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Don Stanhouse: Earl's Bane of Existence


BillySmith

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Happy birthday to Don Stanhouse, who turns 58 today.

Stanhouse was a RHP who was a first round pick of the A's, and was sent to the Rangers with Jim Panther in exchange for Denny McLain prior to the 1972 season.

Stanhouse pitched poorly over three seasons for the Rangers before being shipped off following the 1974 campaign in a deal for Willie Davis.

He hung around for a few more seasons, and actually was an All Star in 1979, despite walking 51 batters and striking out just 34 while pitching 72 2/3 innings out of the bullpen for the Orioles.

In fact, his K/BB ratios throughout his career are astonishing...in a 10 year career, only three times did he strike out more batters than he walked, and he walked 455 batters against 408 Ks as a major leaguer.

I don't know of too many major leaguers in history who have walked almost 50 more batters than they've struck out.

I remember those days, and how he walked the bases loaded with virtually every save opportunity, but I had no idea the numbers were this glaringly bad.

What was Stanhouse's nickname? "Full pack" because that was what Earl would smoke while he was on the mound?

Another great part of our history.

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"Stan the Man Unusual"

Flanagan called him that, and Stanhouse liked it so much that he had t-shirts made up with the nickname and a caricature of him sticking out his tongue. There was a shop called Full Moon T-shirts that a lot of the Orioles players used back then to make custom designs. When I was a kid, I had a Stanhouse shirt & also a Ken Singleton design with his "Hit 29" Maryland license plates. Really wish I still had those shirts.

Stanhouse was a beaut, from the stuffed gorilla he kept on his locker to his black car, black furniture, black telephone & (usually) black clothes. "I think he's working to be a mortician", joked Rick Dempsey.

Happy birthday #26

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Were you following the games back then as closely as I was? Radio or TV? Great, great times.

Almost every single game!

I turned 9 in 1979, but I had the good fortune to grow up in a home where the Orioles broadcast was a constant, and we got out to Memorial Stadium about once per homestand.

Nothing that's happened the last 11 or so years could every jeopardize my Orioles fanhood or love of baseball. Ingrained way too deep from the good ol' days.

(I still have my signed Billy Smith 8x10 somewhere from a public appearance that Orioles players made on a regular basis back then. I have a picture with him somewhere. Pretty sure he was wearing a cowboy hat -- the real thing, not some Dallas football business)

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Almost every single game!

I turned 9 in 1979, but I had the good fortune to grow up in a home where the Orioles broadcast was a constant, and we got out to Memorial Stadium about once per homestand.

Nothing that's happened the last 11 or so years could every jeopardize my Orioles fanhood or love of baseball. Ingrained way too deep from the good ol' days.

(I still have my signed Billy Smith 8x10 somewhere from a public appearance that Orioles players made on a regular basis back then. I have a picture with him somewhere. Pretty sure he was wearing a cowboy hat -- the real thing, not some Dallas football business)

Dude, I will buy you and yours some tickets for a color copy of that. I'm serious. I have a picture of me in Jimmy Page's Mercedes. Billy Smith would go right next to it.

That's awesome. He had one of those really nice, smooth lefty swings. He apparently is still in Texas and owns a company, damn if I remember what the company is. Something with farming, I think.

I digress. Amazing that Stanhouse was so bad.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've been watching the DVD set of the '79 series, and whenever they cut to Stanhouse — whose white-boy 'fro barely contained beneath his O's cap pales only in comparison to Oscar Gamble's — you can tell that he's a figure of immense amusement to Howard Cosell (who, incidentally, calls a great game).

In game 2, top of the 8th, with Tippy relieving Palmer in a downpour, they cut to Stanhouse (who will go on to lose the game with 2 outs in the 9th) tossing in the bullpen. Cosell: "Colorful, flaky kinda guy ... Weaver has great faith in him." Yeah, right, Howard.

I don't know if I've ever seen a pitcher take longer in between pitches than Stanhouse. At one point in the 9th, Keith Jackson points out that Stanhouse has been on the mound 4 minutes without throwing a pitch. They called Mike Hargrove "the human rain delay." I shudder to think how long an at-bat between Grover and Stanhouse would've taken.

Edited by sakata_catching
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  • 6 years later...

Happy birthday to Don Stanhouse, who turns 58 today.

Stanhouse was a RHP who was a first round pick of the A's, and was sent to the Rangers with Jim Panther in exchange for Denny McLain prior to the 1972 season.

Stanhouse pitched poorly over three seasons for the Rangers before being shipped off following the 1974 campaign in a deal for Willie Davis.

He hung around for a few more seasons, and actually was an All Star in 1979, despite walking 51 batters and striking out just 34 while pitching 72 2/3 innings out of the bullpen for the Orioles.

In fact, his K/BB ratios throughout his career are astonishing...in a 10 year career, only three times did he strike out more batters than he walked, and he walked 455 batters against 408 Ks as a major leaguer.

I don't know of too many major leaguers in history who have walked almost 50 more batters than they've struck out.

I remember those days, and how he walked the bases loaded with virtually every save opportunity, but I had no idea the numbers were this glaringly bad.

What was Stanhouse's nickname? "Full pack" because that was what Earl would smoke while he was on the mound?

Another great part of our history.

Happy birthday to Don Stanhouse, who turns 65 today.

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  • 3 years later...
On 2/12/2009 at 8:36 PM, BillySmith said:

Dude, I will buy you and yours some tickets for a color copy of that. I'm serious. I have a picture of me in Jimmy Page's Mercedes. Billy Smith would go right next to it.

That's awesome. He had one of those really nice, smooth lefty swings. He apparently is still in Texas and owns a company, damn if I remember what the company is. Something with farming, I think.

I digress. Amazing that Stanhouse was so bad.

Wiki had this to say:

Quote

After retirement, he became a business consultant for a venture capital firm. Married for 27 years, and a father of three, he lives in Trophy Club, Texas.[1]

 

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