Coming off of a season that saw him go 20-9 with a nice 2.68 earned run average and a league-leading five shutouts over 37 appearances, all but one of them starts, Downing had new life after three rough seasons since leaving the Bronx.
Though he’d never reach those heights again, he would go on to put together a nice 17-year career, retiring after the 1977 season after seven seasons out in Los Angeles.
Except for the 1970 season which saw him split the year between the Oakland A’s and Milwaukee Brewers, Downing spent the rest of his career split between the Yankees and Dodgers, ending up with a 123-107 career record, with a 3.22 ERA, 24 shutouts and 1639 strikeouts over 405 games, 317 of which were starts, between 1961 and 1977.
