The Perennial Mystery Cy Young Candidate

The 1980s wouldn't have been the 1980s without him

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1983 Topps Dan Quisenberry All-Star (#396) - Card of the Day

Here’s one of those trivia questions you already know the answer to because of the baseball card up there (^):

Who is the only pitcher to finish in the top three of American League Cy Young voting every year from 1982 through 1985?

Here’s a hint, in case the card above wasn’t hint enough: this pitcher also finished fifth in 1980 Cy Young Award voting.

Overall, here are the guys who finished in the top five of Cy Young voting from 1980 through 1985, along with the number of times they pulled off the feat:

• 5 times: our “Mystery” guy:

• 3 times: Rich Gossage

• 2 times: Bert Blyleven, Ron Guidry, Jack Morris, Rick Sutcliffe, Pete Vuckovich

• 1 time: Mike Boddicker, Richard Dotson, Rollie Fingers, Willie Hernandez, LaMarr Hoyt, Tommy John, Charlie Leibrandt, Dennis Martinez, Steve McCatty, Mike Norris, Jim Palmer, Dan Petry, Bret Saberhagen, Dave Stieb, Steve Stone

So our mystery guy leads the pack by a wide margin. And here’s a final hint: he also led the American League in saves in 1980 (tied with Gossage) and every year from 1982 through 1985.

For my money, it’s hard to come up with a player who was more quintessentially 1980s than Dan Quisenberry.

I mean, here’s a guy who clocked his official rookie season in 1980, dominated and helped redefine the closer’s role in the first half of the decade, then faded out along with the decade itself.

Quiz was never quite the same after that 1985 season, when he led the majors with a career-high 84 appearances en route to helping the Royals win their first World Series.

And the Quirky submariner was never quite as dominant as he was in setting the single-season save mark of 45 in 1983 — the same summer we were pulling his cheery All-Star card from Topps packs.

By the end of the 1980s, Quiz was setting up Todd Worrell for the Cardinals. By May of 1990, he was done after he tore his rotator cuff five games into his tenure with the Giants.

Quisenberry, who was born 71 years ago today, tragically died in 1998 at just 45 years of age. While he might never be a Hall of Famer, Q’s legacy in the game will live for as long as there’s a game to celebrate.

Sets You Forgot About - 1985 Woolworth

Quisenberry was featured prominently in many of the boxed sets of the 1980s, including the 1985 number that Topps made for Woolworth five-and-dime stores.

This was actually one of the earlier boxed sets (1982 Kmart is generally considered the first) and features 44 all-time record holders. Some of the (ahem) luminaries on the checklist included Cliff Johnson, Owen Wilson, and Jim Gentile.

Of course, you can find more standard record-holding names like Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Nolan Ryan, Pete Rose, and Willie Mays in this lineup, too.

The cards themselves are pretty thick and high-quality, with premium creamy white cardstock and high-gloss fronts.

As such, you can expect to pay a bit more than you would for most boxed sets of the era — maybe $15-25.

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So what do YOU think about Quisenberry’s legacy? Does he belong in Cooperstown?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go work on dropping my elbow without dragging my knuckles across the mound.

Thanks for reading.

—Adam