JAMES RODNEY RICHARDTHE BADDEST PITCHER IN THE WHOLE DAMNED

TOWN
By Dean Gearhart (5/23/2015)
In honor of his upcoming book, I will now pay a brief tribute to the great James
Rodney J. R. Richard. His book Still Throwing Heat: Strikeouts, The Streets and a
Second Chance written with Lew Freedman, is due out on June 1 st and I plan on
reading it poolside shortly thereafter.
Its been nearly thirty five years since J.R. Richard of the Houston Astros started the
All-Star Game on the mound for the National League. The game was played on July
8th, 1980 in Los Angeles.
J.R. came into the game with a record of 10-4 and a 1.96 ERA. Four of his wins had
been shutouts. His Astros were tied for first and were primed to win the first
division title in the teams history. Richard had won 20 games for Houston in 1976
and 18 games in each of the next three seasons, but this would be his first All-Star
appearance.
He pitched two scoreless innings in the game allowing a hit, two walks and striking
out three. The N.L. won, but J.R. got a no-decision. J.R. struck out his mound
opponent, Steve Stone, to end his outing. He strode off the mound on top of the
world. Less than one week later, he would throw the last pitch of his big league
career.
---------------------------After a legendary high school career at Lincoln High School in Rustin Louisiana
(some details on that below), the Astros selected Richard with the 2 nd pick in the
first round of the 1969 draft. The first pick that year was Jeff Burroughs. J.R. spent
1969, 1970 and most of 1971 in the minor leagues, finally making his major league
debut on September 5th, 1971 vs. the San Francisco Giants.
He gave up two runs on three hits in the bottom of the first inning, before settling
down. He went nine innings that day, allowing a total of seven hits and three walks
in a 5-3 Astros win. Oh yeah, and he struck out fifteen Giants hitters
including Bobby Bonds twice and Willie Mays thrice. Thats right, I said thrice.
J.R. Richard had announced his presence in the big leagues with authority. His
debut strikeout total tied the record set in 1954 by Brooklyns Karl Spooner and that
record still stands as of 2015. I was not actually aware that J.R. held this record until
the night Stephen Strasburg made his first major league start. Strasburg struck out
14 in his 2010 debut and the list with J.R. at the top was baseballs most popular
graphic for the next 24 hours.

J.R. finished 1971 with a 2-1 record in four starts. He pitched 21 innings, struck out
29, allowed 17 hits, but he did walk 16 batters. He had some control issues to work
out, but he stood 6 feet 8 inches tall and had a fastball that was in the
neighborhood of 100 mph. It has always seemed odd to me that Richard did not
become a permanent part of the Astros rotation until 1975. Im looking forward to
seeing what his book has to say about this.
Richard made 31 starts for Houston in 1975. He completed 7 games, tossed a
shutout and finished with a record of 12-10 to go with an ERA of 4.39. He pitched
203 innings, allowing just 8 homers, but he led the league in two dubious categories
walks (138) and wild pitches (20). The Astros finished dead last in the NL West
that year with a record of 64-97.
1976 was a new year and it was the year J.R. found his stride. He still led the
league in walks with 151, but his ERA dropped to 2.75 and he ended the season
with a record of 20-15. He completed 14 of his 39 starts and he struck out 214
batters. His hits-per9IP was an impressive 6.8 best in the NL. The Astros
improved to 80-82 that year and finished 3rd in the division.
In 1977, the Astros finished 81-81 (still in 3 rd) and Richard began his run of three
straight 18-win seasons. He cut down on his walks, struck out 214 (again) and
finished 18-12 with a 2.97 ERA. He completed 13 of 36 starts with 3 shutouts.
In 1978, J.R. literally turned up the heat. He finished 18-11 with a 3.11 ERA and he
once again led the league in walks and wild pitches. That year, however, he also
struck out 303 hitters. He not only led the league in strikeouts, he became the first
NL right handed pitcher to ever eclipse the 300 mark. His feat was immortalized in
the 1979 Topps baseball set:

It was after the 1978 season that J.R. became a regular on your local news stands:

He was a cover boy for the Street & Smiths 1979 baseball yearbook. He graced the
cover of The Sporting News in May of 1979 and Sport Magazine in June 1979. It was
official, he was kind of a big deal. Despite Richards big year, the Astros finished in
5th place in 1978. J.R. finished 4th in the N.L. Cy Young award voting.
In 1979, the Houston Astros made their first playoff run in team history and James
Rodney Richard led the way. They won 89 games that year and lost out to
Cincinnati in the NL West race by a mere 1.5 games.
J.R. had his best overall season, again winning 18 games. He led the N.L. in ERA
(2.71), hits per 9 IP (6.8) and wild pitches (19). After striking out 303 in 1978, he
did himself 10 better and struck out 313 in 1979. He led the league in total Ks as
well as Ks per 9 IP with 9.6. He completed 19 of his 38 starts, allowed just 13
homers all year AND he cut his walks per 9 IP from 4.6 to 3.0.
He finished 3rd in the 1979 NL Cy Young voting. Looking at the voting, he should
have been at least 2nd (Hed have gotten my first place vote.if Id had one).
More importantly, J.R. had finally gotten it all together. He was 29 years old and he
was on his way to becoming the most dominant pitcher in baseball.

J.R. even appeared as part of a subscription sports card series. The card (pictured
above) was released in 1979 and references his 300 strikeout season. The card also
discusses his aforementioned high school career stating that he scored 64 points
in a basketball game, he once hit four consecutive homers AND he pitched 16
games in his high school career and never allowed an earned run. Those numbers

fall somewhere between myth and urban legend. He was actually a pretty decent
hitter in the pros too, hitting 10 homers in his career.
In 1980, J.R. Richard would get a new teammate in the Astros rotation. Houston
made a big splash in the free agency pool that offseason and made Nolan Ryan the
first $1M per year player in baseball history. Like Richard, Ryan was a regular
league-leader in walks, wild pitches, and strikeouts and, like Richard, his career hits
per 9 IP was less than 7.0.

Houston now had two guys who could throw 100 mph and didnt always know
exactly where the ball was goingthat would make me wet my pants if I had been
an N.L. hitter that year.
His stats would indicate that J.R. had cruised through the first half of 1980 on his
way his All-Star game start. But, there were signs of trouble. In his last three
games prior to the break, he won twice, but he failed to get past the sixth inning.
He had complained that he wasnt feeling right, but his numbers were more than
right, they were great and J.R. pushed on.
In his first start after the break on July 14th, Richard faced the Braves and squared
off against Phil Niekro the brother of his Astros teammate Joe. J.R. pitched three
and a third innings. He allowed a hit, a walk and struck out 4. He did not allow a
run and he even hit a double off of Niekro. After getting Chris Chambliss to hit into
a fielders choice, in the fourth he came out of the game. He walked off the
mound.never to return again.
After medical tests that were deemed inconclusive J.R. was put on the disabled list.
He was advised to keep working out. On July 30 th, with the Astros on the road,
Richard collapsed while throwing in the Astrodome. He had suffered a stroke. He
was thirty years old and arguably the best pitcher in the game andhow the
Hell could that happen?
There is a clip of him handing the ball to his manager and bumping into someone as
he leaves the mound, looking rather disoriented. I do not know if this was from his
final start, but every time I see that clip it gives me chills. I find it to be rather
haunting.

After his stroke, which required emergency surgery, a complicated blame game
began with fingers pointed at the media, the Astros front office and even at J.R.
himself. I wont get into that here. For more info on that I suggest you read the
book, like I intend to do. I will offer this: I wish someone knew then what we all
know now and his career could have been saved.
With J.R. gone, the Astros battled the Dodgers neck-and-neck down the stretch and
actually finished the regular season tied for first place. Houston won a do-or-die
playoff game and captured their very first NL West title. In the NLCS, the Astros
faced Philadelphia, who was in the playoffs for the 4 th time in five years. The Phillies
prevailed in an epic five game series and one cant help but imagine how things
might have been different had the Astros had a healthy J.R. Richard going for them
in that series.
After taking a year off in 1981, Richard made a comeback attempt. He pitched in
the minors in 1982 and 1983, but the stroke he had suffered robbed him of his
ability to pitch in the big leagues. He was officially released in 1984 and that was
that. It was (and still is) hard not to speculate on what might have been.
In his final two+ seasons, his ERA had been 3.11, 2.71 and 1.90. His hits-per-9IP
was 6.3, 6.8 and 5.1. His Ks per 9 IP was 9.9, 9.6 and 9.4. He was even getting his
walks per 9 IP under control, going from 4.6 in 1978, to 3.0 in 1979 and 3.2 in 1980.
Those are the stats that legends are made of.
A Cy Young award certainly seemed to be in his future. A string of 20-win seasons
was a strong possibility and a pennant in Houston must have seemed to be just a
matter of time. In my opinion, a Hall-of-Fame career was cut short just as it was
getting warmed up..(sigh).
During the 10 years after his career ended, he ran into serious financial
trouble.a few bad investments, some costly divorces and he found himself living
under a bridge in Houston. Once again, I will leave that to J.R. and Lew Freedman to
tell us about that in the upcoming book.
Just to be clear, I have not read the book and this is not a book review, but as a
child of the 1970s, I feel I owe it to J.R. to read his story.
His time came and went in the blink of an eye, but I still think of James Rodney
Richard standing tall in his rainbow Astros uniform. He pitched with confidence
make that attitude. Even his wind-up was bad-a$$ as he just reared back and fired.
With all due respect to Jules Winnfield, J.R. Richard should have carried a wallet that
said Bad Mother F#cker on it.
I should hate to think that he would ever be forgotten.
-----------------------------------------------------

Hey! I took a trip to my local Barnes and Noble and picked up a copy of the new
book. It came out a bit earlier than Amazon had led me to believe.

I guess my son and I are off to the pool, but Ill leave you with my favorite bits of J.R.
Richard memorabilia:

The bobble head was a 2012 Houston stadium giveaway. It commemorates his
back-to-back 300 K seasons in 1978 and 1979. I have one at home and one at my
office.
----------------------------------------------------------------------All photos in this story are from my personal collection of stuff.
All stats from baseball-reference.com
All sales are final
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Final Thought:

I have become aware of a 2005 movie made about J.R. Richards life. It is titled
Resurrection: The J.R. Richard Story. Very little info exists, but here is a photo:

I would certainly be interested in seeing this film. Any info anyone might have on it
or how I could obtain a copy of it would be greatly, greatly appreciated.
drg