Thought it would be fun today to revisit a blog post from May of 2015, my 1976 "Dedicated Rookie" of my favorite childhood pitcher, Ron Guidry of the New York Yankees:
"Louisiana
Lightning" was a God in Brooklyn in the late 1970's into the 1980's,
and rightly so, given his electric pitching and helping the Yankees to
back-to-back championships in 1977 and 1978.
His 1978 season
was the stuff of legend, going 25-3 with a 1.74 ERA and nine shutouts,
with 248 strikeouts, just ridiculous numbers while taking home the Cy
Young Award, though getting robbed of the MVP (at least to me anyway).
Here's my original blog write-up for that post all those years ago:
"Beyond his great career, he was, and still is, a great man. One of those guys that everyone seemed to respect no matter what.
On the mound, all he did was win a Cy Young in 1978, get ripped off
an MVP that very same year (sorry Jim Rice), get named to four all-star
teams, win five Gold Gloves, lead the league in wins twice, ERA twice,
shutouts once, WHIP twice, and of course
post that awesome 18-strikeout game against the Angels in 1978 during
his magical 25-3 season which also saw him post 248 K's.
For his 14-year career he went 170-91, good for a .651 winning
percentage, along with a 3.29 ERA, 26 shutouts and 1778 strikeouts.
He'd also go 5-2 in postseason play, with a 3.02 ERA and 51 K's in
62.2 innings, and was part of two World Champion teams (1977/78)."
