April 9, 2021
The mystery pitcher began appearing in my morning box scores during the second half of September 1980. Sometimes he was Valenzuela, others Valenzla, but every time I looked, he had zeroes next to his name. I couldn’t find him in my baseball card set, my
Street & Smith’s Official Yearbook 1980, or my
Complete Handbook of Baseball 1980. All I knew was that suddenly he was one of the Dodgers’ most reliable relievers, a rookie thrown into the fire of a three-way NL West race between the Dodgers, Astros, and Reds.
What I didn’t know was that just over six months later, everybody who was anybody would know the name Fernando Valenzuela and the trail of zeroes he left in his wake. Fernandomania was coming.
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January 22, 2021
Don Sutton did not have the flash of Sandy Koufax, or the intimidating presence of Don Drysdale. He lacked the overpowering fastball of Nolan Ryan, and didn’t fill his mantel with Cy Young awards the way that Tom Seaver or Steve Carlton did. He never won a World Series or threw a no-hitter. Yet Sutton earned a spot in the Hall of Fame alongside those more celebrated hurlers just the same. He was one of the most durable pitchers in baseball history, as dependable as a Swiss watch.
Alas, durability does not confer immortality. Sutton died on Monday at the age of 75, after a long battle with cancer. Son Daron Sutton, a former pitcher and broadcaster in his own right, shared the news on Twitter on Tuesday:
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MINNEAPOLIS All of the roster chaos created by the pandemic-impacted 2020 season had one interesting side effect: unusual uniform numbers became more prevalent around the Majors as clubs dug deep into their depth to call up players who, in many cases, had those extra numbers assigned to them in Spring Training.
In fact, baseball finally saw every jersey number from 0 to 99 worn in an MLB game when the Yankees assigned No. 89 to Miguel Yajure on Aug. 20. The Twins narrowly missed being part of history, as Minnesota right-hander Edwar Colina was one month too late to become the first player in MLB history to wear No. 86.