It is Dave Lemanczyk’s 74th birthday today.
Dave was a starting pitcher for the Blue Jays in their first season. He started the second game in club history, taking the lK in our first loss.
He was a pretty decent pitcher. We took Dave from the Detroit Tigers in the Expansion Draft. The Expansion Draft was a sucker’s bet; the expansion teams paid a fortune to join the league, and they got to pick from players that the established organizations didn’t want. We did get Jim Clancy, Ernie Whitt, Rico Carty, and Pete Vuckovich (who would later win a Cy Young, but not as a Jay), but mostly we got cast-offs.
Lemanczyk had a pretty good year, setting career highs in wins, starts, and innings pitched, among other things. He threw 252 innings, 11 complete games, 13 wins, 16 losses, and a 4.25 ERA. He led the team in wins.
Dave was our opening-day starter in 1978, but he only made 20 starts, putting up a 4-14 record, and had a 6.26 ERA. Maybe the 252 innings from the previous season were too much for his arm.
He bounced back in 1979, throwing a one-hitter against the Rangers in April. At the break, he was 8-5 with a 3.15 ERA and made the All-Star team. After the break, things didn’t go as well. He had some injury problems, and he finished with an 8-10 record with a 3.71 ERA in 20 starts.
The Jays traded him to the Angels in the middle of the 1980 season. They released him after the season, and he was finished as a major leaguer at age 30, with a 37-63 record (with some terrible teams), 4.62 ERA in 185 games, and 103 starts.
After his career ended, Dave became a scout for the Yankees but quit after a couple of years to spend more time with his family. He also worked as an agent for a short while, then he opened a baseball academy and gave private lessons.
I don’t remember much about him other than he was a big guy, listed at 6’4”. He’s one of many who I wonder what kind of career he might have had if he had come up when managers took a bit more care with pitchers’ arms. He’s one of those guys I’d like to talk to and hear about what it was like pitching or an expansion team.
There is a story about Lemanczyk from the Tampa Bay Newspapers.
I thought this was interesting:
Things didn’t get any better as Lemanczyk had a couple of run-ins with rookie manager Roy Hartsfield early on, and into the season.
“He set up so many fines that were just stupid,” he said. “I was the first guy fined. I skipped a parade so I could follow up on a great deal on apartment rentals (near Dunedin). There were around 10 units available and nine players ended up going in on it. We paid something like $400 a month, which was a much better deal than in the hotels they wanted us to stay in.”
Happy Birthday, Dave. I hope it is a good one.