No action card this time but
not for a lack of trying by its subject. Dave LaRoche shows his delivery in
Candlestick. But this photo was taken years before Dave began tossing his Lalob
pitch, the one that got him his YouTube exposure. He may have been able to use
that pitch during his time with the Cubs, the only team for which he pitched
and had subpar results. He’d come to Chicago after the ’72 season for pitchers
Bill Hands and Joe Decker after having a pretty good run back in the AL as a
reliever. Dave’s main pitches back then were a fastball, a slider, and a
forkball, and he put up good numbers because the last two pitches balanced the
first one. But the Cubbies wanted all fastballs all the time and Dave overthrew
while there, giving up lots of homers, putting up high ERA’s, and not too many
saves. In ’73 he only had four. His record was pretty nice that year but it
fell to 5-6 in ’74, a year he started his first games up top. His control
continued to waver and though he got into twice as many innings he only put up
five saves and spent some time back in the minors. About the only thing that
did go well during that time was his batting average which was .355 during his
two seasons there. All those stats may have had him longing for time back in
the outfield again.
Dave LaRoche played the big
three sports while at West Torrance High School
in California.
He was a placekicker in football and in baseball played second base and
outfield and pitched a bit. After his senior year of ’66 he was drafted by the
Angels but he passed to go to UNLV on a hoops and baseball scholarship. But
when California drafted him again the following January in a significantly
better round and offered up more bucks, Dave bit and left school and his
scholarship to play ball. That summer he hit .227 with not too much power in A
ball while playing the outfield. So there wasn’t too much resistance when he
was moved the next year to the mound. In that role he did much better at the
same level, going 5-7 with a 2.36 ERA mostly in relief and almost a K an inning. In ’69 he split time between A and Double A, adding nine
saves to his card numbers and doing a better job at the higher level. Then in
’70 he killed at Triple A with a perfect record, miniscule ERA, and five saves
before a May call-up.
LaRoche had a pretty stunning
debut, coming in the 16th inning at home against Boston with two outs, the bases loaded, and a
full count on Carl Yastrzemski. He was a little surprised when catcher Joe
Azcue called for a slider, then not his best pitch, but he delivered, getting
Yaz to ground out and picking up his first win when California scored in the bottom of the
inning. He put together a fine rookie season, getting four saves in mostly
setup work. His sophomore year he added a win and nine saves as he worked his
way into the closer role and after the season went to Minnesota for Leo Cardenas, who the Angels
grabbed to replace Jim Fregosi. With the Twins Dave again served as closer,
putting up ten saves while recording another excellent ERA. Then came the two
not fun years with the Cubs from which he was rescued early in ’75 spring
training when he went to Cleveland
with outfielder Brock Davis for pitcher Milt Wilcox in a steal for the Tribe.
Dave picked up where he left off in ’72, re-establishing himself as one of the
AL’s best closers and winning the team’s player of the year award by going 5-3
with a 2.19 ERA, 17 saves, and 94 K’s in 82 innings. He followed that up in ’76
with his first All-Star season, going 1-4 with a 2.24 ERA, 21 saves, and 104
strikeouts in 96 innings. That season he and Jim Kern made an effective bullpen
duo as Frank Robinson seemed to be generating an improving team. But that all
crashed in ’77 when the rotation blew up. Dave wasn’t immune as he again put up
a K an inning but his ERA bloated early in the season and that May he returned
to California
for Sid Monge, Bruce Bochte, and a bunch of cash. Back home his numbers got a
lot better as he recorded 13 saves in a mid-year splurge that took him to
another All-Star appearance. In ’78 despite a mid-year back injury he got
himself up among the league leaders again with a 10-9 season with a 2.82 ERA
and 25 saves. But then in ’79 just as the Angels were making their big playoff
push, Dave went cold. Part of it was due to his back, part to being randomly
used, but most was just general ineffectiveness. That year he went 7-11 with
ten saves but double the amount of homers in less innings than ’78 contributed
to an ERA well above 5.00. In ’80 as the team sort of fell apart he took on a
swing role, going 3-5 with a much better 4.08 ERA with nine starts among his 52
games. But that wasn’t the role for which he was signed and in spring training
of ’81 he was released.
Shortly thereafter LaRoche
was picked up by the Yankees, which was fortunate for Dave because it reunited
him with coach Jeff Torborg who had previously worked well with Dave as a
catcher in Anaheim and a coach in Cleveland. Torborg got
Dave back on track and in ’81 he had a nice year as a setup guy, going 4-1 with
a 2.49 ERA. He made his second post-season appearance that fall, throwing a
shutout inning against the Dodgers. ’82 would be a revolving door season as
Dave shuttled back and forth between NY and Triple A Columbus, getting called
up six times during the season. He pitched well enough, going 4-2 with a 3.42
ERA, but what drew him attention was the usage of his Lalob pitch, a
high-arcing slow pitch that can be seen on YouTube in a strikeout of Gorman
Thomas. It would be part of his swan song as a pitcher as after one appearance
in ’83 he was cut loose. Dave finished with a 65-58 record, with a 3.53 ERA, a
complete game, and 126 saves. When he retired he was the all-time Angels saves
leader with 65. In the post-season he had a 3.86 ERA in just over a couple
innings with three strikeouts. And he hit .246 during his career.
LaRoche got right into coaching
after he played, kicking off in the Yankees system in ’84. He finished out ’86
back in NY then in ’87 moved to the Toronto
system and in ’88 to the Mets one. From ’89 to ’91 he was the White Sox
pitching coach and from ’92 to ’93 the Mets bullpen coach. He stayed in the NY
system through ’95 when he took a few years away from baseball to concentrate
on his work in real estate, which he did in off-seasons since playing. He also
wanted to spend more time with sons Andy and Adam, both of whom have done MLB
time and are currently playing ball. Dave returned to coaching in 2002, putting
in three years in the KC system. Since 2005 he has been a coach in the Toronto system and he is currently the pitching coach of
the Las Vegas
51’s, the team’s Triple A franchise.
All these back bits were
covered above except the first one which occurred the summer after his senior
year in high school. Dave’s lineage is actually Mexican but he adopted his
stepdad’s surname when he was young.
These guys missed each other
with the Tribe by a few years:
1. LaRoche and Ray Fosse ’76
to ’77 Indians;
2. Fosse and Eddie Leon ’69
to ’72 Indians.
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