I’m going to do something that most fans of the Boston Red Sox would never do. I’m going to wax poetic about the career of New York Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina who announced his retirement today after 18 seasons.
Mussina pitched the last 8 years in New York and his first ten seasons in Baltimore after graduating from Stanford. He becomes the first pitcher to retire after a 20-win season since Sandy Koufax retired in 1967 after winning 20 games for the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was the only 20 win season of Mussina’s fine career in which he won double digit games in all but his first season.
Mussina, born in the cradle of Little League Baseball, Williamsport, PA, grew up and still lives in Montoursville, PA and serves on the Little League World Series Board of Directors. From there he went on to Stanford where was drafted in the first round (20th overall) by Baltimore in the 1990 Draft. Mussina made his major league debut on August 4, 1991 against the White Sox in Chicago and lost 1-0 to Charlie Hough. He finished up the year for a bad Orioles team at 4-5 in 12 starts.
He spent the next nine full seasons as the back bone of the Orioles staff going 122-81 in his ten seasons in Baltimore before leaving after the 2000 season as a free agent signing with the Yankees for 6 years and $87 million.
In his 8 seasons in New York, Mussina won another 148 games topping it with the 20 wins in his final year but was never able to win a World Series ring.
Mussina finishes his career an amazing 117 games above .500 at 270-153 with a career ERA of 3.68 and a WHIP of 1.19. He averaged 17 wins a season against 9 losses over his career and was 7-8 in the post season. Mussina made five all-star teams and started the game twice, he earned 7 Gold Gloves, led the league once in wins and was one out away from a perfect game at Fenway Park in 2001.
In my book, Mike Mussina is a Hall of Fame pitcher. Every pitcher with a +100 in the won/loss column who is eligible is in the Hall of Fame and Mussina should be there too. He was an outstanding pitcher, a great competitor, you never heard his teammates bitch about him and he was never in the news for doing anything stupid.
Regardless of what uniform the man wore I tip my hat to him and a great career.
