Two Absent Friends - Mickey Lolich and Sonny Jurgensen

Two rather significant members of the sports world left us this past week and deserve to be remembered.

Mickey Lolich

Mickey Lolich

1940 - 2026

Mickey Lolich was 85 years old when he died this past week.  He was a solid-to-very good Major League pitcher and a genuine World Series hero.  I have a memory of first hearing about Mickey Lolich in an article in SPORT Magazine sometime in the mid-1960's that concentrated on Lolich being (a) a left-hander, (b) a bit of a flake, and (c) his somewhat, ahem, portly build.  (I have been unable to find that article in a cursory search of the inter webs.)  I then mostly forgot about him as he pitched in the American League in the days before interleague play and before every baseball game under the sun was available to watch on some television platform or another.

Then came 1968.

That was the season that has come to be known as "The Year of the Pitcher".  Bob Gibson led all of MLB with a 1.12 ERA, and the Tigers Denny McLain won 31 games. In a wonder of perfect serendipity, Gibson's Cardinals and McLain's Tigers met in the World Series that year.  This was the last season before leagues were split into divisions and the baseball post-season began to feature multiple levels of playoffs.  Because of this, some people, like my buddy Jim Haller, refer to 1968 as the last "pure" season, but that is a discussion for another time.  The Cardinals were defending World Series champs and had won two of the previous four World Series.  The stage was set for a Gibson-McLain Showdown, but then something completely unexpected happened: Mickey Lolich.

While McLain stumbled a bit in the Series, he went 1-2, Lolich picked up the slack.  He started and completed three games in that Series.  He won all three games and had an ERA of 1.67.  Lolich's third win in that Series came in Game 7 on two days rest when the opposing pitcher was none other than BOB F. GIBSON, who had won three World Series games himself in one Series the year before.  And how's this for a cherry atop the sundae?  Lolich also hit a home run in Game 2 of that Series. It was the only home run in his entire career.

History lesson, kids.  Pitchers have won three games in a single World Series only thirteen times in history. It has been done only five times in the so-called Live Ball Era, i.e., after 1920.  After Lolich did it in 1968, it wasn't accomplished again until Randy Johnson of the Diamondbacks did it in 2001, and if memory serves, Johnson's third win in that Series came in a relief role.

Lolich had a solid, but not a spectacular career.  He pitched for 16 seasons, 13 of them with Tigers. He had a career record of 217-191 with a 3.44 ERA.  He won twenty games twice.  He had nine seasons with double digit wins totals.  In 1971 he led the American League with 45 starts and 29 complete games.  He had 195 complete games in his career.  He made three All-Star teams and never won a Cy Young Award, although he finished in the Top Five of the voting twice.

Like I said, a really good pitcher, and a Genuine World Series Hero.  I hope that he never had to pick up a  restaurant check in Detroit right up until the day he died.

Sonny Jurgensen

Sonny Jurgensen

1934-2026

Hall of Fame quarterback Sonny Jorgensen died thais past week at the age of 91.  He had a career that spanned 18 NFL seasons, seven with the Eagles and eleven with Washington.  As I remember Jurgensen, and my first hand memories of him are few, I admit, he was a swaggering figure on the field, a tough guy who could take the hard hits and dish them out as well.  I remember getting his football cards and thinking that "Sonny Jurgensen" was a pretty cool name. I heard a story after his death that Vince Lombardi, who coached Sonny for that one season in Washington in 1969, called Jorgensen "the best".  I'll take Lombardi's word for that.

In his career he threw for 255 touchdowns and for over 32,000 yards.  He led the NFL in passing yards five times and in TD passes twice.  He was a backup QB on the Eagles 1960 NFL Championship team (he threw for 486 yards and five TD's that season), He made the Pro Bowl five tines, made the NFL's All-1960's Team, and he went into the Hall of Fame in 1983.

I know that he did a stint as an analyst on the Networks, but he fashioned a career as an analyst on the Washington Football Team's radio broadcast team for over thirty years.  It was in that role that be became beloved by generations of Redskins/Commanders fans that had never even seen him play.  

You just gotta love guy like that!

RIP Mickey Lolich and Sonny Jurgensen

Oh, and by the way, how many of you know what Sonny Jorgensen's baptismal name was.  I'll bet you a dollar that you don't.  

I'll save you from looking it up: Adolph Christian Jurgensen.  He was born in 1934, and I guess that it was okay to give your kid a name like that that, but I can see why went by "Sonny".