Bill Gullickson
From BR Bullpen
William Lee Gullickson
- Bats Right, Throws Right
- Height 6' 3", Weight 215 lb.
- High School Joliet Catholic High School
- Debut September 26, 1979
- Final Game August 7, 1994
- Born February 20, 1959 in Marshall, MN USA
[edit] Biographical Information
Bill Gullickson was an excellent pitcher who won in double figures for four major league teams.
Drafted #2 in the first round in 1977, he broke in with the West Palm Beach Expos and went 3-3 with a 4.02 ERA. The next year, he was much better with West Palm Beach. That season, Gullickson was 9-9 but had a 1.82 ERA, third-best in the Florida State League. He threw 12 complete games and struck out 127 batters in 148 innings and made the FSL All-Star team. He finished the year by going 1-4 with a 3.06 ERA for the Memphis Chicks.
In 1979, Bill went 10-3 with a 3.65 ERA for Memphis. With the AAA Denver Bears, he got rocked for a 6.67 ERA, though he went 3-3. Gullickson gave up 10 homers and 92 baserunners in 54 innings for Denver. He was pitching in the majors by 1979, at age 20, thanks to a late call-up.
1980 had Gullickson go 6-2 with a 1.91 ERA for Denver, one of the greatest minor league clubs ever that year. In 66 innings, he cut his baserunner allowed total to 77 and his homers surrendered to 3. He would make a couple more minor league appearances in 1993 - overall, Gullickson was 34-24 in the minor leagues.
He was to spend 1979-1985 with the Montreal Expos. In 1983 he won 17 games, but he had a lower ERA of 2.80 in 1981, the year that the Expos won the "second half" of the strike-torn season.
Traded after the 1985 season, he spent 1 2/3 years in Cincinnati, winning 15 games in 1986 under manager Pete Rose. He finished the 1987 season going 4-2 for the New York Yankees.
In 1988, he signed with the Yomiuri Giants and had a 14-9, 3.10 season and led the Central League with 14 complete games and finishing 8th in the CL in ERA. His next year with the Giants was worse at 8-5, 3.65. He was 21-14 with a 3.29 ERA in two NPB seasons.
After a so-so year playing for the Houston Astros in 1990, he finished out his career playing four years with the Detroit Tigers. His best year was 1991, when he won 20 games. These were the Tigers of Cecil Fielder, Mickey Tettleton, Alan Trammell, and Lou Whitaker, so he had plenty of offensive support.
The most similar player, by the similarity scores method, is his Expos teammate Scott Sanderson.
Lifetime, he won 162 games in the major leagues with a .544 winning percentage. He never appeared in a World Series. A diabetic, Gullickson was one of the first prominent baseball players to battle that illness during his career.
