August 11 – 24, 1962

Neil Sedaka

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Ubaldo Jimenez struck out 1,720 batters and retired in the top 50 in SO/9.  Jimenez did most of his work with the Colorado Rockies where he was an All-Star in 2010 and finished third in National League Cy Young voting based on his 19 and 8 record and 2.88 ERA.  Jimenez never had a season like that again and he had control issues where he walked a lot of batters and finished atop the league leaderboard in Wild Pitches twice.  He retired with 114 Wins.

Stephen Drew’s best seasons came with the Arizona Diamondbacks where he had a pair of 150 Hits seasons with 15 Home Runs.  Drew would finish in the top ten in Triples four times and he would have 1,109 Hits over his career.   He would help the Boston win the World Series in 2013.

One of the more unique careers in baseball is that of R.A. Dickey, a journeyman and conventional Pitcher who did not make a fulltime Major League roster until he was 28.  That team was the Texas Rangers, where his new pitch, the knuckleball which found him a place in baseball.  He still bounced around going to Seattle, Minnesota and to the New York Mets and h had a good 2010 going 11 and 9 with an ERA under 3.  He had another average season and in 2012 at the age of 37 he would become arguably the biggest surprise winner of the Cy Young when he won 20 Games and was the National League leader in Innings Pitched (233.2) and Strikeouts (230).