Today’s sports card of the day is of one of the pioneers of relief pitching in baseball, Roy Face of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and it got me to thinking how much pitching has become specialized in major league baseball today. In the past starting pitchers were expected to finish what they started, and horses like Don Drysdale, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal and Wilbur Wood would be upset if they didn’t complete their starts. I believe Wood once won both ends of a doubleheader, although he didn’t start both games and was a knuckleball pitcher which is less strain on the arm. In today’s game, a starter is considered to have made a “quality start” if he lasts 5 innings, and then the game gets turned over to the specialists, the middle relievers, the “set up man”, and finally, the “closer”. Pitchers are paid enormous amounts of money to come into a game and get 3 outs (sometimes only 1 or 2), then if they come in for an inning 2 nights in a row, they need to be rested. Yes, I did just roll my eyes. Don’t even get me started on pitch counts. For better or worse, the game is what it is now, and the role of closer has evolved into a much-respected position in baseball. New York’s Mariano Rivera has elevated the position to new heights. In the 1960s there were relievers who began the “closer evolution”, like Face, Hoyt Wilhelm and Ron Perranoski of the Dodgers. The first pitcher that I remember who started to glamorize the position was Rollie Fingers (pictured above) of the three-time World Series champion Oakland A’s in the early 1970s. His handlebar mustache paved the way for the mean-looking facial hair look of guys like Rich Gossage, Bruce Sutter and later on Dennis Eckersley. So the days of Koufax, Drysdale, Claude Osteen and Johnny Podres starting games and once in awhile turning the late innings over to Perranoski are over. Now every team has a five man starting rotation with each starter getting at least 4 days rest between starts, and a bullpen loaded with short relievers, long relievers, mop up men, set up men, left-hand specialists and closers to finish the job for them. When I see how many of those starting pitchers wind up on the disabled list, it makes me wonder if progress is always for the best, and gives me a greater appreciation for modern day guys like Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and C.C. Sabathia, for whom the complete game is not a lost art.
