RIP Vida Blue

[MTM]

Not seeing this elsewhere, but Dave Stewart posted this.

Great player with a great name.

 

[goalmouth]

And the answer to a confounding trivia question -- the last switch-hitter to win MVP.

 

[Songbird]

I caught him in the end with the Giants when I was still getting into baseball.

One of those guys I would love to have seen in his heyday.

 

[qtlaw]

Seemed like a great guy ; bummed.

 

[HanSenSE]

Giants sent seven players across the Bay to pick him up during spring training in 1978. One of those things you hear first thing in the morning that you go "huh?"

RIP.

 

[Tarheel316]

I caught him in the end with the Giants when I was still getting into baseball.

One of those guys I would love to have seen in his heyday.

I saw him in Atlanta in 1978. Went to see a four-game series. I think the crowd was around 5,000 for each game. Before one of the games, I was one of four teenagers having a conversation with Vida down near the bullpen. At one point, he looked at me and said, “What is this, an interview?” I’ll never forget that. I enjoyed watching him at the Coliseum when I lived in the Bay Area.

 

[Spartan Squad]

We did an elementary play about baseball and one of the songs was about Vida Blue (Cy Young and Whitey Ford) striking people out. As a kid, they were all legends to me.

RIP

 

[Starman]

Fairly similar career to Doc Gooden: burst on the scene as a dominant rookie fireballer, seemed a HOF slam dunk his first few years, seemed to become a cautionary tale of a sad wasted career, but ended up pitching effectively well into his late 30s.

Watched him pitch in the 71 ASG, which has become regarded as one of the greatest collections of players in the post teevee era.

 

[ChrisLong]

And the answer to a confounding trivia question -- the last switch-hitter to win MVP.

The first year I covered spring training, we showed up in Vero Beach, and the Dodgers coaches who were already there couldn't want to hit us with this trivia question --- in 1981.
Still a good one after 40+ years.

 

[maumann]

Dude could bring it. Pre-Statcast, pre-ESPN highlights, pre-radar guns, I don't care if you think the average pitcher was lobbing it underhanded back then. Vida Blue threw gas. He'd get that right leg cocked up well over his waistline and let loose, daring hitters to try and catch up with the heater.

He had a good curveball, which he used just enough to keep guys from getting locked in, but the fastball was his bread and butter. Man, the sound it made when it hit the catcher's glove was unique -- even if there weren't a whole lot of fans around to hear it.

His 1971 season was spectacular and the attention he received in the Bay Area and nationwide was similar to that of Fidrych and Valenzula later on. Then he got in a contract dispute with Charlie Finley in the off-season and missed most of 1972, but the A's were so good that they could start Hunter, Odom and Holtzman in the American League Championship Series and then give the ball to Vida to close out Game 5 with four innings of relief, just mowing down the Tigers.

He then went on to win 77 games over the next four seasons, and when Finley couldn't dump him on the Yankees or Reds because of Bowie Kuhn, he got stuck as the only good player on a roster of AAA players in 1977.

By the time he finished his first stint with the Giants, his off-field troubles pretty much ended his career.

Getting to see Blue in his prime was special. RIP, Vida.

 

[ChrisLong]

What were the A's colors? Emerald green, wedding gown white and Vida Blue.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I was very young during his prime and my main memory was that late in his career, he had his first name on the back of his jersey. RIP

 

[da man]

Could have played for the Yankees but Bowie Kuhn stepped in.

 

[BTExpress]

I was very young during his prime and my main memory was that late in his career, he had his first name on the back of his jersey. RIP

Ted Turner was way ahead of him. Of course, Kuhn stepped in then, too.

 

[Brian J Walter]

And the answer to a confounding trivia question -- the last switch-hitter to win MVP.

Willie McGee and Pete Rose (and possibly others, but I know those two) would like a word.

 

[MTM]

Last switch hitter to win AL MVP

 

[HanSenSE]

According to legend, suggested Will Clark use "The Thrill is Gone" on his answering machine.

 

[Jesus_Muscatel]

I caught him in the end with the Giants when I was still getting into baseball.

One of those guys I would love to have seen in his heyday.

My family relocated from Houston to metro DC in the summer of 1970.

The following year, me and a bunch of my baseball teammates -- we were ninth graders, nobody was driving then -- got one of my buddy's Dads to drive us down to RFK, drop us off in a station wagon and pick us up after the Senators (living on borrowed time, of course) game was over.

We sat in the outfield bleachers for 50 cents, if memory serves. Maybe a buck.

Anyway, Vida Blue was starting for the Oakland Athletics that day. And he was startin' to really dominate MLB.

It was June or July, hot, but Vida was from Louisiana, no problem. He worked fast and mowed down the Senators, inning after inning. Hurled a one-hitter. Game ended in less than two hours. My God he was exceptional.

We all know how his career got short circuited. He never really has even been in the conversation for Cooperstown, has he?

 

[Slacker]

WIKI: In The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers, all-time hits leader Pete Rose stated that Blue "threw as hard as anyone" he ever faced, and baseball historian Bill James cited Blue as the hardest-throwing lefty, and the second-hardest thrower of his era, behind only Nolan Ryan.

 

[Starman]

My family relocated from Houston to metro DC in the summer of 1970.

The following year, me and a bunch of my baseball teammates -- we were ninth graders, nobody was driving then -- got one of my buddy's Dads to drive us down to RFK, drop us off in a station wagon and pick us up after the Senators (living on borrowed time, of course) game was over.

We sat in the outfield bleachers for 50 cents, if memory serves. Maybe a buck.

Anyway, Vida Blue was starting for the Oakland Athletics that day. And he was startin' to really dominate MLB.

It was June or July, hot, but Vida was from Louisiana, no problem. He worked fast and mowed down the Senators, inning after inning. Hurled a one-hitter. Game ended in less than two hours. My God he was exceptional.

We all know how his career got short circuited. He never really has even been in the conversation for Cooperstown, has he?

He's better qualified than Rube Marquard for sure and probably right in the same neighborhood as Jack Morris and several others.

Both he and Gooden had five year peak periods fairly comparable to Koufax, but Koufax's career was drastically shortened by injuries, not drugs.

Really, I don't think there were particularly any rumors that either Gooden or Blue were involved in unsavory stuff other then rumored substance abuse, which was rampant at the time and for which they were duly penalized.