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00:00On June 23, 1985, at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Toronto's George
00:05Bell is hit by a pitch thrown by Boston's Bruce Keeson. Bell charges the
00:09mound, jumps into the air, and delivers a flying kick that hits Keeson right in
00:14the jimmies. What does that mean? Multiple news reports the day after the
00:20game state that the kick landed in the, quote, groin area. Another claims that it
00:25hit Keeson in the midsection. Years later, it's remembered that Keeson was kicked
00:28in the chest. Let's pull the tape and get to the bottom of this. Here's Bell taking
00:32one in the arm. He immediately charges and then goes airborne and kicks him right here.
00:37That is nowhere near the chest. Whoever wrote that was practicing revisionist
00:41history. It's certainly not what I'd call the midsection either. The report of
00:45groin area, vague as it is, is most accurate. I'd love to be able to tell you he
00:49got kicked right in the ding-dong. Not because I dislike Keeson. On the contrary,
00:52I really like the guy and I think you will too. I just think it'd be funny to say.
00:56Unfortunately, available evidence is insufficient to confirm. The jimmies is
01:00both nebulous and fun to say, so let's agree that Bruce Keeson took a flying
01:04Street Fighter kick to the jimmies. Believe it or not, this is not the only
01:08mountain charging that is open with a kick. It's a whole scene. It's got an entire
01:12sub-genre, which we will explore before too much longer. For now, I'd like to
01:17introduce a two-parter. Within this documentary series, Episode 3 will explore
01:21the life and times of right-handed starting pitcher Bruce Keeson, who pitched
01:24from 1971 to 1985 and was charged by batters on four different occasions. In
01:30Episode 4, we'll get to know George Bell, who within a career that stretched from
01:341981 to 1993, charged the mound himself three times. First, Bruce Keeson.
01:54Let's visit our constellation map and navigate to what I have titled the Bell-Keeson
01:58System. This fight between the two in 1985 connects the Bell and Keeson families of
02:03mound chargings and loops in eight different individuals. The oldest is catcher Rick Dempsey,
02:08who began his career in 1969, and the youngest is starting pitcher Aaron Seeley,
02:12who ended his career in 2007. This is the second largest system on record and the
02:17largest of those we've covered so far. Throughout his 15-year career, Bruce
02:21Keeson pitched for the Pirates, Angels, and Red Sox. You'll notice that in every
02:24fight here, I've used the same photo of Bruce Keeson wearing the same Pirates cap and
02:29jersey, despite most of these fights taking place after he'd already left Pittsburgh.
02:33I don't like doing that. As happy as I am to show you the Pirates' absolutely sick
02:37pillbox cap they wore for the centennial in 1976, I generally prefer to select a photo
02:42of a player from that particular year, or at least playing for that particular team.
02:46But my hands were tied. The selection of photos of Keeson from our licensed
02:49archive is very limited, not surprising for a man who retired 40 years ago, never
02:54made an all-star team, and never received a single vote for any major award. Unless
02:58you're a Pirates fan who was around for the 70s or a baseball historian, I'd be kind of
03:03surprised if you've ever even heard of Bruce Keeson. I knew almost nothing about him,
03:07beyond his name, when I started researching this series, but I quickly discovered that
03:11within this arena, he is a superstar.
03:18In Figure 3, you can take a look at every pitcher who's been charged multiple times throughout
03:23our sample. A few were charged three or even four times. In all, you see 29 pitchers here
03:28who were charged a total of 65 times. Consider that we only have 264 mound chargings on record,
03:35between 1950 and 2025, and StatHead tells me that well over 7,000 ballplayers took the mound in that span.
03:42So to get charged even once is a rare distinction. To get charged multiple times probably means you've
03:47mastered the art of making batters mad at you. This fraternity features a name we already know,
03:52Jeff Weaver, and some household names like Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan. The great Pedro Martinez is one
03:57of only two pitchers ever to be charged on four separate occasions. And the other such pitcher is Bruce
04:04Keeson. The guy most of you know absolutely nothing about. Yet. I'd like to take just a sec here to
04:10give
04:10a special shout out to the Society for American Baseball Research, or Sabre. They've undertaken what's
04:15called the Bio Project, which publishes biographies of ballplayers written by Sabre members. It's a well written,
04:21well edited, and ever expanding archive that's getting really comprehensive. Well worth diving
04:26in if you're into baseball history, or you just want a good read. Sabre does, unsurprisingly, offer
04:31a thorough biography of Bruce Keeson. It's written by Gregory H. Wolfe, and it includes a vital foundational
04:37piece of Keeson lore that I might have missed otherwise. This man, who earned a record number
04:42of mound chargings by way of hitting guys with baseballs, found his baseball career forever transformed
04:47at a young age because he, himself, was hit by a baseball. Keeson was once a normal 14 year old
04:54kid
04:54who pitched with a normal overhand delivery, but after reaching first as a base runner, he was inadvertently
04:59beamed by a pick-off throw. It hit him in what he called a crazy bone, which I guess is
05:03another name
05:03for funny bone, and afterward he found it hurt to pitch with his conventional overhand motion. So he improvised
05:09a new sidearm delivery that looked pretty weird, but was effective enough to eventually carry him all the
05:13way to the major leagues. How exactly he did that is a little bit of a mystery, but many years
05:18later
05:18when he looked back on his early days, he offered a clue. I was just out there throwing, he said.
05:23I
05:23had very little idea what pitching was, and I had no idea where the ball was going. I just took
05:28my chances.
05:29You don't say. On July 30th, 1970, while taking the start for AA Waterbury, a 20 year old Keeson did
05:35something that I can pretty much guarantee nobody else in professional baseball history has ever done.
05:41Keeson pitched five innings against Pittsfield and allowed two earned runs. It's pretty remarkable
05:47that he limited the damage to only two runs because he gave up three hits, three walks, and seven hit
05:54by
05:54pitch. The all-time major league record for a single game by a single pitcher is four, suggesting to me
05:59that nearly doubling that mark is probably more than anyone's recorded at any professional level of
06:05baseball. But just for good measure, this performance offers a couple more qualities that place this in
06:09never before, never again territory. For one, three of these hit batters came on three consecutive
06:15pitches, back to back to back. For another, within just five innings of work, he managed to hit a guy
06:20named Merle four times. For starters, he hit Ratliff once and Walkenpuss twice. He also hit Jack Merle twice.
06:28Jack Merle had a younger brother, Jerry Merle, who also played for Pittsfield and was in the starting
06:33lineup that day. Keeson also hit Jerry twice. Many years later, Keeson will recall that after committing
06:39his seventh and final beanball, Pittsfield batter Al Thompson stepped to the plate wearing a protective
06:44vest and catcher's mask. No idea whether he was actually able to bat like that. There was no malicious
06:49intent here. Keeson was not waging war against the Merle family. He had control issues, which he would
06:54mostly overcome and an unusual fearlessness when it came to throwing inside on a batter, which is something
06:59he would never give up, as he shouldn't have.
07:06Bruce Keeson and Pedro Martinez, fellow record holders in the most times charge department, were
07:12very different guys. Keeson was a pretty solid pitcher. Pedro is on the shortlist for the title
07:17of greatest pitcher to ever live. Keeson stood 6'4", Pedro was only 5'11", shorter than you'd expect a
07:23power
07:23pitcher to be. Both, however, got charged as often as they did because they attacked the inside of the
07:28plate indiscriminately and without fear. Both of them also happened to throw with a delivery that
07:33was either sidearm or close to it. In Keeson's case, his childhood injury necessitated it and he
07:38offered no apologies, essentially saying, how I pitch is who I am and I cannot help who I am.
07:43In order to survive in baseball, Keeson had no choice but to annex the entire strike zone and its
07:49suburbs as his own territory. He guarded it, wrote sports writer Phil Music as a cornered rat does her
07:54litter. Because just like Pedro, Keeson entered the league as a very skinny and unimposing guy.
08:00Keeson's 6'4 stature actually amplified this perception, if anything. They called him thin,
08:04thin, thin. They called him rail thin. They called him painfully thin. They said he was quote,
08:10so narrow he was practically interminable. Keeson was basically the picture of harmlessness when
08:14coupled with his youthful appearance, which led to descriptions like gangling green rookie,
08:18babyface Bruce, a 6'4 Don Knotts, and this is the one I find most devastating, a 21 year old
08:25boy.
08:26So, if this is how you're perceived, how you're talked about, if you scan as a scrawny scared kid
08:31to opposing batters, what can you do about it? Well, in Keeson's 1971 rookie season, not even two
08:39months into his career, Hank Aaron steps in against him. Not only the modern day Babe Ruth,
08:44well on his way to claiming the most cherished record in American sports, but a role model and
08:49consummate gentleman through and through who carries an air of majesty, as though he's some
08:52kind of benevolent king. On his first pitch, Keeson fires one up and in on Aaron, sending him flying
08:58off his feet and into the dirt. Second pitch, he does the same thing. Third pitch, he does the same
09:04thing.
09:05This writer, Phil Music, who recalls this iconoclastic act many years later, seems to think
09:10all those were intentional. I can't really say. Either way, Aaron then happily leverages his 3-0
09:15count to put the rookie firmly in his place and match his 630th career home run, but Keeson's
09:21message has nonetheless been sent to the entire National League. That message might have been
09:25somewhat undercut an inning later when a batter called a timeout because he forgot his glasses
09:29and the rook was so confounded that he somehow balked in a run, but it was a message that Hank
09:35Aaron still received, and word is he was impressed. During this rookie 1971 campaign,
09:44Keeson's eagerness to throw inside on batters quickly earns him the nickname,
09:47The Youngest Assassin. It'll later be shortened to simply The Assassin as his career goes on,
09:52kind of a Muppet Babies Muppets kind of deal. Any confidence issues he might have been dealing with
09:57in the wake of that seven beanball baseball game were put to bed this season in which he started in
10:01AAA and wound up pitching so unimaginably well that he almost ruined his own wedding.
10:06On September 22nd, the Pirates, having locked up the division, are looking ahead to the playoffs,
10:11which in this time consists entirely of the League Championship Series and the World Series,
10:15the seventh game of which is scheduled for October 17th, should it be necessary. It's on this day,
10:20September 22nd, that Keeson and his fiancee, Anna Marie Orlando, announced that they're getting married
10:25on October 17th. Why? Do they just figure that if they do get to the World Series it won't last
10:31seven
10:31games? Did they just get the dates mixed up? Who knows? Bruce Keeson, used exclusively out of the
10:36bullpen, then proceeds to piece together one of the greatest postseasons in the history of relief
10:41fishing. In the NLCS series clincher, after ace starter Steve Blass is chased early, the rookie
10:46works four and two thirds innings of scoreless relief to allow the Pirates to come back and punch their
10:51ticket to the World Series. His first appearance in game two doesn't go so hot, as he walks
10:55two without recording it out. With the Orioles winning to take a 2-0 series lead, it's starting
11:00to look like he'll probably get to shove off for his wedding after all. But in game four,
11:04after coming on in relief after another Pirates starter gets shelled early, Keeson does two things.
11:09First, he regresses into his old ways, hitting three batters. This is one of just 41 instances in the
11:16entire integration era, regular season or playoffs, in which a reliever came in and beaned at least three
11:21guys. In other words, this is something we only see once every couple of years throughout
11:25all of baseball, so it's pretty unfortunate to see it happen in the World Series. Or at least
11:30it would be, except Keeson is one of just three of these guys to spot his opponent three base runners
11:36via hit by pitch without giving up any runs. This right here is also one of the greatest relief
11:42pitching performances in the history of postseason baseball. Here you see every postseason relief
11:47performance of at least six innings. This is one of the few scoreless performances in spite of those three
11:54free base runners. None of those batters charge the mound because that just isn't done in the playoffs.
11:59Of all these 264 mound chargings out here, only one ever occurred in the postseason. When the games
12:04really count for everything, it's better to put the runner on base and make the pitcher pay for it.
12:08Except, Keeson refused to pay for it. All three of those guys were stranded and none even advanced.
12:15Were enough for Keeson's brilliance, Pittsburgh probably would have lost game four and by extension the
12:20series in six games, which would have given him his wedding day off. Instead, a game seven was forced,
12:25which the Pirates won. The team they beat chartered a chopper to fly him to the airport, where he
12:30boarded a Learjet for Pittsburgh, whereupon a police escort took him to his wedding. He'd barely made it.
12:36Bruce Keeson won the World Series and got married on the same day. It's got to be in the running
12:42for
12:42the best day anybody's ever had. It's 1974. Keeson's weirdo sidearm delivery, which was locked into
12:55place by that old injury he suffered in childhood, has been causing his arm so much distress that he's
12:59had to devise yet another new delivery, a three quarters motion that's halfway between sidearm
13:04and overhand. If he's added even a single pound to his frame, nobody seems to have noticed they're
13:08still calling him quote, the skinniest man in all of baseball. At least they're not calling him boy,
13:13that's something. But listen, he's built weird, he throws weird, and his stats are pretty average.
13:18This is a guy who is not going to remain in baseball unless he continues to leverage
13:22every advantage he has, most notably his fearlessness. So he keeps on throwing up and in
13:27on guys to brush him back and knock him down. In so doing, he incites a brawl on July 14th
13:32against the
13:33Reds. The umpire officially warns him to stop throwing so close to Cincinnati batters and Reds pitcher
13:38Jack Billingham puts a point on it by nailing Keeson when he comes up to bat in the fourth.
13:42There are some Donnybrook qualities to this fight. Initially, it looks like everybody who jumps off
13:46the benches is gonna mill about for a bit and then walk back to the dugout until Reds manager
13:50Sparky Anderson accidentally steps on the foot of the Pirates' Ed Kirkpatrick. A startled Kirkpatrick
13:55shoves Sparky, the whole thing blows out of proportion, and by the end of it, there is a 20 minute
13:59delay,
14:00three guys are rejected, and Pittsburgh's Daryl Patterson has to receive a tetanus shot because the Reds' Pedro
14:05bore bone, bit him in the leg. That would have been enough to tip the group project score of this
14:10fight to five. Regrettably, this incident cannot be admitted into our mound charging database because
14:15neither Keeson nor anybody else actually charged the mound. Besides, Keeson is far more likely to
14:20be charged than to do the charging. So, who's it gonna be? Who is gonna finally try to knock
14:26over the thinnest, tallest drink of water in baseball? Finally! On July 8th, 1977,
14:31a challenger emerges. Philadelphia Phillies slugger, Mike Schmidt.
14:39Schmidt is probably the greatest third baseman to ever play. Three-time MVP, eight-time home run
14:44champion, terrific fielder, one of the most athletically gifted guys in the league. Not
14:49somebody anybody should wanna fight, least of all a guy like Keeson, whose shadow looks like a telephone
14:53pole. Keeson sets the table anyway by hitting Schmidt in the top of the seventh. Schmidt, who has never
14:58charged the mound before and never will again, yells at him, you do that again and I'm gonna
15:03come out there and I'm gonna beat your ass. Schmidt probably thinks he's striking terror in Keeson's
15:08heart. If we weren't as familiar with Bruce Keeson as we now are, we might take one look at the
15:12guy
15:12and write him off as a knock-kneed poindexter who prefers to maintain his territory by safely
15:17flinging his missiles from a far away hill and live in terror of the day it comes back on him.
15:21Not so. Keeson replies, well, what's so special about next time? Let's go. And they go. And while
15:29Schmidt swings wildly without landing anything, Keeson scores a couple of solid blows, neither of which
15:34he even remembers. All that's really important is that he had a good time. I kind of enjoyed
15:38the whole thing, he says later. In fact, he seems to almost thank Mike Schmidt for finally being the
15:43one willing to run across the lawn and fight him. I really respect him for what he did, says Keeson.
15:47There's no barbed wire between the plate and the mound. A lot of guys talking don't come out.
15:51He came out. In the clubhouse, the Phillies are practically rending their garments. They've been
15:56fed up with Keeson and his brush backs and bean balls for years. It's pretty clear they were hoping
16:00for an ass kicking at the hands of Schmidt, and they didn't get it. I bet that's part of the
16:04reason
16:05they're so far on tilt. They couldn't even scare the guy. All this time, he was never afraid of the
16:10smoke. He wanted it. He was waiting for it. The only man Keeson seemed to fear was Phillies left fielder
16:16Greg Luzinski, not because he outweighed him by 50 pounds, but because he smelled like shit.
16:22This fight registers a three out of five on the Charger Pitcher scale because Keeson landed some
16:27punches. In the group project category, I had originally assessed it as a two out of five,
16:32but I'm now going to upgrade it to a four upon discovering that Phillies fans were also fighting
16:37in the stands. Fighting who? Each other, I guess. I can only imagine they watched what was going on
16:42on the field and thought it looked like fun. You might still be asking why. The answer is Philadelphia.
16:51It's 1978, and every part of Bruce Keeson's body that plays some part in throwing a baseball
16:56is yelling at him from his back to his fingertips. Not even the fingernail on his middle throwing
17:01finger can keep itself together and keeps cracking apart. When it does, he flat out cannot deliver the
17:06ball properly. He tries everything. He takes cod liver supplements. He assumes a Mr. Glass aesthetic
17:12by wearing a protective glove around town. A fan even writes in and tells him he should soak it in
17:17cow urine, which obviously Keeson does not do, but it's at least reflective of the measures that he-
17:23Oh, okay. He actually does soak his finger in cow piss, uh, onward. As the seventies wind down,
17:29it becomes clear that for Keeson, physical ailments are not things to overcome, but things to endure.
17:34He's never gonna pitch 200 innings, which in this time is considered the bare minimum for a full
17:39season as a starting pitcher. Here you see Keeson's innings pitched in each season, and in gray,
17:43the innings pitched by every starter who received a Cy Young vote, just to give you an idea of what
17:47a
17:47quote unquote full season looks like in this era. In none of his 15 career seasons will Keeson survive
17:53an entire season from start to finish. He toughs it out through sharp pain, dull pain, soreness,
17:58tightness, lack of feeling, basically every way an arm can feel bad or not feel at all,
18:03in order to even pitch as often as he does. Keeson begins his time as a Pittsburgh Pirate with a
18:08World
18:08Series ring in 1971, and bookends it neatly with a second World Series ring in 1979, before leaving
18:14in free agency to sign with the California Angels. He was arguably the most infamous brushback pitcher
18:19of the 1970s. It's a wonder he was only charged once as a result, but now, it's 1980. And for
18:25reasons
18:25that no one at the time can quite identify, and that I myself can't really explain 50 years later,
18:30Major League Baseball has either descended or ascended into mound-charging delirium. In 1978,
18:37there was only one mound-charging that met the criteria necessary to find entry into this
18:41database, that was Bostock-Kraboski. Just two years later, in 1980, there are Descenses-Prolley,
18:47Ogilvy-Prolley, Woods-Langford, Winfield-Krucco, Blyleb and Soche, Bell-Keeson, Grubb-Keeson,
18:52Cy Zachary, Cowens-Farmer, Stearns-Gullickson, Brett Wilcox, Winfield-Ryan, and Russell McGraw. You
18:58couldn't fit this many fights into an entire UFC event. The prelims wouldn't even give you enough
19:02room. What the hell is going on? Dave Anderson at the New York Times takes a few stabs at it.
19:08First, the stress is commensurate with collective action. Hey listen, I love tying societal currents
19:13to organized labor or the lack thereof. I blame diminishing union membership every time I stub my
19:18toe. And I've been kicking around a crackpot theory that traces the significant mid-90s drop-off
19:23and mound chargings to newfound player solidarity in the wake of the 94 strike, but I doubt things are
19:28so easily explained in 1980. Second, now that players are making more money, they're incentivized to
19:33protect their investments. This is a funny one because I would actually argue that the opposite
19:37is true. In the 2010s and 20s, players are making more money than ever, and I don't think it's an
19:42accident that they've done a way better job at keeping their buttons sewn on and their jerseys clean.
19:46Fights are a great recipe if an expensive freak injury is what you want. Third, more pictures are thrown
19:52inside. I think this writer probably has a better handle on this than I do.
19:56Keeson certainly leads the brushback vanguard here, picking up the torch left by the great
20:00Bob Gibson, but he's not alone. Might be a factor. And fourth, it's just one of those things.
20:05Probably could have kept it to a clean three, Dave. It's not one of those things. It's the thing.
20:10This storm descended over baseball in 1979 and threw it in park directly overhead for a solid
20:15decade and a half, arguably longer. Whatever phenomena might be at play, the effects are strong
20:20enough for Bruce Keeson to find himself charged by two batters in the same game.
20:31On May 26th, 1980, the Rangers' Buddy Bell runs up on him in the top of the sixth,
20:36and Johnny Grubb does the same two innings later. This is not the only time this has happened. The
20:41year prior, Toronto's Baylor Moore was charged twice in the same day, and in 1987, San Diego's Eric
20:47Shao will throw a single pitch that gets him charged by two different guys at two different times.
20:52Nonetheless, though, this is certainly a select fraternity. Coming into this game on May 26th,
20:56this Rangers batting order is just about the most pacifist group of guys one could ask for.
21:01None of these guys have ever charged the mound before today, and none will after today.
21:04It's not even an institutional norm. Before today, only one guy in the history of the Texas Rangers,
21:10that's 1977 Toby Hara, who no longer plays here, has charged a mound while wearing their jersey.
21:15It is only natural for these guys to dislike Keeson because in all their combined prior meetings,
21:20they've gone just 17 for 79 against him. That's a .215 average with zero home runs. And while he might
21:26well have brushed him back a few times, it's worth noting that he's only ever hit one of them with
21:30a
21:31pitch once. What's really got the Rangers spooked, though, is the reputation that precedes Keeson.
21:36Many Rangers had never batted against him prior to this season since he was always over in the National
21:40League, but they've read scary articles about him. They know he likes to buzz guys up and in.
21:45They know that his nickname is The Assassin. They might have heard all these terrifying stories of
21:50him hitting seven guys in a single game, or knocking down Hank Aaron three times,
21:54or challenging Mike Schmidt to a boxing match and beating him silly. He is a man not to be trifled
21:59with.
22:00He exacts his punishment, and like that, he's gone.
22:11So when Kaisen Soze throws one just a little bit inside against Buddy Bell, Bell overreacts.
22:16Plate umpire Bill Holler will later say he didn't really throw that close to him at all.
22:20Such is the power of ghost stories. Interestingly, Bell doesn't charge the mound right here and now.
22:25He steps in for another pitch, flies out, takes a couple of steps toward first, and then charges
22:31Kaisen. They throw a few punches, although I wasn't really able to dig up a more detailed account of
22:35who landed what. I'm gonna give this one a conservative two in both categories, since we
22:40at least know that punches were thrown and there was a little pushing and shoving in the periphery.
22:44Since the American League uses the designated hitter, Kaisen doesn't bat, so the Rangers take
22:49revenge by plunking the Angels' Kearney Lansford. They then become the aggressors,
22:53with another Rangers pitcher throwing behind Dan Ford's head and getting ejected.
22:57Kaisen responds, maybe unintentionally, by beaning pinch hitter Johnny Grubb in the eighth,
23:02thereby forcing us to add a second floor to our constellation.
23:05One report states that Grubb was able to register a takedown on Kaisen,
23:08so I'm gonna rate this a three and a two.
23:13The comparison I want to make with Bruce Kaisen isn't another ball player.
23:17It's Elio Gracie, the father of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and it's not because Kaisen was
23:22anywhere near the fighter Gracie was. Rather, both waged war with tall,
23:26lanky frames, unsuited for battle or physical punishment. Elio, who was lacking in every
23:31physical asset, managed to defeat much larger opponents after turning over every rock and
23:36leveraging every potential advantage he could find. Trips, body locks, timing, and most importantly,
23:41inhuman resolve. His fights against much bigger men could last an hour, maybe several.
23:46Throughout, he would endure constant and relentless physical punishment that suggested an infinite
23:51capacity to withstand pain. That was the price of victory for somebody built like Elio Gracie was.
23:57Bruce Kaisen was talked about in the same way. Peter Gammons once wrote, quote,
24:01The man doesn't understand pain thresholds. Throughout most of his career,
24:05some piece or another of his body was broken. As long as pitching remained physically possible,
24:10Kaisen refused to let it take him out of the game. But you can't be a crash test dummy if
24:14the car won't
24:14start. Not long after being double charged by the Rangers, Kaisen finds that his arm simply does not
24:20work. He can't extend his elbow fully, he can't grip a baseball, he can't even open a bottle of soda.
24:25When it's determined the season ending surgery is the only option left, he seems to regard it as a
24:30personal failing. And that's the only way to explain what he does next. He calls up Angels general
24:36manager Buzzy Bavasi and he offers a full refund. He wants to give the salary back to the team. This
24:43is
24:43something that no athlete and nobody should ever, ever do. To his credit, Bavasi says no chance,
24:49because it's not as though they'd magnanimously double his salary if he won 30 games. Incredibly,
24:54not only is this not the first time a player has made such an offer, it's not even the first
24:58time
24:58in the last couple of years Bavasi himself has had to tell a California Angel to keep his money.
25:03In 1978, the year Lyman Bostock charged Al Herboski, Bostock made the same offer. This is a story,
25:09by the way, that deserves its own episode and I hope to get to it soon. Keeson recovers from surgery
25:15and in 1982, the Angels call on him to start game two of the ALCS. He pitches a complete game,
25:21gives up just two runs and notches the win. In the final game five, Angels manager Gene Mock
25:26desperately shoves him out there again on only three days rest. Keeson pitches fairly well and pitches
25:31until he can't feel his fingers anymore and the Angels lose the series. This caps his postseason career
25:37at 36.1 innings pitched and a 1.98 ERA. Of those who've pitched at least 30 career playoff
25:43innings in the integration era, he's one of only a few to finish with an ERA under two.
25:48Bruce Keeson, who bounced between the rotation and the bullpen across six different postseasons
25:53and collected two World Series rings, is among the most effective playoff pitchers of modern times.
26:00This, again, from a man who never made an all-star game or received a single Cy Young vote.
26:04But he had this tendency, this gift, of untethering himself from all the circumstances that held him
26:10down for just long enough to transcend into greatness whenever he was really, really needed.
26:19Keeson could have retired after pretty much any of the final 10 seasons of his career and
26:23everybody would have understood. He just won't stay on the mat. In 83, yet another physical ailment
26:29emerges in his back requiring another surgery. Although I couldn't find another source confirming this,
26:33Angels manager John McNamara later recalls that Keeson nearly died in the middle of surgery.
26:38He nonetheless returns to pitch in 84. And in 85, when McNamara is named manager of the Red Sox,
26:44Keeson follows him to Boston. He can't even get through inning number two of his tenure before
26:48experiencing so much pain on the mound he falls to his knees. When McNamara comes out there to get him,
26:53Keeson still somehow finds it in him to insist that he stay in the game. This isn't cute anymore. I
26:59doubt many of
26:59us observers find this to be praiseworthy at this point. But this isn't really about us. If he wants,
27:06he can keep going. He can return to keep pitching later this season, as evidenced by the surprisingly
27:11low ERA of 3.94 that he carries into this June 23rd start against Toronto. He can keep aggressively
27:18staking out the inside of the strike zone with reckless abandon, as he does against George Bell in
27:22the fourth inning. This is not the last game Bruce Keeson will ever pitch, but it is the final
27:27appearance of the assassin, the last time Keeson will ever hit a batter. Keeson, as usual, denies
27:33it's intentional. But as usual, the batter has heard too many ghost stories to give him the benefit of the
27:37doubt. This flying kick to the jimmies is more than enough to earn a score of five, the highest that
27:42can
27:42be given to an individual fight performance. In what little footage we have of the ensuing melee,
27:48which I award a 4 out of 5, we see perhaps the final frames of publicly available footage of Bruce
27:54Keeson's career, swallowed up in a wave of attacking Blue Jays and swept off the screen. It's typical.
28:00There's very little footage of Bruce Keeson you can go and watch. Even though YouTubers have uploaded
28:04whatever they've been able to recover of Game 4, the 71 World Series, most of the footage of Keeson's
28:10iconic performance is missing. It's why I've shown you so little tape. It just isn't out there.
28:14What we know is that in the immediate aftermath of those final frames of footage,
28:19Keeson injured his shoulder in the brawl. And although he stayed in the game,
28:23this was the injury that finally did him in. It compelled one of the toughest,
28:27most fearless ball players of modern times to announce his retirement at the end of the 1985
28:32season. I think George Bell, in sparking the brawl that forced him out of baseball,
28:37did him a favor in a way. Bell's story is one we will visit in the next episode.
28:42I find that it's important to take special care when I tell the story of a guy like Bruce Keeson,
28:47somebody who baseball diehards know, but few others do. This episode might well be the first
28:52and last word you ever hear on the man. And as such, I feel a certain responsibility to treat
28:56his story with dignity. There's a certain comedy to Keeson's entire career, a comedy that he himself
29:02very much embraced. He was an incredible sort of person, one with limitless intensity and determination,
29:07who was nonetheless happy to have a laugh about it all. You would have expected him to be terrified
29:12that day Mike Schmidt charged them out to fight him, but he was really just amused. Whenever he hit
29:17a guy or brushed him back and was asked whether he did so on purpose, he would often faintly smile
29:21and say nothing. He found the same comedy in his cartoonish physical dimensions that everybody else
29:26did. He loved making goofs on his weight. When he moved over to the American League and therefore
29:30wouldn't get to bat anymore, he said he would miss making an ass of himself. He sucked at hitting.
29:35He loved that he sucked at it. It was hilarious to him. So something tells me that if he knew
29:41his
29:41story would begin and end with the story of him getting judo kicked in the jimmies, he would have found
29:47it funny.
30:00I don't know.
30:02It's funny.
30:29But
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