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As an annoying neurotic nitpicker, I feel it’s my duty to correct the following excerpt from MLB.com’s Sunday article on Marlins phenom twirler Eury Perez:
“Since his debut on May 12, Pérez has stunned the masses with a 1.34 ERA — that’s the lowest ERA through a Major Leaguer’s first nine career starts (minimum 40 innings) since Steve Rogers’ 1.20 ERA in 1973.”
WRONG. Anyone who remembers the Fernandomania of 1981 will immediately recognize the error of the Steve Rogers assertion. For you kids out there, in Fernando Valenzuela’s first nine MLB starts he threw five shutouts and posted a cumulative ERA of 0.91. (It was a meager 0.50 ERA after eight starts, every one of which was a 9-inning effort.)
With all due respect to Eury & Steve, Fernando has ’em beat by a fer piece.
Great catch, Bob. Ferny was a sensation in his early career. Supposedly he was what, 21 or something like that. But in truth he was likely a few years older than that.
Fernando didn’t need no stinkin’ 4 or 5 days rest either, nor worry about a pitch count. Several of his starts during that run were on 3 days rest.
I was excited that day we traded for him. I didn’t have internet access at that time and the radio crew was being very mysterious. The first cards inter league series was that night but it was destined to be rained out so the radio crew was trying to keep us tuned in talking about the trade chatter all day and that the Cardinals may be acquiring an all star pitcher and that Danny Jackson was proposed to be going. Well that sounded great to me as Danny had really stunk it up for us. The crew really held out before telling us that Valenzuela was the main guy coming back. I still had visions of him no hitting us in 90 or 91 so it sounded good to me. But the big deal for me was Phil Plantier coming to the Cardinals. By this time his prospect lustre had faded nationally, but I remember my Beckett Monthly drooling all over him the off-season after his phenomenal debut with the Red Sox and I had bought 3 or 4 of his Topps Stadium club rookie (which was also Stadium Clubs first year) and I was sure he was going to be a superstar, especially after he hit like 35 homers one of his first years in San Diego. Valenzuela never won a game for us in 4 decisions but Jackson pitched even worse for the Pads if I’m not mistaken.
Valenzuela was tough on the Cardinals for quite a while. I’m sure a lot of you recall that wind-up in which he’d look up to the moon before he’d offer up that scroogie. And I don’t know how many remember this, but he could flat out hit and was always dangerous in the box. Leave it to the Dodgers to find a guy like him.
Yeah, that’s right 1TD. Fernando was not an automatic out. I recall that attendance at Dodger Stadium would always be way up for his starts compared to everyone else.
I always liked Danny Jackson as he is from out my way. His brother was a real good guard on Wyoming’s basketball team during his time in Laramie, and those Wyoming teams were pretty good.
We had a latter day brother combo where one brother pitched for us, while his younger brother played for Wyoming. Only this time the brother playing at Wyoming was a football player – a linebacker who started all four years. Any thoughts on who those guys might be? As a hint, the pitcher is now a former Cardinal and still active.
I recall him being a big draw everywhere he took a turn for the first couple of seasons after he emerged into the Big Leagues. He sold a lot of tickets. I experienced something similar at a game I attended at Busch Memorial in the 80’s during a game against the Reds. It was a very large crowd and most people, including myself, were seeing Eric Davis for the first time after he had really emerged as a star player. He was touted as the next Willie Mays at that time and a lot of people in St. Louis wanted to see him do his stuff in CF.
I have no idea on the pitcher and linebacker, BikeMike. I may look it up if no one comes through with the answer because I’m curious to know.
Eric Davis looked to be a future superstar as you said 1TD, and like MrPerkins with his Phil Plantier rookies, I stocked up on Eric Davis rookies. He was a good player, but did not attain the status some thought he would be. Helped us late in his career.
I doubt anyone knows the answer to my trivia question, so I will reveal the answer. The pitcher is Michael Wacha. His brother Lucas, who is a couple years younger, not sure exactly the age difference though, started for Wyoming his freshman year and throughout his time in college as a linebacker for the Cowboys. He was a real good player – might have earned all-Mountain West honors or at least second team a couple of times. Michael attended an occasional Wyoming game back in those days, when he was still a Cardinal, and would be on the sidelines. His family was at some games in Coors Field when he would pitch, although they were from Texas.
I’ll be darned. Wachau’s really resurrected his career and at a few days shy of 32 years of age he could be taking his turn in a Big League rotation for several more years. He’s only signed up with SD for 1 year at $7.5M, so he’s on the verge of a lot of money stacked into 3 or 4 years if he continues to be as effective as he’s been. I’m surprised the Red Sox didn’t do more to keep him in Boston.
I bought 3 or 4 of his(Phil Plantier) Topps Stadium club cards and I was sure he was going to be a superstar
I did the same with Eric Anthony of Houston back in ’89, Mr Perkins. I wasn’t 99% sure that Anthony was going to be the next Henry Aaron, I was 100% convinced. I went absolutely crazy gobbling up his rookie cards…….over 200 of the rascals. It didn’t take all that long to realize I totally swung and missed on the guy.
I remember buying my son a JD Drew rookie card thinking it would pay for itself some day, haha!
And since you guys brought trivia into this thread, I’ll add to it with a question, but first a little background. LSU won the College World Series tonight and potential #1 draft pick Dylan Crews was this year’s Golden Spikes Award winner. That award has been given 45 years now to the top amateur player. The Cards have had 4 of those winners don the birds on bat.
Can you name any of them? One was a first round draft pick who played several years for the Cards. Oddly enough, the other three played just one year for the Cards, all in the last years of their careers.
I knew that JD and “The Thrill” were two of them, Euro. I looked up the two others and I never would have guessed either of the two.
Yep 1td, I remember what a celebrated college player the very first winner of the award was and watched him a lot in MLB. There was a lot of hype with him bypassing the minors and going directly into MLB. I had nearly forgotten he played that final season with StL. Of course, he didn’t do much for us to remember in a season the Cards didn’t do much for us to remember.
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