Who am I?
#213
I struck out 70% of the time in World Series play. One game I went 5 for 5 -- in striking out ... leaving 7 men on base! Not to worry though! I still was able to get the win. I got sort of got even with the batters when I struck-out 11 of them in the games that I pitched in Series play, going undefeated in the three games I started!
Don't think I was nothing but a whiff with a bat during regular season play. I only struck-out 24% of the time in those games. I did pound out an astounding 2 home runs in my 276 games pitched in some 539 plate appearances. My career year would come in my twenty-eighth year. I led the league in wins, games started and innings pitched. I should have been even better then what the records show though for that season. We had a powerhouse team for sure ... yet ... they weren't always completely a powerhouse during my times on the mound. I can remember the guys not even giving me one run for some 46 consecutive innings I pitched in that year! Really hard to believe but true. That may have cost me about four more wins. We lost a lot of 1-0 and 2-0 games when I was on the mound
My team won the World Series that career season I had in a sweep. That Series even saw me get my only Series run batted in ever! Got that RBI the hard way though, when I got popped by a lefty relief pitcher making his very first pitch in the game. He was thirty-seven years old then and maybe he should have thrown a little longer in his warming up I guess. After hitting me he settled down and pitched well the rest of the way. Not good enough though for his team ... but good enough when the game was over, to finish his World Series pitching days with a 0.87 ERA.
In my heyday, I could throw almost hard enough to tear a hole through a barn wall. The trouble was, I had to find the wall first. I threw the ball up ... I threw down ... I threw that ball all around! I had a whiplash right arm and wildness was my problem for sure. It was a problem I had until a future HOF teammate, another pitcher on our staff, straightened me out. My problem was that I was off stride all the time. I kept falling toward first base when I pitched. The teammate fixed my stride and also taught me a curveball.
I grew up knowing all about barns for sure ... and that was way long before I ever could throw hard enough to damage one. I lived my early years on a 160-acre farm in Iowa until I went off to the Army at seventeen.
My biggest years for sure as a pitcher came while with my World Series team. I spent all or part of 11 seasons total in baseball, pitching for two teams that sort of hate each other actually. I injured myself while with that second team during a game played in Detroit, when I broke my elbow while throwing a fastball. When the doc's opened my arm they found seven pieces of broken bone -- seven!
That injury basically ended my career ... although I still pitched some in the next two years, but that pitcher out there wasn't really the real me anymore.
Well, I guess that's it. About the game where I struck-out 5 times ...
... I can tell you
some other things about that game. God's honest truth if you want to know. Just ask and I'll tell you ... after guessing who I am.
One more thing to tell you first. I would later umpire in nine seasons after my pitching days were over. All those umpiring duties were in 1,147 American League games.
Who am I?
Originally Posted by JL25and3
Daddy Loves His Baby Angels 
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I've been able to fix it now because of you! Your answer is completely correct. 
I was grinning -- as I tossed him -- instead! 
crushed out an ungodly number of home run total that had never ever been seen anytime before -- over in his league. Anyway, the guy that I'd been traded for had run into some bad luck once again earlier this season ... and that was probably the reason that I had been traded for the former home run king. 
