[Terry D]

Bill Scherrer was a stringbean left-handed reliever who had two moments of glory. Over the winter of 1981-82, a series of awful personnel decisions by Dick Wagner transformed the Reds from a powerhouse to a poorhouse. In 1983, Reds relief ace Bill Hume went into the tank as well and his hoped for replacement Brad (the Animal) Lessley was unable to find the plate. The Reds turned to Scherrer for lack of alternatives and he pitched pretty decently, leading the club with 10 saves. However, as Bill James noted, the Reds still had no confidence in Scherrer and when the team started poorly in '84 Cincy sent him to the Tigers. The Tigers, of course, were on their way to the World Series, and Scherrer pitched 19 very good innings for them on the way and even made some appearances vs. the Padres in the Series. That was as good as it got for Bill in Detroit, and after two years of poor ML performances he would up back in the Reds chain. Scherrer didn't do so well for the Reds in '87 but he pitched quite well in AAA that year. He went to the Orioles system and started off very well at AAA Rochester in '88, so when the O's had bullpen trouble early they gave Scherrer a chance. Scherrer got absolutely hammered (13.50 ERA in 4 IP), went to another lousy team (Philadelphia), was no better there, and never returned to the bigs. I'm glad to say that Bill has gone on to a long and very successful career as a scout. Here, though, is a 1988 moment he'd prefer to forget, a game for the Orioles against Minnesota in which he yielded three homers. Pictures of Bill with the Reds and Tigers are common, but these two images from newspapers.com are the only ones I have seen of him with Baltimore so far. I guess they will have to do for now.