Podres was wrapping up a very nice 15-year career pitching for the inaugural 1969 San Diego Padres team, ending up with a 5-6 record along with a 4.31 earned run average over 17 games, the last of his career, and 64.2 innings.
Those numbers would add into his final tally of 148 wins against 116 losses, with a 3.68 ERA, 24 shutouts, 10 saves and 1435 strikeouts over a spread of 440 games and 2265 innings pitched.
Of course, he made his mark on the baseball world early on in his career when he went 2-0 against the dreaded rival New York Yankees in the 1955 World Series while with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
That performance garnered him the World Series MVP as well as the adoration of a bunch of “bums” in my native Brooklyn, and actually would mark the first of FOUR champion teams he was a part of with the Dodger organization.
