Other Crap

RIP Indians pitcher, broadcaster Herb Score, 75

I first became interested in baseball at the time of the 1957 World Series, which was a classic battle of the underdogs versus the dynasty, won in true Hollywood style by the upstart Braves against the mighty Yankees. It was a victory made sweeter by the fact that the Wisconsin populace loved their brand-new Braves, who had recently moved from Beantown.

In the context of that time frame, Herb Score was a complete mystery to me and my classmates. Herb sucked then and would continue to suck until he retired in 1962 at the tender age of 29. The only thing remarkable about him was that he gave up an ungodly amount of walks. In 1959-60, he walked 202 batters in 273 innings, about triple what the best pitchers were supposed to allow. Herb was so completely inept that we couldn't even figure out how he stayed in the majors. And yet adults said he was a great pitcher. Even the kids a couple of years ahead of us talked about how great he was. What the ...?

Well, when I finally figured out how to see baseball in historical perspective, it all made sense. Herb came up in 1955 at age 22 and went 16-10 with 245 Ks in 227 innings. Those were the days before guys like Koufax, McDowell, Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson broke all the strikeout records. Herb was the first starter in baseball history to average one strikeout per inning. The best fireballers in history - the Big Train, Waddell, Rapid Robert - had never even come close, and the record of 8.7 per nine innings was owned by some dude named Hugh Daily, who set it in 1884, before most of our grandparents were born. Under a very different set of rules, Hugh had struck out 483 guys in 500 innings. I believe that in those days a pitcher could obtain a strikeout simply by saying, "I cast thee out, varlet" to the batter, unless he made an error in grammar, in which case the batter was allowed to order his batboy (a hunchbacked midget by tradition) to set the ball safely anywhere on the diamond while the fielders wore blindfolds. It was sort of a cross between t-ball and an Easter egg hunt.

Anyway, getting back to the point ... Herb broke an important 71-year-old record when he was a 22-year-old rookie, while winning 16 games with a 2.85 ERA (4th in the league). The next year he again struck out a batter per inning, cut back his walks, allowed only 162 hits in 250 innings, and won 20 games, one less than the league leader. His ERA also dropped and his 2.53 came within one stinkin' run of taking the ERA crown. At the tender age of 23, Score was challenging Hall of Famers Whitey Ford and Early Wynn for the honor of being the league's top pitcher.

And then disaster struck.

Early the next year, Score took a line drive to the right eye socket, and that resulted in several broken bones and a broken career. Score tried to come back but ... well, I already told you how deep he sucked, so there's no need to rehash it. He managed to baffle me and my friends by hanging on from 1957 to 1962, even though he couldn't get anyone out, because teams kept dreaming that the REAL Herb Score would return. When that didn't happen in Cleveland, the Indians dished him off to Chicago, where he sucked even worse, losing twice as many as he won. In 1961 his era was a satanic 6.66, and he allowed the disastrous total of one walk per inning. At age 28 he could get only five starts because he was probably the worst starting pitcher in baseball. (WHIP almost 2.0!) Five years earlier he may have been the best.

So it goes.

Herb managed to pick up his life beautifully. He was through as a White Sox pitcher in 1962, and he returned the next year to Cleveland, where he began a 34-year stint as a beloved Indians' broadcaster.