1982 using exactly the same stuff he used to strike out 19 Mets in 1969. His durability matched his consistency. When I caught him, I never bothered counting his pitches." Hall of Famer Carlton, who won 329 games in 24 seasons (1965-1988), is just one example of durability among many in the days when pitchers weren't "babied" as they seem to be today.
Consider Nolan Ryan, the only pitcher to surpass Carlton's career strikeout total with 5,714 to 4,136 (Clemens is third with 4,099). Ryan pitched a major league record 27 seasons (1965, 1968-1993), and remained highly effective almost to the end. Not only was much of Ryan's career spent in the four-man rotation period, but only Cy Young himself surpassed him in total starts, 818 to 773. And the man the award commemorates pitched in the "dead ball era" of the late 19th Century and the early 20th when more than 40 starts a season was unexceptional. In contrast, Ryan was forced to deal with what is charitably described as the "lively" ball.
It might also be surprising that another modern day pitcher, Sutton, is third on the all-time list with 756 starts in a career that lasted 23 seasons (1966-1988). Like Ryan's, Sutton's career straddled the four-man and five-man rotation eras, the latter of which began sometime around the mid or late 1970s.
Whether the extended duration of Ryan's and Sutton's careers owed anything to the fewer starts per campaign required by the five-man rotation, about 32 or 33 rather than the 40 or so in the four-man setup, is not only debatable but unprovable.
Today's managerial intellects seem convinced pitchers last longer when they start less often, but there's no absolute proof. In fact, pitching injuries seem as numerous as ever, and the average career appears to, be no briefer or longer than before.
It's also debatable whether starting pitchers invariably benefit in effectiveness from pitching every fifth day rather than every fourth.
What is not disputable is that in the past some great pitchers preferred three days' rest between starts, others would rather enjoy four.
Walter Johnson and Bob Feller, two of the hardest throwers of all time, in a class with Ryan, Clemens and Randy Johnson, were content with three days' rest--or even less. Their arm strength and stamina were virtually constant, though they were power pitchers.
"I don't think rest had anything to do with it," said Feller, who won 265 games between 1936 and 1956 despite serving more than three years in the Navy during World War II. "Three days' rest is enough. Two is OK." Like Feller, Johnson, who won 417 games between 1907 and 1927, thus ranking second only to Cy Young's 511 in career total, sometimes relieved on the middle day between starts without suffering harm.
Baseball admittedly was a different game during the eras of Johnson and Feller than it is today. And those eras also differed from one another. Half of Johnson's career was spent in the "deadball" period. And though offense was healthy during Feller's day--a period when Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, and Stan Musial flourished--it wasn't as dominant as it is today, with the new cozier, hitter-friendly ballparks, and the designated hitter, in operation since 1973 in the American League.
Other changes that have boosted the offense may be less obvious. The average player is much bigger and stronger than he was two, three and four generations ago. The baseball not only is livelier, but is not kept in play as long as it was in the past when teams were more frugal. A ball is often replaced after three or four pitches, invariably if it hits the dirt. Hitters may benefit more than pitchers from a fresh, tightly-wound ball.
"In the old days, the ball was softer, you didn't have to pitch so fine," explained Feller. "You could throw 70 to 80 pitches, you didn't have to throw 125 to 140. You could stay well under 100, pitch more often, with less wear and tear."
A multitude of factors combined to make it easier in the past for starting pitchers not only to work every fourth day, but also to finish what they started. Feller completed 36 of 42 starts in 1946, going 26-15 for his Cleveland Indians. He finished more than half of 484 career starts. Johnson did even better, completing 36 of 37 starts one year, and 36 of 38 in another, each season winning 25 games. Johnson finished 531 of 666 career starts for the Washington Senators.
All this pales besides the achievement of Jack Taylor, a National League pitcher in the 1890s and 1900s. Not only did he complete 278 of his 297 major league starts, but during one stretch pitched 187 consecutive complete games as well as relieved in 17 others. He was thrice a 20-game winner to prove he was worth every inning. It's no secret that such feats of durability were possible partly because pitchers in the days of Taylor and Johnson, and the era of Feller, the latter well in living memory, made it a point to pace themselves. They threw hard only when they had to, saving their best for the clutch. Strong finishes have always been the hallmark of great pitchers.
"I never go at top speed except when it comes to the pinch," admitted Johnson. Nobody, of course, would suggest that every pitcher should be able to start on three days' rest, or that complete-game records such as those of Johnson and Feller, let alone that of Taylor, are either invariably desirable or even within the reach of present day starters, given current conditions.
Yet, it's possible to conceive of a shift in managerial practice in which pitchers will be evaluated individually as to whether they need three days' rest or four, and whether they should finish what they start. The five-man rotation and the "closer" may be currently popular, but who is to say they won't give way to different strategic concepts.
Change is the only constant in baseball, even in such matters.
At one time, complete games were in the majority. Even as late as 1950, some 40 percent of all starters finished. By 1970, that dropped to 22 percent. It declined to 15 percent two decades later. Last season, complete games sank to about five percent, with the Oakland A's being the only team to approximate 10 percent, with 16 start-to-finish performances.
To hazard a guess, it's more likely that three days' rest instead of four for starting pitchers will become more prevalent and that complete games will be on the rise in the years to come.
For one thing, there never have been enough quality pitchers to go around for most teams to have a solid five-man rotation. Few teams boast of even four dependable starting pitchers. Three solid performers are the usual limit, with the fourth and fifth men being most often rather inconsistent.
More significant, however, is an incontrovertible fact that's been generally ignored during the last few years. Many starting pitchers are better suited to working every fourth day, They not only thrive on the steady work and enjoy the challenge, but are motivated to greater heights by the opportunity to win more games and make more money. It's clearly easier to reach the coveted 20-win plateau by making 40 starts rather than being restricted to 32 or 33.
This was forcefully pointed out to Fergie Jenkins after he became a Chicago Cub in 1966, and was to be converted to a starter from the reliever he had been in the Philadelphia Phillies farm system.
Cubs pitching coach Joe Becker, who significantly enough also tutored Bob Gibson with the St. Louis Cardinals, as well as Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax with the Los Angeles Dodgers, pointed out to Jenkins that the way to fame and fortune was not only to become a starter, but to take the ball every fourth day.
"When I met him, he told me he'd make me a million dollars if I did four things," said Jenkins. "They were to work hard, concentrate every minute, make the batter hit every pitch I wanted him to hit, and be ready to go all out every fourth day."
According to Jenkins, Becker stressed the importance of pitching every fourth day rather than every fifth. "That'll make all the difference," said Becker.
It certainly did for Jenkins, who went on to six consecutive 20-game winning seasons with the Cubs (1967-1972), including a Cy Young Award-winning 24-13 campaign in 1971. It's almost inconceivable that he could have put together such a string on a four days' rest schedule. He not only made 39 starts in 1971, but completed 30 of them.
Did the heavy workload of 325 innings, a total that would make pitching coaches shudder currently, irreparably damage his career?
Judging by his 20-12 mark in 1972, the season after his Cy Young campaign, Jenkins was unscarred. In fact, two years later, in 1974 after the Cubs traded him to the Texas Rangers, he led the American League in wins with a 25-12 record, while working a career high 328 innings. It was the fifth 300-plus innings season of his career.
That was Jenkins' seventh, and last, 20-victory season, and yet he had 110 wins left in his career, before retiring at the age of 40 after 19 big league seasons with the 284 triumphs that earned him entry to the Hall of Fame. He might have reached 300 if not for the ruptured Achilles' tendon that sidelined him much of two seasons.
Like Jenkins, his frequent opponent in celebrated and swiftly concluded mound duels, fellow Hall of Famer Bob Gibson worked during the four-man rotation period, though he exceeded 300 innings in a campaign only twice. That was in 1968 and 1969 when he went 22-9 (with a 1.12 ERA) and 20-13, respectively.
How did Gibson fare the year after two consecutive seasons of pitching more than 300 innings, as well as completing 54 of his total of 69 starts? Did his arm shrivel? He merely came up with a 23-7 record in 1970 to lead the National League in wins and percentage (.767). Five seasons later, he completed a 17-year big league career at the age of 39, having been a 20-game winner five times.
McCarver, who often caught Gibson at the height of his career, voiced his opinion on the four-man against five-man rotation argument.
"I don't understand the controversy," he wrote in 1998. "Until 20 years ago, every team had a four-man rotation, and pitchers had long, productive injury-free careers with three days' rest." There were exceptions, of course. Most notably Sandy Koufax, the great Dodger left-hander whose career was terminated by an arthritic elbow at the tender age of 30 after the 1966 season in which he went 27-9.
Koufax was caught in a dilemma. While his elbow problem might have been partly alleviated by pitching every fifth day, instead of every fourth, the issue was not that clear cut. He did not believe himself to be as effective with a longer layoff.
"When you get too much rest," wrote Koufax in his autobiography, "your arm seems strong at the beginning, but your control tends to be haphazard, and the bottom falls out on you in the middle of the game."
He apparently felt, as the Dodgers did, that he had to pitch every fourth day to be successful, and to complete as many games as possible. And so he did. He pitched more than 300 innings in each of his final two seasons, completing 27 of 41 starts in both 1965 and 1966 seasons, going 26-9 the first year for a staggering combined total of 53-18.
He had to overcome a great deal of pain to do it, however.
"I could see it (left arm) blow up," he said. When he tried to move it, "it sounded as if I were squeezing a soggy sponge."
Clearly, with the arthritic elbow threatening to cripple his left arm for life, Koufax could not continue to pitch. What's uncertain, however, is whether pitching less often would have made a difference, and appreciably extended his career. Speculation aside, no one can answer such a question.
The question one can answer, however, is whether all pitchers are alike. No. Some can thrive on three days' rest, others require four, and to complicate matters further, a few can do pretty well with just two days off.
The name Johnny Sain revives memories of a popular chant of almost six decades ago, when the Braves lacked depth in starting pitching. It was "Spahn and Sain, and pray for rain." The ditty worked, the Braves, then in Boston, winning a N.L. pennant behind ace pitchers Sain and Warren Spahn, who worked overtime down the stretch.
The doggerel verse points up something else in naming Sain, who later as a pitching coach for four teams not only believed in the four-man rotation, but at times was partial to just two days' rest for starters. His most successful efforts in this regard came with Denny McLain, who won 31 games for Detroit in 1968, and Wilber Wood, a knuckleballer, a four-time 20-game winner who in 1973 won 13 of his first 16 decisions, all on two days' rest, and totaled 359.1 innings for the White Sox.
Continued from page 2.
McLain, the last 30-game winner in major league history, couldn't have suffered all that much from his extraordinary efffort of '68 as he led the league again in wins with a 24-9 mark the following year. As for Wood, who as a knucklebalfer didn't have to throw hard, his career went downhill after a line drive fractured his kneecap in 1976 rather than because of extra innings worked on Sain's advice.
Then there's the other half of the Boston chant tandem, Spahn, a 20-game winner 13 times, second only to Cy Young's record 16. The great lefty persevered 21 seasons (1942, 1946-1965), and retired at the ripe age of 44 after finishing at least 20 games in 12 campaigns.
Many other examples of comparable durability and success among those who pitched on three days' rest can be cited.
None of this is meant to diminish Beckett's feat of 2003 in clinching the World Series for the Marlins after just three days off, given the conventional thinking, or lack of it, of the present day.
Nor was McKeon's decision to go with his best so soon hardly as earthshaking as some would have it. It was far from unprecedented, having been done dozens of times in a less timorous past. A seven-game Series usually covers nine days, and many pitchers have started three of those games, and a dozen of them won all three.
"Remember how Lew Burdette, Bob Gibson and Mickey Lolich won three times in a seven-game Word Series?" noted McCarver.
There have even been a few instances in the so-called "modern" era, post 1920 or so in which pitchers have started a World Series game on just one day's rest. Bobo Newsom of the Tigers did it in 1940 against Cincinnati. He pitched a complete game 8-0 shutout in Game 5 on October 6, and came back to start Game 7 on October 8.
No one could have justifiably faulted Tigers manager Del Baker for going with his ace, though the Reds won 2-1. Newsom went all the way, giving up just seven hits in eight innings, but lost to Cincinnati's Paul Derringer.
Five years later, in the Cubs' last appearance in a World Series, the Tigers won the championship by again going with their best, this time Hal Newhouser, though he was Coming off just two days' rest. Newhouser defeated the Cubs in Game 5 on October 7, 1945, and in Game 7 on October 10, going the route each time.
More surprisingly perhaps, considering the recurrent elbow problem that led to his retirement a year later, the Dodgers relied on Koufax in Game 7 against the Minnesota Twins on October 14, 1965. Just three days earlier, he had gone all the way in frustrating the Twins 7-0 in Game 5.
Fully justifying manager Walt Alston's confidence, and quashing all possibility of second-guessing, Koufax again shut down the Twins 2-0 as the Dodgers won the Series. Koufax's accomplishment despite a brief turnaround, as well as that of Newhouser and others, including Newsom's valiant failure, came in another era, and in no way disparages what Beckett accomplished last fall.
All the same, it's fair to say there's no valid reason to accept the notion that many current pitchers couldn't resume working on the old pattern and benefit from so doing.
They, too, could pitch till they dropped. And like Spahn, Ryan, Jenkins, Kaat, and so many others, they'd be graybeards by the time it happened.
Last 300-Inning Seasons By Pitchers ...
and how they fared the following year
Pitcher, Team Year IP W-L ERA SO CG
Steve Carlton, Phillies 1980 304.0 24-9 2.34 286 13
1981+ 190.0 13-4 2.42 179 10
Phil Niekro, Braves 1979 342.0 21-20 3.39 208 23
1980 275.0 15-18 3.63 176 11
Phil Niekro, Braves 1978 334.1 19-18 2.88 248 22
1979 342.0 21-20 3.39 208 23
Phil Niekro, Braves 1977 330.1 16-20 4.03 262 20
1978 334.1 19-18 2.88 248 22
Steve Rogers, Expos 1977 301.2 17-16 3.10 206 17
1978 219.0 13-10 2.47 126 11
Jim Palmer, Orioles 1977 319.0 20-11 2.91 193 22
1978 296.0 21-12 2.46 138 19
Dave Goltz, Twins 1977 303.0 20-11 3.36 186 19
1978 220.1 15-10 2.49 116 13
Jim Palmer, Orioles 1976 315.0 22-13 2.51 159 23
1977 319.0 20-11 2.91 193 22
Randy Jones, Padres 1976 315.1 22-14 2.74 93 25
1977 147.1 6-12 4.58 44 1
Jim Hunter, Yankees 1975 328.0 23-14 2.58 177 30
1976 298.2 17-15 3.53 173 21
Jim Palmer, Orioles 1975 323.0 23-11 2.09 193 25
1976 315.0 22-13 2.51 159 23
Andy Messersmith, LA 1975 321.2 19-14 2.29 213 19
Braves 1976 207.1 11-11 3.04 135 12
Gaylord Perry, Cle./Tex. 1975 305.2 18-17 3.24 233 25
1976 250.1 15-14 3.24 143 21
Jim Kaat, White Sox 1975 303.2 20-14 3.11 142 12
Phillies 1976 227.2 12-14 3.48 83 7
+ Strike-interrupted season.
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