Culver appeared in 14 games for the Philadelphia Phillies during the 1974 season, going 1-0 with a bloated 6.65 earned run average over 21.2 innings of work.
He would go and spend all of 1975 in the Minors, but never appear in a Major League game again, finishing his Big League tenure with a record of 48-49 with an ERA of 3.62 over 335 appearances and 788.2 innings pitched.
His best season would be 1968, as with many other National League pitchers, when he posted a record of 11-16 for the Cincinnati Reds along with an ERA of 3.23 over 42 appearances, 35 of those starts, with five complete games, two shutouts and two saves.
In doing the quick research for this post, I was amazed to see that Culver also had brief appearances in the Minors through the 1980’s, with two games in 1981 after not pitching pro-ball since 1975, one game in 1982 and another three appearances in 1985 at the age of 41, all in the Phillies system.
It was not pretty, as he got hammered each and every time with ERA’s of 13.50, 27.00 and 16.62 respectively, but I suspect he was making these appearances while serving as a coach in the Philadelphia system, so it was probably more gimmicky than anything else.
Anyone know?
