Fun facts about Ted Wills:
-Ted was born in Fresno, CA and attended the California State University campus in Fresno before signing with the Red Sox in 1955.
-He debuted with Boston in 1959 at age 25. On May 30, he went the distance to beat the Orioles 8-3 in his first career start, scattering 11 hits in the process.
-Overall, Wills took his lumps as a rookie, allowing 68 hits (including 9 home runs) in 56.1 innings and walking 24 while striking out 24 as well. His ERA was 5.27.
-Ted spent the second half of the 1960 season with the Red Sox and struggled even more, pitching to a 7.42 ERA in 30.1 innings. He did earn his first save on July 3 by slamming the door on the A's with 2.1 perfect innings. It's not often that a pitcher is credited with a save in a 13-2 game; it was 4-2 when Ted was summoned in the seventh, and Boston scored eight runs in the bottom of that inning and tacked on another in the eighth!
-He opened the 1961 season in Beantown but posted an ugly 11-19 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 19.2 innings, contributing to a 5.95 ERA. He didn't pitch after June 24.
-The Red Sox finally gave up on Wills early on in 1962 and sold him to the Reds. He improved his strikeout-to-walk ratio to a career-best 2.52-to-1 in 26 appearances, but was still hittable (61 hits and 12 HR in 61 innings) and finished with a 5.31 ERA for Cincy.
-He was shunted to the minor leagues in 1963, where he won 27 games during the next two seasons with Cincinnati's AAA San Diego club.
-The White Sox aquired Ted in 1965 and kept him on the major league roster for the first two months of the season. Pitching in relief, he had a tidy 2.84 ERA, two wins, and a save, but a closer look shows that he just got lucky. He was still giving up plenty of hits (17 in 19 innings) and walks (14), and 7 of the 13 runners that he inherited (54%) scored on his watch. He spent the rest of that year in the minors and never pitched in organized ball again.
-Perhaps he was miscast as a pitcher. He notched 11 hits (including 3 doubles) in 44 career at-bats for a .250 average.
-For his career, Wills was 8-11 with 5 saves and a 5.51 ERA in parts of five years.
I love the 65 set. At the time, I wondered about so many of the players I had never heard of and this guy was one of those. He had not been in the bigs for 2 seasons and really would not have had a card except for the Fleer defections.
ReplyDeleteTwo plus seasons was a lifetime when you are 10. The best set ever but with some real marginal players included.
This was the first set I bought a lot of as a kid, but I didn't know about the Fleer defections until reading this blog - very interesting. Can't quite place that stadium Ted Wills is standing in - doesn't look like the Polo Grounds, but could be.
ReplyDeleteI agree--this set in my opinion was Topps best effort of that era--the card layout with pennant, cartoon,complete year-by-year stats...I'm not sure why Topps would have issued this card, though...he started the season with the White Sox and this was a late-numbered card--either the last series release or 2nd last.
ReplyDeleteAnon - In a way it adds to the charm of the set, makes it more unique. The picture used for this card is probably two years old!
ReplyDeleteDoug - The other readers alerted me to the Fleer defections as well.
Brox - The Sox acquired him on April 7, so it was probably late enough for Topps to miss.
I lived in Fresno in the early 70's His father Ted Wills Sr was the elected mayor for 8 years
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