On the blog today to close out another week, my 1974 expanded league leader card for the American League's top three winners of 1973:
Leading the pack is Chicago White Sox knuckleball wizard Wilbur Wood, who had an insane run in the mid-70's.
For
the 1973 season Wood led the league for the second year in a row with
24 wins, while he also led with his 48 STARTS and 359.1 innings pitched.
Yep,
you read that right! The man tossed what would today be almost TWO
seasons' worth of innings for today's starters in one season.
And
to top it off that wasn't even close to his 1972 innings total, when he
pitched an astounding 376.2 innings over 49 starts, throwing eight
shutouts while going 24-17.
A converted reliever, I always
thought his 1968 season for Chicago was one of the all-time great
reliever seasons when he went 13-12 over 88 appearances, with a
sparkling 1.87 ERA and 16 saves over 159 innings of work.
Just amazing!
Right
behind Wood with 23 wins in 1973 was Detroit Tigers pitcher Joe
Coleman, who set a career-high after winning 19 and 20 wins the previous
two years.
Coleman, another workhorse, started 40 games for
the Tigers, completing 13 and throwing two shutouts on his way to a 3.53
ERA over 288.1 innings, striking out 202 batters, the third straight
year he topped 200 K's.
In 1974 he'd go 14-12 over 41 starts,
throwing 285.2 innings with a 4.32 ERA, but it seems the heavy workload
took its toll, as he would fall big-time in 1975, going 10-18 with a
bloated 5.55 ERA over 31 starts before becoming an arm out of the
bullpen for the remaining four years of his 15-year career.
In third place with 22 wins, Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, who topped 20+ wins eight years during the 1970's. Just amazing.
It
was the fourth straight year Palmer reached 20 wins, going 22-9 with a
league-leading 2.40 ERA over 38 appearances, all but one starts, with
six shutouts and 158 strikeouts.
Those numbers got Palmer his first Cy Young Award, and a second place finish in the MVP race.
Of
course we all know he'd go on to win two more Cy's, while finishing
second twice more along with a third place finish thrown in.
One of the All-Time greats!
Well there you have it, the top winners in the Junior Circuit for 1973, celebrated here.
