Quote:
Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange
Did pitchers really throw on three days' rest all year? (A trip to Retrosheet should confirm or refute the claim.) Were injuries really less common then? (Hard to determine because the data doesn't really exist.)
A couple of things to note about the 1960s:
1) The schedule length was shorter, with teams playing 162 games in 25 weeks as compared to 26 weeks currently. There were also quite a few scheduled doubleheaders back then. This would tend to work against much use of a strict 4-man rotation.
2) The regular Disabled List operated completely different back then. It was limited to just two players being on it at any given time, and for most of the decade the required stay was either 21 or 30 days.
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Maybe. But, I have a lot of my dad's Street&Smith's from the 60s/70s. And you had a lot of pitchers pitching 40, 41 starts. Nearly every team seemed to have at least one get at least close to that.
Right now, I am looking at the 1976 one. And in 1975, Catfish Hunter made 39 starts (30 CGs, though I think that was his last truly effective season if I recall.) Course, the rest of the roster didnt have a pitcher with more than 32 starts (ed Figueroa who had pitched with California that previous year and had 16 CGs)
Lets see for some of the rest.
Boston had Fergie Jenkins (1975 with Texas) 37 starts with 22 CGs. The big 3 for them the previous year. Wise and Tiant 35 each. And Bill Lee 34 starts (plus 7 relief appearances)
Baltimore Palmer 38 starts, Cuellar, Torrez 36.
Oakland Blue and Holtzman had 38 (though after Hunter fled the previous winter they were the only 2 pitchers left reliable (excepting Fingers and Paul Lidnblad in the pen.
The Rangers had Gaylord Perry 37 starts between Cleveland and Texas and he turned 37 during the 1975 season.
White Sox knuckleballer Wilbur Wood made 43 starts and fellow White Sox pitcher from 1975 Jim Kaat (who went to Philly before the 1976 season) made 41 too.
Course this is the 1970s (1976 was the only Street & Smith handy right now). And this was the approx time 5-man started being considered. But, you can imagine what the 1960s might have been.