Up
on the blog today we have a 1975 “Nickname” card for Wilbur Wood, aka
“Wilbah”, who had himself quite a run in the early part of the 1970’s:
The reliever-turned-starter strung four straight 20-win seasons for the
Chicago White Sox after some pretty amazing years coming out of the
bullpen in the late-60’s, with three top-5 Cy Young finishes between
1971-1973.
His 1972 season is the stuff of legends, as he started 49 games, knuckling his way through an astounding 376.2 innings!!!
The following season he worked another 359.1 innings on 48 starts,
equaling his 24 wins from the year prior and leading the American League
once again.
I’ve also always been fascinated with his 1968 season when, appearing in
88 games, all but two as a reliever, he went 13-12 with a microscopic
1.87 earned run average, with 16 saves over 159 innings pitched.
The man was incredible no matter where how team used him!
Sadly for him however, when you’re pitching during the same era as Jim
Palmer, Jim Hunter, etc, you’ll tend to get lost in the shuffle, thus
the Cy Young snubs each year.
By the time he retired after the 1978 season, Wood finished with a
164-156 record, appearing in 651 games, with 297 of them starts.
He’d have a final ERA of 3.24, with 24 career shutouts, 1411 strikeouts and 57 saves over 2684 innings pitched.
He led his league in pitching appearances three times, all consecutive,
then went on to lead the league in starts four years in a row soon
after.
