Obscure sports trivia

Mike Norris?

 

winner!

 

I think Brian Kingman is the penultimate guy to lose 20.

 

I think you're right. That A's pitching staff is a real case study. Billy Ball burned out quite a few arms, but Norris, McCatty, Langford and Kingman were talented. Kingman lost 20 (I just looked) in 1980 with a 3.83 ERA. Talk about bad luck.

 

When I was a kid, me and my dad used to play APBA baseball all the time. He bought the 1980 card set and we did a fantasy draft to choose up our teams. Mike Norris was the ace of my pitching staff. I don't remember anything about the 1980 season as it happened (I was 3 years old, going on 4), but I'll never forget who the stars of that season were from playing that game with my dad. Norris was an absolute stud in 1980.

 

then he developed a nasty cocaine habit and whoosh...

EDIT: Nice to see he turned it around. Love the Bob Gibson anecdote in this story.

Black Aces: A’s Mike Norris battling back – The Mercury News

 

Five guys pitched over 200 innings on one team. I believe only ten guys in the majors did last year.

Norris. Langford. McCatty. Keough. Kingman. 93 of 94 complete games for that team that year, just to go 83-79. What a shame.

 

Billy can't drink if Billy has to be making pitching changes.

 

Charlie O. Finley was a horse's ass (OK, it was a mule) but he sure could find baseball players.

And Krazy George is STILL alive.

 

In Marvin Miller's book, he calls Finley one of the best judges of talent he'd ever seen. Miller also was deathly afraid the other owners would agree with Finley, who wanted to make free-agency universal across the board, which would have killed the market and kept payrolls down. As usual, the other owners were too stupid to see Finley was right.

Miller's book is delightful. He skewers owners, players and commissioners with equal aplomb.

 

Or owners recognized it would be horrible for the game. Keeping costs down is one goal, but not when the cost savings would hurt revenues.

Or the owners recognized it was a horrible idea. Cutting costs is one goal, but not when the result of the cuts is decreased revenue. Loyalty towards a sports team is more than just a season to season interest in the local 9 beating some different local 9. Good luck selling tickets when each year every team is being rebuilt.

 

The nfl seems to be doing ok with a system that’s not too far off.