Oops, had to make some changes/corrections to previous one I sent. Thanks again to Jim Smiley for writing this memory for me.
After I signed with the Dodgers out of high school in June of 1960, I played in the Instructional League for six weeks. The next year was my first season in the minors. Pitching for Reno, Greenville, and Spokane, I won 20 games against 6 losses with 295 strikeouts, 22 complete games and 7 shutouts.
Today teams protect young arms, but not back then. When the season ended I found it difficult to raise my right arm enough to comb my hair.
For the next four seasons I split time between the minors and the majors. It was tough to find my place in baseball.
In 1966 I had a breakout season at age 23. The pitching staff was stacked. In the rotation were Hall of Famers Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and rookie Don Sutton. A fourth starter – Claude Osteen – was three-time All Star and two-time 20-game winner. Manager Walt Alston and the Dodger front office believed in me enough to make me the fifth starter.
I pitched in a career-high 29 games. There’s a stat called, “ERA+”. It takes a player’s ERA and normalizes it across the entire league. It accounts for external factors like ballparks and opponents. My ERA+ was 131 in 1966. That means I was 31% better than league average. It was by far my best year in the big leagues.
We finished a game a half ahead of Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, and the San Francisco Giants. In the World Series we ran into a great Baltimore team led by MVP Frank Robinson and got swept.
In the off-season Sandy retired. With an opening in the starting staff and my effective season, everything pointed to me being in the rotation full time in ‘67. It was the best opportunity of my professional career. It was my time to shine.
In January I ramped up my workouts and got ready for Spring Training. One of the things I did for cardio was play pickup basketball. Running up and down the court really helped get me in shape. I mostly played on the perimeter to avoid the chance of injury. One possession I went in for the rebound and landed awkwardly. I felt a twinge in my right knee.
Immediately I left the game and went home. Though I got ice on it I could tell there was something wrong. My mind raced. Would the injury cost me the biggest opportunity of my career? I was worried. Maybe even angry. I asked God, “Why?”
A few hours after I went to bed, He answered me. My knee hurt so bad that the pain woke me up in the middle of the night. When I opened my eyes, smoke and flames were surrounding us, engulfing the bedroom. Though my wife was still asleep next to me, she was coughing violently.
I woke her up and told her to get Gary and Lynne out of their rooms and get clear of the house. The smoke was so thick that the only way she could breathe was by crawling on all fours. She picked up the kids and got them to safety.
Back in the house, instinct took over and I grabbed my crutch. Firemen always advise you to get out of a burning building but I had to stay and fight the fire that was destroying our family’s home.
Soon I found the sources of the fire. An old ottoman that sat on top of the grills of the floor heater for a couple years was enveloped in flames. The cloth on it had dried out and it combusted into flames.
With my crutch I pushed the flaming fireball of the ottoman toward the front door. Try as I might, I couldn’t nudge it over the threshold. As the flames converged on me, panic set in. Using all my strength, I gave the ottoman one final hard push with my crutch. The swing swatted the ottoman out the door and the momentum caused me to tumble out too.
Soon the fire department came. By the time they hosed down the house and extinguished the fire, there was about $4,000 in damage. You’ve got to realize the entire house was worth $20,000 – a lot of money in those days.
When the fire was finally out, I talked to the fire captain. I told him about waking up and seeing the flames. I wanted to know why we were able to sleep even as the thick smoke had us coughing so hard.
“Most of the time people don’t wake up in a house fire,” he said. “Usually they just cough until they can’t breathe any longer from all the smoke in their lungs. You’re all lucky to be alive.”
I’ll always remember God’s lesson. Hurting my knee seemed so awful at the time but if not for the pain of the injury waking me up, my family would’ve perished. God turned a devastating event into a blessing. He reminded me of the importance of faith, family, and love.
My knee didn’t heal up in time for Spring Training. Because of that, I got sent back to the minors. All things considered though, life was good. Some things are more important than pitching in the big leagues.
On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 5:40 PM James Smiley <jsmiley@gusd.net> wrote:
Here’s a draft of the info on 1966, hope for ’67, knee injury, fire, and God’s lesson. If you want it slimmed down so there’s less baseball parts, let me know. I couldn’t decide if all the baseball specifics set up the lesson better or if the baseball stuff distracts from the lesson. Let me know if you want it tweaked.
After I signed with the Dodgers out of high school, I played the rest of the season in the minors. Pitching for Spokane, Greenville, Reno, and Omaha, I won 20 games against 6 losses with 295 strikeouts, 22 complete games and 7 shutouts.
Today teams protect young arms, but not back then. When the season ended I found it difficult to raise my right arm enough to comb my hair.
For the next four seasons I split time between the minors and the majors. It was tough to find my place in baseball.
In 1966 I had a breakout season. The pitching staff was stacked. In the rotation were Hall of Famers Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and rookie Don Sutton. A fourth starter – Claude Osteen – was three-time All Star and two-time 20-game winner. Manager Walt Alston and the Dodger front office believed in me enough to make me the fifth starter.
I pitched in a career-high 29 games. There’s a stat called, “ERA+”. It takes a player’s ERA and normalizes it across the entire league. It accounts for external factors like ballparks and opponents. My ERA+ was 131 in 1966. That means I was 31% better than league average. It was by far my best year in the big leagues.
We finished a game a half ahead of Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, and the San Francisco Giants. In the World Series we ran into a great Baltimore team led by MVP Frank Robinson and got swept.
In the off-season Sandy retired. With an opening in the starting staff and my effective season, everything pointed to me being in the rotation full time in ‘67. It was the best opportunity of my professional career. It was my time to shine.
In January I ramped up my work outs and got ready for Spring Training. One of the things I did for cardio was play pickup basketball. Running up and down the court really helped get me in shape. I mostly played on the perimeter to avoid the chance of injury. One possession I went in for the rebound and landed awkwardly. I felt a twinge in my right knee.
Immediately I left the game and went home. Though I got ice on it I could tell there was something wrong. My mind raced. Would the injury cost me the biggest opportunity of my career? I was worried. Maybe even angry. I asked God, “Why?”
A few hours after I went to bed, He answered me. My knee hurt so bad that the pain woke me up in the middle of the night. When I opened my eyes, smoke and flames were surrounding us, engulfing the bedroom. Though my wife was still asleep next to me, she was coughing violently.
I woke her up and told her to get Gary and Lynne out of their rooms and get clear of the house. The smoke was so thick that the only way she could breathe was by crawling on all fours. She picked up the kids and got them to safety.
Back in the house, instinct took over and I grabbed my crutch. Fireman always advise you to get out of a burning building but I had to stay and fight the fire that was destroying our family’s home.
Soon I found the sources of the fire. An old ottoman that sat on top of the grills of the floor heater for a couple years was enveloped in flames. The cloth on it had dried out and it combusted into flames.
With my crutch I pushed the flaming fireball of the ottoman toward the front door. Try as I might, I couldn’t nudge it over the threshold. As the flames converged on me, panic set in. Using all my strength, I gave the ottoman one final hard push with my crutch. The swing swatted the ottoman out the door and the momentum caused me to tumble out too.
Soon the fire department came. By the time they hosed down the house and extinguished the fire, there was about $25,000 in damage. You’ve got to realize the entire house was worth $40,000 – a lot of money in those days.
When the fire was finally out, I talked to the fire captain. I told him about waking up and seeing the flames. I wanted to know why we were able to sleep even as the thick smoke had us coughing so hard.
“Most of the time people don’t wake up in a house fire,” he said. “Usually they just cough until they can’t breathe any longer from all the smoke in their lungs. You’re all lucky to be alive.”
I’ll always remember God’s lesson. Hurting my knee seemed so awful at the time but if not for the pain of the injury waking me up, my family would’ve perished. God turned a devastating event into a blessing. He reminded me of the importance of faith, family, and love.
My knee didn’t heal up in time for Spring Training. Because of that, I got sent back to the minors. All things considered though, life was good. Some things are more important than pitching in the big leagues.
On Mon, May 22, 2023 at 11:04 AM Joe Moeller <moe25joe@gmail.com> wrote:
Wow, can’t thank you enough for taking the time to do this and my kids really appreciate it. As they have said, “we would never have known this about you because you never talk about your baseball life”.
God’s blessings,
Joe Moeller
L.A. Dodgers/Miami Marlins
What God knows about us is more
Important than what others think.
Tim Tebow