Nothing like receiving an unexpected Christmas gift in the mail from a longtime friend. A signed 1970 Topps Lindy McDaniel baseball card. From John Letizia, who really got me into baseball back in 1970 when we were in the 3rd grade. At the time if you’d asked me my favorite team, I’d say the Yankees but Letizia was a huge Yankee fan and he showed me baseball in an enthusiastic light I’d not seen before. ‘Turned me on’ to the game. Huge Bobby Murcer fan.
He wrote this in a card that came with the present: “When I was 10-11, I was too afraid to just write to Bobby Murcer to ask for a picture and autograph so I tested it out by writing to this Yankee and Danny Cater, but I never got around to Bobby.”
On the back of Lindy’s 1970 baseball card it says McDaniel was the “holder of NL mark with 225 errorless games. Lindy was NL Fireman of the Year twice. Recorded four saves for Yankees in 1969.”
In the 1st Wave of Ace Relievers?
The errorless games mark was news to me but of course he was a reliever so not so impressive, as he’d only be playing an inning or so every game.
But what was impressive from the back of his baseball card was that he was exclusively a reliever so early on — starting in 1959 and through the sixties. He had to be part of the first wave of ace relievers. Having read about the Yankees championship runs of the ’50’s I knew the Yankees were one of the first and only teams to have a closer — Joe Page. Other teams couldn’t afford to have a good pitcher waiting to close out games, and used relievers as mop-up men. A quick check of Yankee pitching history shows they had an ace reliever as far back as the late 30’s and 40’s — Johnny Murphy. Other teams, like Detroit, Cleveland, or Chicago, didn’t.
Lindy turned from starter to reliever round about 1959 when he went from 26 games in 1958 to 62 games in 1959 — and put up dominant numbers thru the 60’s.
His conversion from starter to reliever is a story only hinted at on the back of his baseball card — he had a horrible ERA in 1958 then spent time in Omaha before coming back in 1959 and posting sterling numbers as a reliever. Did he run into arm trouble? Did he go to minors and invent a new pitch or simply learn the pacing of pitching only 1 inning but every day?
For that we search the web. According to the Society for Baseball Research: McDaniel was a bonus baby who went straight to the big leagues, but when he pitched poorly in 1958 he was demoted to the minors. He tried to earn back his starting spot in 1959 but after several bad starts he was simply dumped into the ballpen; he developed a forkball and flourished. According to wikipedia, Lindy in 1960 won the first-ever Sporting News Reliever of the Year award, for the National League.
So anyway — what a great gift. Got me researching Lindy McDaniel and found out a little bit more about baseball along the way. Thanks John!
Year Age Tm Lg W L W-L% ERA G GS GF CG SV IP H BB SO 1955 19 STL NL 0 0 4.74 4 2 2 0 0 19.0 22 7 7 1956 20 STL NL 7 6 .538 3.40 39 7 10 1 0 116.1 121 42 59 1957 21 STL NL 15 9 .625 3.49 30 26 1 10 0 191.0 196 53 75 1958 22 STL NL 5 7 .417 5.80 26 17 6 2 0 108.2 139 31 47 1959 23 STL NL 14 12 .538 3.82 62 7 47 1 15 132.0 144 41 86 1960 24 STL NL 12 4 .750 2.09 65 2 47 1 26 116.1 85 24 105 1961 25 STL NL 10 6 .625 4.87 55 0 39 0 9 94.1 117 31 65 1962 26 STL NL 3 10 .231 4.12 55 2 36 0 14 107.0 96 29 79 1963 27 CHC NL 13 7 .650 2.86 57 0 48 0 22 88.0 82 27 75 1964 28 CHC NL 1 7 .125 3.88 63 0 40 0 15 95.0 104 23 71 1965 29 CHC NL 5 6 .455 2.59 71 0 26 0 2 128.2 115 47 92 1966 30 SFG NL 10 5 .667 2.66 64 0 32 0 6 121.2 103 35 93 1967 31 SFG NL 2 6 .250 3.72 41 3 9 0 3 72.2 69 24 48 1968 32 TOT MLB 4 1 .800 3.31 36 0 27 0 10 70.2 60 17 52 1968 32 SFG NL 0 0 7.45 12 0 8 0 0 19.1 30 5 9 1968 32 NYY AL 4 1 .800 1.75 24 0 19 0 10 51.1 30 12 43 1969 33 NYY AL 5 6 .455 3.55 51 0 31 0 5 83.2 84 23 60 1970 34 NYY AL 9 5 .643 2.01 62 0 51 0 29 111.2 88 23 81 1971 35 NYY AL 5 10 .333 5.04 44 0 28 0 4 69.2 82 24 39 1972 36 NYY AL 3 1 .750 2.25 37 0 25 0 0 68.0 54 25 47 1973 37 NYY AL 12 6 .667 2.86 47 3 32 1 10 160.1 148 49 93 1974 38 KCR AL 1 4 .200 3.46 38 5 19 2 1 106.2 109 24 47 1975 39 KCR AL 5 1 .833 4.15 40 0 21 0 1 78.0 81 24 40 21 Yrs 141 119 .542 3.45 987 74 577 18 172 2139.1 2099 623 1361 162 Game Avg. 9 8 .542 3.45 63 5 37 1 11 137 135 40 87 W L W-L% ERA G GS GF CG SV IP H BB SO
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/1/2015.
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