Do You Remember Ron Guidry's First Four-Man Rotation?

The only thing missing was the mustache

Aug 28, 2024

As a young collector in the early-to-mid 1980s, I relied on my baseball cards to teach me about the game. And I believed everything they had to say.

If a guy appeared on a “special” card, for example, I knew he had to be special. All-Stars, Record Breakers, In Action, Highlights, Team Leaders, League Leaders, box sets — they all elevated a guy into the “Player to Watch” category.

Worked pretty well, too.

My cards were the first to tell me that Mike Schmidt was a star and a superstar, that Atlee Hammaker was a cut above, that John Wathan could do things mere mortal catchers couldn’t.

George Brett, George Foster, Gary Carter, Jim Rice, Dave Parker, Denny McLain, Bob Gibson — all of them were anointed as stars by my baseball cards. (Not Pete Rose, though — Dad told me about him.)

Same thing for rookies.

If Topps said a guy was a Prospect or a Future Star or a Rookie Star or even a Rookie Shortstop, well, that player was worthy of my attention. I can’t begin to tell you how excited the 1982 trio of Scott Brown, Geoff Combe, and Paul Householder made me as a Reds fan in those dark days of Cincinnati baseball.

Of course not all the picks to click actually did click as hard as Cincy’s Thrashing Threesome did on their way to a combined -0.6 WAR.

Take the 1976 Topps version of a four-man rotation that you see at the top of this post, for example. Coming into the Bicentennial season, those guys had 25 big league appearances between them.

Of the four, Ron Guidry was something of an oddball. Not only was he the oldest of the group at age 25, but he’d spent almost his entire four-year minor league career as a reliever.

If you’d had to pick one guy among these “Rookie Pitchers” who wouldn’t live up to my special-card theory of the universe, it would have had to be Guidry. Mid-twenties rookie relievers don’t generally turn into Hall of Famers, right?

As it happened, Guidry didn’t even turn into an actual rookie in 1976, spending most of the season in the minors again and making just seven appearances for the Yankees, scattered throughout the season. His 5.63 ERA in 16 big league innings that summer didn’t do much to inspire confidence heading into his age-26 season, either.

Guidry broke camp with the Yanks in 1977, though, and made five relief appearances through late April. But on April 27, New York traded Dock Ellis, Larry Murray, and Marty Perez to the A’s in exchange for Mike Torrez.

Torrez was slated to make his debut in the Yankees’ rotation on April 29, but he had some personal matters to attend to and couldn’t join the team until early May.

That created a nine-inning hole the Bombers had to fill, pronto. With not a ton of other choices and plenty of seasons ahead of him, manager Billy Martin called on his rookie reliever — yeah, Guidry.

In his second big league start (his first came in 1975), all Guidry did was pitch 8 1/3 innings of shutout ball, yielding seven hits and two walks while striking out eight. Sparky Lyle came in to preserve the 3-0 Yankees’ win over the Mariners.

Guidry didn’t take the mound again until May 12, when he pitched 3 2/3 innings in relief. But then it was back to the rotation, where the Yanks and Martin truly caught Louisiana Lightning in a bottle.

From May 17 through the end of the season, Guidry made 24 appearances — all starts — and went 16-8 with a 2.96 ERA while striking out 155 and walking 60 in 188 1/3 innings.

That fall, the Yankees won the ALCS over the Royals and the World Series over the Dodgers, with Guidry contributing a win in each series. He picked up his first Cy Young and MVP votes after the season.

It was all just a prelude to the main course that was 1978, when Guidry went 25-3 with a 1.74 ERA as the Yanks rolled to another championship. That performance landed Gator the American League Cy Young Award and a second-place finish (to Jim Rice) in MVP voting.

From there on out, there was never much doubt that Guidry was an ace. He pitched parts of 14 years in the majors, made 323 starts, and crafted an overall record of 170-91 with a tidy 3.29 ERA.

He never fully abandoned his relief roots, though, and the Yankees called on him to spell other starters a few times most seasons.

As for Guidry’s neighbors on that 1976 rookie card…

Rob Dressler spent parts of five summers in the bigs, splitting time between relief work and the rotation.

Bob McClure pitched a whopping 19 years in the majors, but he was something of an anti-Guidry, flip-flopping from the rotation in the minors to the bullpen in the majors almost as soon as he debuted in Kansas City. Among his 698 appearances, only 73 were starts.

Zachry would have had this card on hot lists right away, if that had been a thing in 1976. Crashing the rotation of the mighty Big Red Machine, he went 14-7 with a 2.74 ERA to cop National League Rookie of the Year honors.

Less than a year later, the Reds packaged Zachry with Doug Flynn, Steve Henderson, and Dan Norman in the deal that brought Tom Seaver to Cincinnati.

In the end, not one of them could match Guidry’s career impact. And today, not one of them can match the number of candles on the birthday cake of the group’s elder statesmen as he turns 74 years old.

Fleer’s Guidry Grudge?

Guidry had some great baseball cards over the years, some you might even call iconic. Check out his 1978 Topps beauty sometime if you don’t believe me.

But Fleer seemed to have a grudge against Gator, or they were just too intimidated by his greatness to get their stuff together when it came time to work up each year’s Guidry card.

Read the whole sad story, and see all the sad cardboard, right here.

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That’s a lot of words, so I’ll spare you the snappy closing. Thanks for reading.

—Adam

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