On the blog today, we have a 1973 "career-capper" for former pitcher Tony Cloninger, who wrapped up a nice 12-year playing career before moving on to coaching later in life:
Cloninger
appeared in 17 games for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1972, going 0-2
with a bloated 5.19 earned run average over 26 innings.
Incredibly,
even though those would be the last game of his career, he was still
only 31 years of age, coming up in 1961 at the age of 20.
His
finest season was easily 1965 when he posted 24 wins for the Milwaukee
Braves, against 11 losses, posting a 3.29 ERA and 211 strikeouts over 40
appearances.
This was after a 19-win season the year before
when he had his breakout year, completing 15 games, tossing three
shutouts while saving two others.
In 1966 he'd win another 14
games, but it was one game at the PLATE that would remain his shining
moment in the Big Leagues, something I profiled years ago with a 1976
"Turn Back the Clock" card, his two Grand Slam batting performance!
On July 3rd of that year, playing the San Francisco Giants, Cloninger took the mound for the
Atlanta Braves.
With his team demolishing the Giants 17-3 that day, it was
Cloninger that supplied the bulk of the offense, going 3-for-5 with TWO
grand slams and nine runs batted in!
He connected for his 1st slam in the seven-run first inning against
RELIEVER Bob Priddy after starter Joe Gibbon didn’t make it past the
first five batters, and then connected for yet another in the fourth
inning against Ray Sadecki, who ironically enough
hit a homer off of Cloninger in the same game.
On top of the hitting performance, Cloninger pitched a complete
game, allowing three runs on seven hits while striking out five batters,
upping his record to 9-7 at that time, on his way to a 14-11 season.
By
the time he retired, he'd finish with a record of 113-97, with a 4.07
ERA over 352 appearances, with 13 shutouts and six saves.
Not too shabby!
