Vida Blue, led Athletics to three World Series titles, dies at 73
Vida Blue, a hard-throwing left-hander who grew to become one in every of baseball’s greatest attracts within the early Nineteen Seventies and helped lead the brash Oakland Athletics to 3 straight World Series titles earlier than his profession was derailed by drug issues, has died. He was 73.
The A’s stated Blue died Saturday however didn’t give a reason behind demise.
“There are few gamers with a extra adorned profession than Vida Blue,” the group stated in an announcement Sunday. “Vida will always be a franchise legend and a friend.”
Blue was voted the 1971 American League Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player after going 24-8 with a 1.82 ERA and 301 strikeouts with 24 full video games, eight of them shutouts. He stays amongst simply 11 pitchers to win each honours in the identical yr.
Blue completed 209-161 with a 3.27 ERA, 2,175 strikeouts, 143 full video games and 37 shutouts over 17 seasons with Oakland (1969-77), San Francisco (1978-81, 85-86) and Kansas City (1982-83).
A six-time All-Star, Blue helped pitch the Swingin’ A’s, as Charley Finley’s vibrant, moustachioed group was identified, to consecutive World Series titles from 1972-74. Since then, solely the 1998-2000 New York Yankees have achieved the feat.
After Blue clashed publicly with Finley, the A’s proprietor traded Blue twice solely to be blocked every time by baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, first in June 1976 to the New York Yankees after which in December 1977 to the Cincinnati Reds. Kuhn vetoed the offers beneath the commissioner’s authority to behave within the “finest pursuits of baseball.”
“Vida Blue has been a Bay Area baseball icon for over 50 years,” Giants President Larry Baer stated in an announcement, “His impact on the Bay Area transcends his 17 years on the diamond with the influence he’s had on our community.”
Blue was launched by the Royals in August 1983 and ordered that December to serve three months in federal jail and fined $5,000 for misdemeanour possession of roughly a tenth of an oz of cocaine. Blue was sentenced to 1 yr in jail however U.S. Magistrate Judge J. Milton Sullivant suspended the vast majority of the time period.
Blue was among the many gamers ordered by baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth in 1985 to be topic to random drug testing for the remainder of their careers.
After sitting out 1983 and 1984, Blue returned to baseball with the Giants for 2 seasons.
After his 2005 arrest in Arizona on suspicion of DUI for the third time in lower than six years, Blue was sentenced to 6 months in jail after failing to finish his probation. But he was informed he may keep away from incarceration by spending time in a residential alcohol remedy program.
