Now in a continuation of
mini-streaks we get the second of two parenthetically-named post subjects in a
row. Horacio Pina bears down on a sunny day in Oakland. He stayed there for only one season
as evidenced by the Traded card but did enough good work to earn a full Series
share. He’d come to the A’s in a trade for Mike Epstein who’d curried disfavor
with owner Charlie Finlay after going o-fer in the ’72 Series. Horacio put up
one of his best seasons for Oakland,
keeping his walk totals relatively low while getting eight saves. While he had
some trouble in the post-season, officially he ended up with five shutout
innings of work. And the ring of course. On the Traded card he appears to be
out in the Oakland
outfield and my bet is that the airbrush job is of one of his Ranger uniforms
since on his regular card he looks a bit tanner.
Horacio Pina was a soccer
player as a kid who didn’t start playing ball for real until he was about 15
(lots of this color comes from his SABR site). He then played some semi-pro
ball in Mexico for a bunch
of years before Cleveland
signed him early in ’67. He’d gone 4-6 with some wildness and a high ERA in ’65
but modified that a bunch in ’66 when he went 1-2 with a 4.50 ERA and 28 K’s in
24 innings of pro ball. Both years he also pitched in his local semi-pro league
as well. In ’67 he went 16-11 with a 3.28 ERA as a starter in Mexico, 1-0 with excellent control in a few
games in A ball, and 14-7 back in Mexico in winter ball. In ’68 he
didn’t pitch as much but he put up better numbers: 9-6 with a 2.21 ERA in
Mexico and 3-1 with a 0.69 ERA in Triple A. That August he made his debut for
the Indians and the resulting season was quite good, with a couple saves in his
12 games. In ’69 his record was good but he was back on the wildness kick and
his ERA ballooned. After the season he was traded to the Senators with Ron Law
and Dave Nelson for Barry Moore and Dennis Higgins.
In DC Pina got in tight with
manager Ted Williams which was a pretty unusual thing for a pitcher to do.
Horacio threw sidearm against righties and over the top against lefties so he
was a bit bi-polar in his delivery. But he did generally as he was told and his
time with Ted went pretty swimmingly. By the time he got to Washington he was strictly a reliever and in
’70 he got six saves and in ’71 he added two. While his control was still an
issue he was one of the team’s most consistent guys on the mound. In ’72 when
the team moved to Texas,
Horacio did just fine in the arid air, recording 15 saves. After the season he
went to Oakland where he did his bit and then
after this trade he moved to Chicago.
His time in the NL was a little sloppy – 3-4 with a 3.99 ERA and four saves –
and didn’t last the season as in July he was sent to California for catcher Rich Stelmaszek. Back
in the AL he
fired a 2.31 ERA in his few innings of work. Despite that comeback Horacio got
cut during spring training in ’75 and he returned to Mexico
where he spent the next four years throwing quite good ball for the Aguascalientes
franchise. In ’78 he returned briefly to The States to throw a few shutout
innings for the Phillies but outside of that it was all Mexican ball through
1980 when he went down with a torn rotator cuff that finished his career.
Horacio went 23-23 with a 3.25 ERA and 38 saves up top in The States. He did
those five innings of shutout ball in the post-season and went 100-68 with a
2.34 ERA and 24 shutouts during his time in Mexico.
After playing Pina coached a
couple seasons in Mexico
and then returned to his hometown where he opened and operated a cantina,
fished, and lives off his baseball pension.
That second star bullet
occurred during ’67. He also tossed a couple no-hitters during his Mexican ball
days. Horacio’s English wasn’t the best and in a video of the ’73 Series he
kind of messes up when he gets introduced and then breaks up laughing. When he
got to Oakland pitching
coach Wes Stock changed his delivery so that he threw the same way to guys on
both sides of the plate.
Horacio was traded for Bob
Locker who was promised a return deal when he went to Chicago the prior year. Ironically Locker was
another sidearm guy. He wouldn’t throw for Oakland at all after this trade.
These guys may have met in
winter ball and a little bit in ’74:
1. Pina and Deron Johnson ’73
A’s;
2. Johnson and Willie
Montanez ’70 to ’73 Phillies.
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