Although, Goose had little to do with the fall from grace. He pitched 93 innings out of the bullpen to the tune of a 2.23 ERA and a 4.5 WAR in 93 IP. The ERA was best of AL relievers throwing more than 16 innings. He entered 34 games in a save situation, saving 30 of them.

His 4.5 WAR was the best on the Yankees in ’82, which says a lot about how awful the team was. I mean, when a guy who’s only in 93 innings, compiled more wins above replacement than anyone else, the team can’t be that good. It’s very rare for a reliever to lead his team in WAR.

I checked all the seasons from 1920-2009, for any relievers (relieved in 80% or more of their appearances) with a 4.0+ WAR to see if any of them led their teams, and found it’s only been done 9 times—

If you don’t count the ties with regular players or starters, it’s only happened 7 times, and hasn’t been done once since 1983! So this is very rare thing to achievement. Oddly it seemed to happen in bunches.

After blowing a game against the Mariners on April 30, 1982, Goose had a lengthy hot stretch lasting from May 2 through August 13, where he posted a 1.61 ERA, keeping batters off base by only allowing a .236 OBP which was kept low by racking up 83 K’s over 72 2/3 IP. He saved 21 games and only blew 6. Even during the blown games though, he pitched pretty good… giving up 0-2 earned runs in all of them.

Then he hit a snag, facing the White Sox on August 15, he gave up 4 runs in the bottom of the 8th, blowing a 2 run Yankee lead. That game alone, added 42 points to his ERA.

After that game though, Goose didn’t allow another earned run for the rest of the season, converting 7 of 8 save opportunities. During this period though, the Yanks went only 16-24 when Gossage didn’t appear.

He was pretty consistent along the way, with a 6-5 home record, a 6-5 road record, a 6-5 record in the first half of the season, and 6-5 after the break. His ERA before the All-Star break was 3.62, and after the break it was 3.63. Even by month, his ERA was 3-something every month except one.

Something Sparky probably liked even better than the consistency, was that Milt was doin’ his job great against the best teams in the division (Milwaukee, Baltimore, and Boston), going 5-3 on the strength of a 3.49 ERA. Detroit was only 9-22 against those three teams when Milt wasn’t pitching.

Even the Royals, who were a 90 win team in the AL West, had their troubles hitting Milt Wilcox in 1982. On April 20th, he tosses a 1 hit shutout against them. Later in the summer, he throws another 5 shutout innings against them.

That means that against four of the elite American League clubs that season, Milt Wilcox posted a 2.90 ERA and went 7-3 (.700) with just 1 no decision. That’s really really good. What makes those number even crazier, is that when it wasn’t 1982, his numbers against these same four clubs were downright awful— 4.79 ERA, 23-38 (.377), and 30 no decisions.

It was just that kind of rare season. He was consistent as they come, but also out of whack with his career stats, and somehow managed to beat some of the league’s best lineups….that couldn’t normally beat.

The next season, Milt Wilcox would nearly throw a perfect game on April 15 against the White Sox. He only had to get 1 more out, when pinch hitter Jerry Hairston singled to center.

Not long after that, Milt’s skills began a slow fade off into the sunset. Maybe they were already fading in ’82, but after that season his ERA fell below average for the rest of his career. Even in 1984 when he won 17 games and helped lead the Tigers to a World Championship, his ERA was a fat 4.00.

He eventually wound up in Seattle, finishing his career as he finished the June 12, 1986 game for the Mariners against the White Sox. Ironically, the last batter he faced in his career and the last batter he got out, was Jerry Hairston.

Len started the new season very hot, going 8-3 with a 2.49 ERA through June 14, when he shutout the powerful Detroit Tigers. He stood 2nd in the AL in strikeouts, and 1 victory shy of the majors lead while sporting the 7th best ERA.

In 12 of his first 13 starts, he gave up just 3 runs or less. In 11 of those first 13, he also went at least 7 1/3 IP. He was rock solid, just as the Indians needed from him after the teams #1 pitcher Bert Blyleven went down for the season with an arm injury.

His 14th start was pretty good too, when he left the game in a 4-4 tie after the 10th. His ERA was still a slim 2.59 after the game,

It seems he was being overworked though, as he didn’t even make it through the 3rd inning of his next start. He gave up 8 runs against the Yankees in just 2 2/3 IP.

His season seemed to fall apart from there, as he struggled to find the consistency he made look easy earlier in the year. Including that awful Yankees game, he’d end up allowing 4+ runs in a game, 8 different times. If we split his season after his 14th start, his pitching numbers look like this—

From that, we can see exactly what his problem was. Even though he was striking out more batters and walking less, the batters were generally hitting him better after June 20.

He was allowing more hits per 9 innings, and many of those hits were HR’s (note the huge increase in HR/9). This is almost the sole cause of the near-100 point increase in the SLG allowed. Extra HR’s will always hurt the ERA, but most of these home runs came with runners on base. Ouch.

Interestingly, this last half of ’82 was also the epitome of the rest of Len’s career afterwards. The once young and promising pitcher was suddenly a 4.90 ERA pitcher allowing .90 HR/9 from June 25, 1982 through the rest of his career.

The culprit might’ve been a bone spur that finally began to wear him down. When Len was traded to the Braves in ’83, Joe Torre commented that he knew of Len’s pitching problems, “It’s a bone spur, he’s pitched with it since high school. It’s no problem. At times he’ll need an extra day of rest.”

Len himself talked about it during the beginning of the ’82 season, “I’ve had a bone spur the size of a dime on my elbow the last six years … It flares up every once in a while, rubs against the bone a little bit”. He goes on to mention that it began to bug him during the April 16 game against the Royals and that he should’ve taken himself out of the game but didn’t.

Eventually, Len would get the spur removed and he pitched worse than ever, but we’re left to wonder just how good he might’ve become if he’d had it removed sooner. Would he have learned to pitch differently? Would he have thrown more no hitters? Continued to lead the AL in strikeouts? Won a Cy Young? Helped win a World Series? Whatever the case, Len will always be remembered for pitching his heart out & being one of the games best even if only for a brief time. And hey, he’s probably the only guy with a bone spur who ever threw a perfect game. How cool is that?

So during the ’81 winter meetings, the Cubbies were lookin’ to unload the 29 year old pitcher for some younger players after they signed Fergie Jenkins. The Phillies bit the bait, and gave the Cubs 3 younger players for the below average Mike Krukow.

That seemed like a stupid deal for the perennial playoff contending Phillies, causing a stir in the media with headlines like “Phillies Being ‘Had’?“.

The Phillies thought very differently of Krukow. Philadelphia GM Paul Owens said he felt Krukow would win 15-18 games for the Phils! Seems like a stretch for someone who’d never won more than 10 games before.

The Phillies weren’t “had” though, as they won 18 of the games Mike started. This was largely because his HR’s per 9 IP were cut in half, which helped his ERA drop a lot—

I’m sure that the Phillies defense helped him a lot too, and Philadelphia could give him better run support than the Cubs did. Still, it’s fascinating to see him improve like that, and know the Phillies could see it coming. This wasn’t entirely overnight though, as Mike’s ERA was sliding down in ’81, indicating to them he was improving.

Mike even improved on his WAR too. He earned 1.2 WAR in ’80, and 2.3 WAR in ’81, which matched his career high at the time. Once in Philly though, he jumped it up to 3.3 WAR. He’d match it again later in his career, but he’d never have a higher WAR than in 1982.

<

Joe Torre, in his first season as the Braves manager, had seen Niekro pitch back when Joe played for the Braves years earlier. He’d not only batted against him, but he’d also managed against him. So Joe wasn’t fooled by Phil’s sub-500 record (43-45) over the past 3 seasons. Phil’s ERA was just 3.43 during those seasons, his record was sub-par only because the Braves weren’t very good as a team those years.. He knew what Phil Niekro could still do on the mound for Atlanta.

It’s a good thing Joe could see it too, as Phil went on to lead the majors in winning percentage for the season with an .810 %, helping the Braves to the playoffs for the first time in 13 years.

In his first 5 starts after he came off the DL though, the potent Braves offense wasn’t giving him much to work with.

So Phil didn’t usually have more than a couple runs to work with. After this though, he’d go on a fine 9-2 stretch with a 2.93 ERA from May 18-July 5, 1982.

A little later in July, he earned his 250th career victory when the 2nd place Padres came to visit 1st place Atlanta. After the game, he was quoted as saying, “It’s not a win for me. It’s another game to keep us in first place.”

They were up by 9 games, but Phil’s priorities remained clear, and he was speaking with his knuckleball as loud as with his mouth. He wanted the NL West for his team.

As the summer progressed, he had his ups and downs like any pitcher, but towards the end of the year, the Dodgers caught up in the standings and by the beginning of September 27, the Braves were 1 GB in the division.

That night, in San Francisco, Phil was starting for the Braves. Once again, he showed his focus and shutout the Giants for his 1st shutout of the year, while Los Angeles was beaten by Cincinnati. His shutout, put Atlanta in a tie for 1st place, with 6 games left on the schedule.

His next, and final start of the season, was on Oct 1, in San Diego. Coming into this game, his team was 1 game up on the Dodgers. That night, Phil proceeded to pitch a near perfect game against the Padres, allowing only 3 baserunners. San Diego wasn’t a bad team that year either, so that wasn’t easy.

With the Dodgers also winning that night, 43 year old Phil Niekro’s determination, kept the Braves in 1st place on their way to their only playoff appearance between 1969 and 1991.

For the season, he went 17-4 and won the NL gold glove. He probably could’ve won 20, considering he had 3 no decisions where he’d allowed 1 run or less and also spent 2-3 weeks on the DL. If he’d won 20, he might’ve won the Cy Young award. None of that mattered to him though; All he wanted, was to get his team into the playoffs.

Danny, out of the bullpen, managed to win 10 games while he led the team with 7 saves. His 3.44 ERA was 2nd best on the staff among pitchers who’d thrown more than 18 innings….and those 2 pitchers were September call-ups, so Texas didn’t really have them all season long.

Being the most consistent on a pitching staff isn’t always enough though, ’cause you also have to be good at the right times too. Well, Danny was good at the right times. He made 4 appearances in 1-run or tie games, that kept his team from ending up with over 100 loses.

The first, was very early in the season against the eventual AL champs, the Brewers. On April 16, Danny came into the game to start the 6th, with the score tied at 1. The game remained tied after 9, but the Rangers got to Rollie Fingers in the 10th to take the lead. Danny held the Brew Crew down in the bottom half of the inning to keep the game in favor of Texas.

The second, was on May 7 against the Red Sox, who were 18-9 and in 1st place in the AL East. The Rangers were just 7-16, in last place, and in the midst of a 12 game losing streak. It would’ve become a 13 game losing streak that night if not for Danny getting a fine 5 out save in a 1-0 Rangers victory. He came into the game with a man on 2nd and only 1 out, having to keep big bats Dwight Evans and Jim Rice from driving in the runner. That’s a situation, and a game, that easily could’ve slipped away. The Rangers couldn’t beat Boston that year, going just 2-10 against ‘em.

The third, came on July 31 against the Yankees when he tossed 3 1/3 shutout innings to save another 1 run game.

The fourth appearance, was about a week later, in Yankee stadium. Danny entered a tie game with 2 outs in the 6th and a runner on 3rd to face Dave Winfield. Not only does he get the slugger to hit a weak grounder to shortstop, but he ends up inducing 6 groundballs out of the 7 batters he faces to finish the game. The tie game, turned into a Rangers victory thanks to Danny keeping the Yankees offense shut down.

When the season was finished, the Rangers had 98 losses, just 4 games ahead of the Twins in the AL standings. Seems to me, Danny Darwin was the difference between Texas and Minnesota in ’82.

That stare.

If looks could kill.

Ron Davis looks like he’s going to beat up anyone who dares step up to the plate next. He’s strutting on the mound with all the confidence in the world, ready for more.

This card celebrates a great baseball moment in Anaheim, California, on May 4, 1981. Striking out 8 straight batters in a game, by a relief pitcher.

Ron relieved Gene Nelson to start the 7th, and promptly got Don Baylor to pop out to 2nd. After that, nobody in an Angels uniform was making contact for the rest of the night.

After the game, Ron was kind of baffled as to how he’d done it, “I’m not doing anything different, I’m just throwing it in and they’re missing. …Nobody thinks of me as a strikeout pitcher. Maybe that’s why I’m able to strike them out.” [from the May 5, '81 Associated Press article "Davis Has Some Magic"]

In an era where most relievers were still washed up starters, Ron Davis just did something no other reliever did before that or since then. The only other pitcher to ever strikeout that many in a row at all, was Nolan Ryan, (as a starter) almost a decade earlier. Anytime you tie Nolan for a record, you know you’re doin’ something right.

But wait, there’s more!

The day before this, in Oakland, Davis struck out the final 5 A’s in the first game of a rare scheduled doubleheader. That meant that by the end of the game against the Angels, Ron had mowed down 13 out of 14 batters faced.

In fact, if we go back to the May 1 game in Oakland, Ron gives up a HR and a single, but then gets a couple outs before coming out of the game. One of them being a strikeout, means that at the end of the Angels game, Davis had just struck out 14 out of his past 16 batters.

His next appearance after the Anaheim game, May 9 in Seattle, he struck out the first hitter he faced before seeming a little more human. Although, that does mean he struck out 9 straight batters he faced. 9.

From his first out on May 1 to the first out of the 9th in the May 9th game, Ron ended up putting down 21 of 22 straight batters he faced, and 16 of them were strikeouts! That is a sick stretch of pitching. You’ve got to see it to believe it. Look at all these K’s—

Narron was the 1st out in the 9th. After him, Ron gave up a couple singles before getting another out, before giving up a 3 run homer by Tom Paciorek.

Before ’81, Ron Davis was already a star reliever for the Yankees, going a combined 23-5 out of the bullpen in ’79-’80 on the strength of a 2.91 ERA (137 ERA+). He’d thrown 131 innings in ’80. He was the setup man for Goose Gossage, but still managed to show star quality on the mound. He wasn’t known for striking batters out though, ’til ’81. He went from having a 4.5 K’s per 9 IP in ’79 & ’80, to 10.2 K’s per 9 in ’81.

Those kind of numbers in AAA won’t typically get you back to the majors, and that proved true with John. In fact, I couldn’t find any record of John pitching anywhere after ’82, not even in Japan. He just disapppears for a few years until he became the pitching coach for the Cal State Dominguez Hills Toros in the early 1990′s

During his time in the majors though, he was a middle reliever for the Angels and Twins with a brief stop on the southside of Chicago (6 appearances). He never started a game, but the back of his card notes that on July 21, 1980, he tossed the final 8 2/3 innings of a game against the Orioles.

What the card doesn’t say, is that it was John’s 1st big league victory. Oddly, all 3 career of his career wins came in 2 month period, and almost exactly a month apart from each other—July 21, August 28, and September 21.

Having spent a little time in the majors in ’76 and ’77, 1980 was John’s first full season in The Show. Apparently he was enjoying his time, judging by the prank he pulled on Dan Quisenberry that summer by telling him Dan had been selected to the All-Star team. Here’s how Quiz described it—

“He (Verhoeven) called me — the Twins were in town — and said he was a radio guy named Josh McDowell or something, and he said I’d been picked. I got real excited and I was telling him how great it was and then he couldn’t take it anymore and he started breaking up.

Either he was a prankster, or maybe some of the veterans on the team put the young guy up to it.

The next season, 1981, John’s ERA rose very slightly (from 3.97 to 3.98) but his ERA+ dropped 11 (from 110 to 99). September 30, 1981, he threw the final 2 outs of the top of the 9th, making him the last Twins pitcher to throw outdoors in a home game…’til 2010. That’s a little over 28 years. In the world of cool coincidences, he was 28 years old at the time.

John’s final moments on a major league mound, like Rickey Keeton‘s earlier in the season, would come against the White Sox.

It was about 6 weeks after the ChiSox knocked Rickey out of the majors, when they faced John, October 4, 1981. Last game of the season, and last inning of a slugfest that wasn’t as over as the Twins manager Billy Gardner wanted it to be.

Minnesota was up 12-9, when John took the mound. He gets Wayne Nordhagen to fly out in foul territory by first base. Then he gets Marc Hill to line out to short. Everything was going fine, but that would prove to be the final out he’d ever record in the majors.

The next batter, Mike Squires, singled. He moved to 3rd on another single, by pinch hitter Bob Molinaro. After that, John was replaced by Twins closer Doug Corbett. Corbett gave up 4 runs without getting anybody out. One’s got to think John could’ve gotten 1 more out…

At the beginning of ’82, nobody viewed the Yankees as a team in need of talent. They either had it, or could buy it when they needed it. Of course, history tells us that ’82 was the start of the Yankees playoff drought and time for some rebuilding of the franchise during some dark years.

Probably the most glaring need at the time was the 1B position. After trading Chris Chambliss away in late ’79, they bought some time by signing verteran Bob Watson to fill the hole. This turned out to be a perfect strategy for the Yankees as Watson’s stats dropped dramatically in ’81, at about the same time Steve Balboni was ready for the major leagues.

Steve hit 26 HR’s in ’79 for the Ft Lauderdale Yankees in class A, and then spent 1980 in AA, hitting .301/.399/.553 with 34 HR’s and driving in a whopping 122 runs. That earned him a call up to AAA Columbus for 1981 where his batting average dropped but he still drove in 98 runs and whollopped 33 HR’s in just 125 games.

He made his major league debut on April 22, 1981, against the Tigers and then played against them a few days later before being sent back down to Columbus. At this point, the Yankees still had reason to think Bob Watson would have another good year and felt they could let Balboni develop a little more.

Probably because of his lowering batting average though, they left him in the minors for most of ’81 even while Bob stuggled. In AAA in ’82, Steve’s batting average and on base percentage bounced back up, while his slugging rose up to .632! Even though Steve got into 33 games as a New York Yankee that year, he still wasn’t the Yankees regular first baseman. The Yankees had traded for John Mayberry in May, to be their first baseman for the rest of the year.

By this time though, a young Don Mattingly was in AAA too and also got called up to New York in late ’82 for a few games. Donnie Baseball was playing more outfield than first base back then, but the Yankees must’ve started thinkin’ about Don as the future first baseman instead of Steve.

So in the offseason, the Yankees make one of the all-time horrible moves by throwing an 18 year old Fred McGriff away in a trade to Toronto. Fred just posted a .413 OBP in the Gulf Coast League as a first baseman in ’82. New York got Tom Dodd and Dale Murray in return. Dodd has a 16 plate appearance career in Baltimore in 1986, while the 33 year old Murray tosses an 80 ERA+ in just 121 more innings over the course of the next 3 seasons to finish his career.

So anyway, in ’83, Balboni and Mattingly were battling for the Yankees first base position, with Don Mattingly eventually winning the role and Steve Balboni being traded to the Royals. Steve might’ve gotten the better end of the deal though, as he was joining a Kansas City team that would win the World Series in his 2nd year with them. To this day, Steve Balboni’s 36 HR’s in that Royals Championship season of 1985, remains the Royals single season HR record.

The 2nd player on this card, Andy McGaffigan, made his major league debut on September 22, 1981 against the Indians, tossing 3 scoreless innings in relief of Dave Righetti. Andy would only appear in 2 games for the Yanks. He was traded to the Giants just before the ’82 season began, in exchange for Doyle Alexander.

He was a decent reliever for 11 seasons, posting s 38-33 record, 3.38 ERA, in 833 1/3 IP. That’s a lot of 3′s & 8′s. Anyway, his ERA+ was a fine 111. Andy finished his career with the Brewers but his final apparance in a game was with the Royals.

That brings us to the 3rd future star, Andre Robertson, who became a part time shortstop for 5 seasons in the Bronx. He went 2 for 3 against the Royals in his major league debut Sepember 3, ’81.

Andre was the reason the Yankees felt they could trade away a good 20 year old shortstop named Greg Gagne in April ’82 in part of a trade for Roy Smalley. The plan was to have Smalley, who was a better hitting shortstop than Bucky Dent, play shortstop until Andre developed into a major leaguer. This also freed up Bucky to be traded, which he was. Greg only went on to play solid defense for 15 seasons in the majors and help the Twins win their first 2 Championships.

Anyway, when I was a kid, I remember thinkin’ Andre was going to be a great player. The Yankees announcers talked him up a lot too. Then, Andre was in a bad car accident in August ’83 which broke his neck and separated his left shoulder. He was never the same after that. He finished his playing days in 1989 for Oklahoma City 89ers in the minors.

Meanwhile, the Yanks wouldn’t have a regular shortstop until Derek Jeter came along 13 years later.

He struck out 11 Dodgers, walking just 3, and posting a game score of 95. At the end of the game, he also had a 17 1/3 inning scoreless streak running due to blanking the Giants for the final 8 innings of his previous start. He’d run that up to 24 innings before allowing a run in the 7th inning of his next start, which was his last appearance of the season. The Ryan Express was rolling at the end of ’81!

In that 24 inning scoreless streak, Nolan Ryan only gave up 9 hits, 2 walks, and struck out 14 batters. The teams he beat in this stretch were some of the best. The Giants were the worst, having a 48-49 record. The Dodgers had gone 60-41 ’til he no hit them. The Reds, 65-39. Ryan didn’t just beat weak teams, he was killing the best the National League had to offer him.

The next game he pitched, was game 1 of the NLDS against — The Dodgers. Unfortunately for Dodger fans, Nolan was still steaming along, as he held Los Angeles scoreless into the 7th inning, beating them 3-1. This time he struck out 7, allowed just 2 hits, with Steve Garvey drawing the only walk. Garvey also smacked a solo shot off him, for the Dodgers only run. Still, the Dodgers had no answer to the Ryan Express ’til the deciding game 5 of that series.

Going back to the no-hitter though, ’cause that’s what this card is all about, Nolan is still the only pitcher to have thrown at least 5 of them. Nobody since ’81 has thrown more than 2. What’s funny is that Nolan is also one of those pitchers who’s thrown 2 no-no’s since then. In fact, here’s each of Nolan Ryan’s 7 career no hitters—

1. May 15, 1973: @ Royals (12 K, 3 BB)
2. Jul 15, 1973: @ Tigers (17 K, 4 BB)
3. Sep 28, 1974: vs Twins (15 K, 8 BB)
4. Jun 1, 1975: vs Orioles (9 K, 4 BB)
5. Sep 26, 1981: vs Dodgers (11 K, 3 BB)
6. Jun 11, 1990: @ A’s (14 K, 2 BB)
7. May 1, 1991: vs Blue Jays (16 K, 2 BB)

To put this in perspective, besides Ryan, only 4 pitchers have ever thrown more than 2 no-hitters and none of them have thrown more than 4. Koufax threw 4, while Cy Young, Bob Feller, and Larry Corcoran threw 3 each. That’s a small list, and none of them are close to 7. That’s incredible.

Note: This is one of the few cards in the set that doesn’t seem randomly ordered, as it is card #5 & it’s about a 5th career no-hitter.