Most former players remember details about personal milestones. A hitter can typically tell you where, and against whom, he recorded his first hit and home run. Ditto for details about an especially meaningful moment, perhaps a pennant-clinching double, or even a game-deciding grand slam against a bona fide ace. The same goes for pitchers. Ask them about their first win, their first strikeout — even their first home run allowed — and they can rattle off an answer without much effort. How many Ws were they credited with over the course of their career? Piece of cake.
Other questions aren’t so easy. With that in mind, I challenged former Kansas City Royals (and briefly Anaheim Angels) right-hander Mark Gubicza to a quiz. The now-Angels broadcaster wasn’t deterred when I warned him my questions weren’t going to be layups. Gubicza, who pitched in 384 games from 1984-1997, agreed to give it a shot.
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The first question I asked the former All-Star was which batter he faced the most times. Gubicza guessed Kirby Puckett. Nope. His second guess, Jose Canseco, was likewise incorrect. I informed him the correct answer: Wade Boggs.
“I should have remembered that,” replied Gubicza, who squared off against the five-time batting champion 97 times. (Puckett was close behind at 92, while Canseco was further down the list at 60.) “He hit about .387 against me, or something like that.”
The hurler-turned-analyst got two of those three digits right. Boggs batted .367 against him, going 29-for-79 while also drawing 17 walks and lofting a sacrifice fly.
How about the batter who got the most hits off of him?
“I would assume that Boggs is near the top,” Gubicza reasoned. “Don Mattingly would be pretty close; he got me pretty good. He had a higher batting average [.413], but I don’t know that I faced him enough times.”
Mattingly (33) is the correct answer.
“Both of those guys gave me nightmares,” Gubicza said. “With Boggs, it got to the point where I was almost willing to hit him with a pitch, because I knew it was going to be an eight-, nine-, or 10-pitch at-bat, then he’d either walk or get a base hit to left field. Mattingly got big-moment knocks off of me. I never wanted him up, especially with guys on base. Wade, I knew, was going to be a battle. Mattingly had extra-base power against me.”
Mattingly not only had a .663 slugging percentage against Gubicza, but he was also one of five batters to take him deep four times. The others were Canseco, Fred McGriff, Greg Vaughn, and Mickey Tettleton. Gubicza was able to name all but the last of them without much effort. That he couldn’t come up with Tettleton surprised him.
“I didn’t give up a lot of home runs, so I remember everybody who got me,” said Gubicza, who allowed just 155 over 2,223 2/3 innings. “But yeah, he might have gotten me for two three-run homers in one game [which Tettleton did, on May 14, 1996]. It’s funny, because I used to get him out, then all of a sudden I couldn’t get him out. He was able to get to my sinker before it got all the way to the outside corner. And he got it pretty good.
My next question was even more challenging: Which hitter did he face 41 times and neither surrender a home run to, nor strike out? He incorrectly guessed Cal Ripken Jr. (six strikeouts, no home runs). The answer is Matt Nokes.
Asked which batter he fanned the most times, Gubicza promptly and correctly named Canseco (20 stikeouts, 60 plate appearances). The batter he faced the most times without giving up a hit? He nailed that one, as well.
“I know Joel Skinner (0-for-19) never got hit against me, but I’ll say Dick Schofield (0-for-28),” he responded, citing the former Angels shortstop. “And believe me, every time we run into each other, he shakes his head.
“At one point, Mark McLemore was like 0-for-23,” continued Gubicza. “We both knew it. He came up to me once and said, ‘I don’t ever get a hit against you.’ I go, ‘Oh man, there you go.’ Of course, he gets an infield hit the very next time. We’re good friends, so we’ve laughed at each other about that.”
The highest OPS against him, minimum 20 plate appearances, proved to be a stumper. His guesses were Mattingly (1.106) and Kirk Gibson (1.103), but the answer is McGriff (1.833).
“Oh yeah,” said Gubicza. “He used to get me so bad that I think I actually started throwing sliders at his back foot, on purpose. We were friends, so I didn’t want to hit him hit him. But yeah, there was a 3-0 pitch where I threw a fastball, thinking he was taking, and he took me deep, dead center off the glass, at SkyDome. He was running the bases and I said, ‘You’ll never get another fastball again.’”
The next question was one I assumed Gubicza wouldn’t get: Which hitter went 5-for-5 with one home run against him? As expected, he couldn’t name Max Venable.
“He hit a grand slam off me, too,” Gubicza said upon learning who it was. “When I talk to [White Sox manager Will Venable], I say to him, ‘Tell your dad I said hi. Also tell him that he should be thanking me for the grand slam.’
“The other grand slams I gave up were to Chuck Knoblauch and Dave Kingman,” added Gubicza. “The one to Kingman was in my first year. Jim Palmer reminds me that he never gave up a grand slam. I tell him that I got mine out of the way early.”
I expected him to know the visiting ballpark in which he allowed the most home runs. It turns out that I was wrong. Gubicza made numerous guesses before naming Tiger Stadium.
“What I remember is that every time I went to that yard, I knew I was beat,” said Gubicza, who surrendered 11 gophers at Detroit’s old ballpark. “And it’s weird, because I should have been great there. I was a sinkerball guy and the infield grass there was like a mile high. For whatever reason, I didn’t give up groundballs at Tiger Stadium. That overhang in right field got me a couple times, too.”
The two players who took Gubicza deep twice at Tiger Stadium? After wrongly guessing Pete Incaviglia, he correctly named Cecil Fielder, adding that he and the right-handed-hitting slugger were once minor league roommates in the Royals system. Gubicza then also correctly named Kirk Gibson, who hit two home runs off him on April 19, 1994. As fate would have it, a social engagement is part of story.
“I was going over to his house,” Gubicza recalled. “He and his wife, JoAnn, were making me dinner. Gibby goes, ‘I guess Gubie won’t be coming over after I hit two three-run homers against him.’ No. I would expect Gibby to treat me to dinner after giving those up. That was six RBI.”
The player who drove in the most runs against him? It was Mattingly, with 17, although that wasn’t part of the quiz. As for the questions Gubicza did tackle, he did reasonably well given their degree of difficulty. Grade-wise, Gubicza probably merits a B-minus. Actually, make that a B. He deserves extra credit for being a good sport.
Content Source: blogs.fangraphs.com