The Mound Can Be A Lonely Place
The worst kind of streak.
Welcome to the new look Powder Blue Nostalgia. If you’re a regular reader, you’ll notice one thing right away. It’s shorter. But don’t worry, nothing else has changed. You’ll still get weekly shots of classic baseball from 1985-94, along with firsthand memories that hopefully connect with your own experiences. Or at least give you a feel for what it was like, if you weren’t lucky enough to experience it yourself. Enjoy the new approach, and if you’re not already subscribed, I invite you to sign up for free.
I pitched one year in little league baseball.
It still astounds me that I was allowed to do this. For starters, small town sports are as political as it gets. Unless you were some kind of athletic freak (and I was not), you usually didn’t even get a look unless you had the right last name, which was something else I didn’t possess. Add in the fact that I was never near as good as I thought I was or hoped to be, and I spent most of football and basketball season on the bench.
Baseball in my hometown was a little different. Not that the coaches were any less biased, but because this was before travel ball, they didn’t have much choice but to play all of us local scrubs if they were going to fill out a roster. That’s how I ended up a starting pitcher for the Blue Team. Ah yes, such a creative name. Take that Expos!
My favorite memory from that season was getting to throw to my cousin, Scott. For once, we were on the same team, and he was our catcher. We had a whole system of signs from years of playing together in our grandparents’ yard, even though I couldn’t really throw anything beyond a mid-range fastball. Sure, I repeatedly tried a curve, but it never broke. And I never worked up the nerve to throw a knuckler in a real game.
No one expected me to be an ace. Not like this out-of-town kid name Thad on the Red Team. My friend Jared hyped him up before our first game, really leaning into the whole mystery man bit. I think we were all a little nervous— until he threw his first pitch. We absolutely shelled him, and that was the end of Cy Young Thad.
I did marginally better, but that was okay. My job was to eat some innings and keep it close for the coach’s son, Chris, to come in for the last couple of innings. Chris had way more velocity in his arm than I did, but he was wild. He couldn’t be trusted to pitch a whole game or the other team would score a dozen runs on walks alone. As opposed to maybe a half dozen off my meatballs.
Eventually, as the season wore on, we were both sidelined more and more in favor of another kid. It was the same kid who beat me out for the starting quarterback job in middle school. Granted, he deserved it. He was a far superior athlete to me, but mostly because he could run fast. His arm wasn’t anything special, and his pitching form was downright peculiar.
To this day, I’ve never seen anything quite like it. He looked like he was shot-putting the ball over the plate. The ball arced toward the batter in what felt like slow motion, but damned if it wasn’t successful. My theory is that is was so unusual that it threw batters off. Whatever the case may have been, it worked. By the end of the season, Chris and I had been relegated to spot duty, and I bounced around the diamond to a handful of other positions.
Still, it wasn’t all bad, even if the highlight of my pitching career might have been narrowly avoiding a line drive to the face. I not only felt the wind as it breezed by me, I could actually feel it skim along my cheek. So, while I didn’t keep official stats, I narrowly avoided a broken face, struck a few guys out, and ate some innings. I was like the late 80’s-early 90’s version of Jordan Lyles. Or maybe I was the little league version of Anthony Young.
Actually, that’s not fair to Anthony Young. Yes, Anthony Young holds the unwanted record for losing the most consecutive decisions— 27, from May 6, 1992 until July 24, 1993— but he was actually a pretty solid pitcher.
Of course, you don’t make it to the big leagues if you suck. (I present as evidence: me.) But while he was maligned on a nightly basis by Sportscenter and late-night talk show hosts like Jay Leno, and fans sent him letters of encouragement containing rabbits’ feet, four-leaf clovers, and horseshoes in an effort to break him out of his funk, the dirty little secret is that Anthony Young actually pitched pretty well through the majority of his dubious streak. As he, himself, pointed out, the Mets wouldn’t have kept him around if he just stunk.
The 1992 season started out strong for Young, as he opened the year with one of his two career complete games, beating St. Louis, 7-1. Then, after picking up a win in relief on April 19th, he proceeded to lose fourteen straight decisions over the course of the rest of the season. This included six starts, and eight decisions after moving to the bullpen.
He started 1993 in the pen, lost five decisions, and moved back into the starting rotation. After a no-decision, he lost seven straight.
His 20th loss set a new Mets record. His 24th loss broke Cliff Curtis’ all-time record. Curtis set the mark in 1910-11, and his descendants commiserated with Young. Loss 26 was a real heartbreaker. After allowing a leadoff single against San Diego, he retired 23 straight batters before giving up a single and a 2-run HR to Archi Cianfrocco. Meanwhile, his own offense was shutout by Andy Benes and Gene Harris.
Loss 27 came during an extra inning relief appearance on July 24, 1993. Four days later, he finally got the monkey off his back. Or, as he put it, “That wasn’t a monkey off my back. It was a zoo.” It didn’t come easy though.
He replaced Bret Saberhagen in the ninth inning against Florida with the scored tied, 3-3. Young gave up a run, but the Mets rallied in the bottom of the inning to walk it off against Florida’s dominant reliever, Bryan Harvey. It was one of only four saves blown by Harvey all season.
The streak is not the whole story of Anthony Young though. I’m not even talking about his whole career, in which he put up solid workmanlike numbers.
Career stats: 15-48, 3.89 ERA, 181 G, 51 GS, 460 IP, 20 Saves, 245 K, 1.387 WHIP, 1.3 WAR
I’m talking about the period of the streak itself. Yes, he lost a bunch of decisions in a row. But in the midst of it, in addition to a number of productive no-decisions, he also recorded 15 saves while filling in for Mets closer John Franco. At one point, he converted 12 save opportunities in a row, and even put together a 23.2 inning scoreless streak. Those are hardly the achievements of a loser, no matter what people want to focus on.
But when you’re standing alone on that mound, there’s no hiding from that spotlight.
Thanks for reading Powder Blue Nostalgia. What did you think of the new approach? Share your thoughts on that and Anthony Young in the comments below. Are there any other hard-luck players you can think of?
Thanks Patrick, you are right the mound can be a very lonely place. Going to Emporia State in late October for a Alumni weekend. Looking forward to seeing some guys haven't seen in years. ⚾