Herb Score

Herb Score
Pitcher
Born: (1933-06-07)June 7, 1933 Rosedale, New York
Died: November 11, 2008(2008-11-11) (aged 75) Rocky River, Ohio
Batted: Left	Threw: Left
MLB debut
April 15, 1955 for the Cleveland Indians
Last MLB appearance
May 4, 1962 for the Chicago White Sox
Career statistics
Win–loss record	55–46
Earned run average	3.36
Strikeouts	837
Teams
Cleveland Indians (1955–1959) Chicago White Sox (1960–1962)
Career highlights and awards
2× All-Star (1955, 1956) AL Rookie of the Year (1955)

Herbert Jude Score (June 7, 1933 – November 11, 2008) was an American Major League Baseball pitcher and announcer. He pitched on the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox for 8 seasons, 1955 through 1962. In 1955, he received the American League Rookie of the Year Award.

Early life

Herb Score was born in Rosedale, N.Y. in 1934. At 3, he was run over by a truck and later had rheumatic fever. As a teenager, he starting playing basketball and baseball at Holy Name of Mary School until he moved with his family to Lake Worth, Florida. In 1952, he threw six no-hitters for the Lake Worth Community High School baseball team, when the school won its only state baseball championship.

On June 7, 1952, his 19th birthday, he signed a baseball contract with the Cleveland Indians. He was sent to Indianapolis of the American Association where he made 10 pitching starts. In 1953, he moved to Cleveland's Class A affiliate, Reading (Pennsynvania) of the Eastern League. There he met and became lifetime friends with, future outfielder Rocky Colavito, from the Bronx, New York. For the 1954 season, both were promoted to Indianapolis-Triple-A. Score was named The Sporting News Minor League Player of the Year and began to be referred to as "left-handed Bob Feller".

Cleveland Indians

In 1955, Score came up to the Major Leagues (with Colavito) as a rookie with the Cleveland Indians at the age of 21. He quickly became one of the top power pitchers in the American League, no small feat on a team that still included Bob Feller, Bob Lemon and other top pitchers, going 16–10 with a 2.85 Earned Run Average (ERA) in his first year. He appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine on May 30, 1955.

Score struck out 245 batters in 1955, a Major League rookie record that stood until 1984, when it was topped by Dwight Gooden (Score, Gooden, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Don Sutton, Gary Nolan, Kerry Wood, Mark Langston and Hideo Nomo were the only eight rookie pitchers to top 200 strikeouts in the 20th century). It was the first time in MLB history a regular starting pitcher averaged over one strikeout per inning. In 1956, Score improved on his rookie campaign, going 20–9 with a 2.53 ERA and 263 strikeouts, while reducing the number of walks from 154 to 129, and allowed only 5.85 hits/9 innings, which would stand as a franchise record until it was broken by Luis Tiant's 5.30 in 1968.

On May 7, 1957, during the first inning against the New York Yankees at Municipal Stadium in Cleveland, Score, throwing a low fastball to his catcher Jim Hegan was struck in the face by a line drive off the bat of Yankee shortstop Gil McDougald, breaking Score's facial bones and injuring his eye. McDougald then ran to the pitching mound instead of first base to help Score. McDougald reportedly vowed to retire if Score permanently lost his sight in one eye as a result of the accident. Score eventually recovered his 20/20 vision, though he missed the rest of the season. He returned back late in the 1958 season.

Though many believe Score feared being hit by another batted ball, and thus changed his pitching motion, Score himself rejected that theory. Score would tell Cleveland sportswriter Terry Pluto (for The Curse of Rocky Colavito) that, in 1958, after pitching and winning a few games and feeling better than he'd felt in a long time, he tore a tendon in his arm while pitching on a damp night against the Washington Senators. He sat out the rest of the season but, returning for 1959, he'd shifted his pitching motion in a bid to avoid another, similar injury. "The reason my motion changed," Score told Pluto, "was because I hurt my elbow, and I overcompensated for it and ended up with some bad habits." As a result of the changes Score made in his pitching delivery, his velocity dropped and he incurred further injuries. Score pitched the full 1959 season, going 9–11 with a 4.71 ERA and 147 strikeouts.

In the book "The Greatest Team Of All Time" (Bob Adams, Inc, publisher. 1994), Mickey Mantle picked Herb Score as the toughest American League left-handed pitcher he faced (before the injury). Yogi Berra picked Herb for his "Greatest Team Of All Time".

Chicago White Sox

Score was traded to the Chicago White Sox after the 1959 season, and pitched parts of the following three seasons before retiring, finishing with a career record of 55–46 and a 3.36 ERA and 837 strikeouts over eight seasons, in 858⅓ innings pitched.

In 1981, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included him in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. They explained what they called "the Smoky Joe Wood Syndrome," where a player of truly exceptional talent but a career curtailed by injury should still, in spite of not having had career statistics that would quantitatively rank him with the all-time greats, be included on their list of the 100 greatest players. In the book's introduction, they used this as their reason why Score, with 55 career wins, was on their list, while Early Wynn, who won 300 games, all in the post-1920 Live Ball Era, was not.

Career highlights

• 1955: AL Rookie of the Year
• 1955-56: AL leader in strikeouts per 9 innings pitched and in strikeouts
• 1956: AL leader in shutouts
• 1959: AL leader in strikeouts per 9 innings pitched
• 1955-56: AL All-Star

Broadcasting career and death

Score served as an announcer on the Indians television broadcast from 1964–1967, and joined the radio broadcast, serving from 1968–1997, the longest career for an Indians play-by-play announcer. Score was revered by fans for his announcing style, including a low voice and a low-key style, as well as a habit of occasionally mispronouncing the names of players on opposing teams. Score's final Major League Baseball game as play-by-play announcer was Game 7 of the 1997 World Series.

On October 8, 1998, while driving to Florida after being inducted into the Broadcasters Hall of Fame the night before, Score was severely injured in a traffic accident. Score pulled into the path of a westbound tractor-trailer truck near New Philadelphia, Ohio, and his car was struck in the passenger side. He suffered trauma to his brain, chest and lungs. The orbital bone around one of his eyes was fractured, as were three ribs and his sternum. He spent over a month in the intensive care unit, and was released from MetroHealth Hospital in mid-December. He was cited for failure to stop at a stop sign.

He went through a difficult recovery, but managed to throw out the first pitch at the Indians' Opening Day on April 12, 1999. Herb Score had a stroke in 2002 and died on November 11, 2008 at his home in Rocky River, Ohio, after a lengthy illness. The Indians wore a patch on their uniform during the 2009 season to honor him.

See also

• List of Major League Baseball strikeout champions

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference
• Herb Score at Find a Grave
• Obituary in Cleveland Plain Dealer
• Herb Score – Sports Illustrated, May 30, 1955 (cover).

Preceded by Bob Grim	American League Rookie of the Year 1955	Succeeded by Luis Aparicio
Preceded by Bob Turley	American League Strikeout Champion 1955–1956	Succeeded by Early Wynn