9 Responses to “Mike Cuellar 1937-2010”

1. Brian Says:
   April 3rd, 2010 at 3:44 pm

   He split the CYA w/ Denny McClain in 1969 and pitched great in the WS. RIP, Mike Cuellar.

2. the Wayward O Says:
   April 3rd, 2010 at 8:59 pm

   i am amazed at the utter dearth of cuellar video hanging around on the Internet.

   there is video of him pitching in the 1970 WS on a DVD that i watched recently but nothing that lets one really look at his "junkball" style.

3. Andy Says:
   April 3rd, 2010 at 9:06 pm

   Here is a nice piece by Kevin at Orioles Card "O" the Day, an Orioles baseball card blog.

4. Andy Says:
   April 3rd, 2010 at 9:39 pm

   Kevin pointed me towards an article written about Cuellar that was posted the day before he died.

   http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_hispanicaffairs/2010/04/baseball-legend-mike-cuellar-struggling-in-orlando-hospital.html

5. Jonathan Says:
   April 3rd, 2010 at 11:58 pm

   Great Pitcher, but very superstitious. Read The Baseball Hall of Shame, pages 177-9, for more details. One story had him wearing blue clothes and eating only Chinese food on days he was slated to pitch. Another had him refusing to pitch without his lucky hat. One he got his lucky hat he proceeded to throw a shutout against the Cleveland Indians.

6. Jonathan Says:
   April 4th, 2010 at 6:31 am

   Correction, the Baseball Hall of Shame 4, pages 177-9.

7. DoubleDiamond Says:
   April 4th, 2010 at 1:38 pm

   Baseball helped me learn how to pronounce a lot of the common and not so common Hispanic last names. I didn't realize that the Mike Cuellar I read about in the newspaper (mainly the Washington Star) and the Mike I heard about on the radio whose last name I pictured as being spelled something like Quayar were the same person for a while. This was not long after Motorola had introduced a Quasar model T.V. (Hockey has helped me learn to pronounce some French and other foreign names.)

   In 1974, Cuellar got off to a hot streak. I remember one game in which he took a no-hitter late into the game. I think #35 has been one of my favorite numbers because he wore it with the Orioles. Later, when I was still an Orioles fan, Mike Mussina wore #35 but then took it with him to the Yankees. Among today's players, my favorite #35 is another lefthander, Cole Hamels.

8. JDV Says:
   April 5th, 2010 at 9:52 am

   Cuellar was such a huge part of those great Oriole teams. Everyone remembers Palmer, but for this left-handed kid it was McNally and Cuellar, and now they're both gone. The trade that brought Cuellar from Houston before the '69 season was second only to the Frank Robinson deal as far as adding to the home-grown core of that dynasty. Over a six-year stretch, he won 125 games...talk about under-rated. I do have a VHS tape commemorating the '70 Series, and I'll be viewing it again this week.

9. Kahuna Tuna Says:
   April 6th, 2010 at 7:03 pm

   The trade that brought Cuellar from Houston before the '69 season was second only to the Frank Robinson deal as far as adding to the home-grown core of that dynasty.

   I'd agree with you, JVD. I noticed that good-field, no-hit prospect Enzo Hernández came to the Orioles along with Cuéllar before the 1969 season and was part of the package traded to San Diego for Pat Dobson before the '71 season, and I wondered whether the Orioles of that era (say, '61 to '73) tended to trade disproportionately with NL and/or second-division teams. The answer is No as to the NL teams and Yes as to the second-division teams; the significant trades were split pretty much evenly between over-.500 and .500-and-below teams.

   The really good Orioles teams of the mid-'60s to late '70s were built mostly through amateur signings and, later, the amateur draft. Consider the following signings and draft selections:

   1959 — Boog Powell, Dean Chance
   1960 — Dave McNally
   1961 — Andy Etchebarren, Darold Knowles, Eddie Watt
   1962 — Dave Johnson, Mark Belanger
   1963 — Wally Bunker, Dave Leonhard, Jim Ray, Jim Palmer
   1964 — Mike Epstein, Sparky Lyle, Merv Rettenmund
   1965 — Roger Freed
   1966 — Terry Crowley
   1967 — Bobby Grich, Don Baylor, Johnny Oates
   1968 — Junior Kennedy, Al Bumbry, Rich Coggins
   1969 — Don Hood, Mike Barlow, Wayne Garland
   1970 — Jim Fuller, Doug DeCinces
   1971 — Kiko Garcia
   1972 — Mike Willis
   1973 — Mike Parrott, Eddie Murray, Mike Flanagan, Jerry Garvin, Mark Lee

   Some serious talent listed here, including HoFers Palmer and Murray and HoF snub Grich, plus several All-Stars and good players later traded for future Oriole regulars. As for the others, Ray and Lyle were drafted by other clubs before reaching the big-league level. Freed was traded to the Phillies for Grant Jackson. Chance, Willis and Garvin were taken in the '60 and '76 expansion drafts and became solid performers, at least briefly, for their new teams.