Major League Jerk

In honor of my father-in-law’s playing of the national anthem at the Dbacks/Giants game last night with the rest of the Arizona Viola Society, I decided to write about former Twins All-Star and Cy Young winner (1988), Frank Viola. It might be a cheesy segue, but I like remembering former pitchers who seem to have been forgotten by everyone outside of the region in which they played. I will try to have video of the performance up later. I promise you it will be very shaky and the audio will be poor.

If you look only at his career numbers, Frank Viola had a rather average career. His career WHIP was 1.3 which is okay; his career ERA was 3.73 (ERA+ 112) which was again, better than average but not spectacular. The dude was a workhorse though, pitching more than 240 innings in a season 8 times in his 16 year career (!). If Edinson Volquez pitched that many innings in a season, he would average about 150 pitches per game. His career high was 261! This was in the era when baseball was transitioning into a more established role for relief pitchers and he still recorded 74 complete games. Does anyone besides Roy Halladay complete more than 6 per year? Anyone? Most teams make a big deal of pitchers who will give you 200 innings a year and this guy averaged 229 (per 162 games played).

But Viola was amazing for a brief 4 year period between 1987 and 1990. He won the Cy Young in 1988 when he went 24-7 with an ERA of 2.64 (ERA+ 153) and a WHIP of 1.1. That year he struck out 211 batters compared to only 74 walks. He won the Cy Young that year beating some nobody by the name of Dennis Eckersley.

In 1987, he won two World Series Games, overshadowing one of my favorite pitchers of all time Bert Blyleven, to give the Twins their first World Series title ever. In Game 1, he pitched 8 innings giving up only 1 run. In Game 7, he again went 8 giving up two runs. He dominated the Cardinals in those two games to ensure the victory. He did have a stinker in Game 4 when he got bounced in the fourth inning, but I doubt any Twins fan is going to quibble about his importance in that series. He was named WS MVP for his performance and rightfully so.

Viola finished in the top 6 in Cy Young voting four times including the year he won it in 1988. He was three time All Star and the kind of player that usually gets labeled gritty or tough. He won’t (and shouldn’t) ever be elected into the Hall of Fame, but for a 4 year period, he was one of the best pitchers in the game and deserves to be recognized from time to time. I guess it’s fortunate that my father in law plays a musical instrument of the same name.