Happy Birthday, Dave Lemanczyk – Bluebird Banter

It is Dave Lemanczyk’s 74th birthday today.

Dave was the Blue Jays’ starting pitcher in the first season. He started the second game in the team’s history and recorded the 1K in our first loss.

He was a pretty good pitcher. We got Dave in the expansion draft from the Detroit Tigers. The expansion draft was a lost cause; the expansion teams paid a fortune to join the league and they could choose from players that the established organizations didn’t want. We got Jim Clancy, Ernie Whitt, Rico Carty and Pete Vuckovich (who later won a Cy Young, but not as a Jay), but for the most part we got discards.

Lemanczyk had a pretty good year, setting career highs in wins, starts and innings pitched, among other achievements. 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 appearances, posting a 4-14 record and a 6.26 ERA. Perhaps the previous season’s 252 innings were too much for his arm.

He returned in 1979 and threw a one-hitter against the Rangers in April. At the break he had a record of 8-5 with a 3.15 ERA and was voted to the All-Star team. After the break things didn’t go so well. He had some injury problems and finished the season with a record of 8-10 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 finished his major league career at age 30 with a record of 37-63 (on some bad teams), a 4.62 ERA in 185 games and 103 starts.

After his career ended, Dave became a scout for the Yankees, but quit after a few years to spend more time with his family. He also worked as an agent for a short time, then opened a baseball academy and gave private lessons.

I don’t remember much about him other than that he was a big guy, standing at 6’4″. He’s one of many who makes me wonder what career he could have had if he had come up in an era when managers paid a little more attention to pitchers’ arms. He’s one of those guys I’d love to talk to and hear what it was like to pitch on an expansion team.

There is a story about Lemanczyk in the Tampa Bay Newspapers.

I found this interesting:

Things did not improve as Lemanczyk had several clashes with new manager Roy Hartsfield at the start and during the rest of the season.

“He issued so many fines that were just stupid,” he said. “I was the first one to get fined. I skipped a parade so I could get a great deal on renting a flat (near Dunedin). There were about 10 units available and nine players ended up snapping them up. We paid about $400 a month, which was a much better deal than the hotels they let us stay in.”

Happy birthday, Dave. I hope it’s a great day.