Wednesday, September 25, 2013

September 25, 1953: Haddix Wins His 20th

On September 25, 1953, Harvey Haddix locked down his 20th win of the season with a complete game effort that had the Cardinals prevail 11-2 over the Cubs at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Haddix had the bats of Red Schoendienst and Stan Musial come through big for him. Schoendienst put together a 4 for 6 day that included a double, four RBI's, and two runs scored, while Musial went 2 for 4 with two runs scored with one of them coming via the longball  when he parked  the 256th homer of his career over the wall in the sixth inning. Haddix, a 27 year old rookie, scattered 7 hits throughout while striking out 10 of the Cubs batters. Statistically it was the best year of Haddix's 14 year career in the majors. He pitched a total of 19 complete games and struck out 163 while carrying a 3.09 earned run average. Only two other rookie pitchers have won 20 games in a season since 1953, Bob Grim of the New York Yankees went 20-6 the following season, then it would take more than 30 years for another rookie to reach the 20 win plateau. In 1985, Tom Browning of the Cincinnati Reds joined the exclusive rookie club as he posted a 20-9 record which was identical to Haddix's record in '53.

Check out box score: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN195309250.shtml 

No comments:

Post a Comment