Published: October 23, 2008 11:02 am      

Vuckovich honored: Area ex-big-leaguer to take spot with Pennsylvania’s best

His Milwaukee Brewers teammates didn’t hesitate when asked what they remembered most about Johnstown’s Pete Vuckovich.

“He was one of the fiercest competitors you’d meet,” said Jim Gantner, a second baseman on the Brewers World Series runner-up team in 1982. “Pete would do anything it takes to win. He was so competitive it was unbelievable.”

Vuckovich won the American League Cy Young Award in ’82, and the 6-foot-4 right-hander left the seventh game of the World Series with a 3-1 lead. But the St. Louis Cardinals came back to win against the Brew Crew’s bullpen.

“I don’t think I ever saw anybody who would be so competitive when it was time to pitch,” said former Milwaukee center fielder Gorman Thomas. “It’s hard to stay 100 percent, 100 miles per hour, 24 hours a day. But when it was Pete’s day to pitch, it was more than tunnel vision, it was straw vision. That’s how finely tuned he was. He was that way every time I saw him pitch.”

Vuckovich, now a special assistant to Pittsburgh Pirates General Manager Neal Huntington, will be inducted into the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame on Nov. 1 at the Meadowlands Holiday Inn near Pittsburgh.

The Conemaugh Valley High School graduate previously had been inducted into the Western Pennsylvania Chapter of the Hall and is a member of the AAABA Hall of Fame.

“It’s very humbling. It’s not something that you dream about or think about when you’re a young kid growing up and participating in sports,” said Vuckovich, who turns 56 on Monday. “It’s quite an honor.”

The big righty pitched 11 seasons in the major leagues with four teams. His career record was 93-69 with a 3.66 earned run average. Vuckovich tied for the major league lead with 14 wins in the strike-shortened 1981 season and followed with an 18-6 mark during his Cy Young season in 1982. His two-year record of 32-10 produced a league-best .762 winning percentage during those two years.

“You realize that the only reason these things transpire, at least personally for me, is because of baseball,” Vuckovich said of his upcoming induction. “You know for a fact that any accomplishments you have in the game were because of your teammates. I was only a pitcher. They made the plays. They scored the runs. The relievers came in and saved the ballgames. You’re a product of your teammates.”

In 1982, Vuckovich twice won eight consecutive decisions. But late in the season he pitched through pain that eventually developed into a rotator cuff injury that required surgery and shortened his career.

During a Tribune-Democrat interview at the time of his 1987 retirement, Vuckovich said he pitched through the pain because he believed it would have been a bad time to “walk” when the Brewers were in a pennant race.

“He’s the type of guy you’d want for a teammate,” Gantner said. “You love him to death. You talk about being competitive. You can’t get more competitive then he is. He’s a good friend, an awesome person, a good family guy. He’s the kind of guy you’d want to be on your team.”

Vuckovich studied the game too. When he sat out most of 1983 and all of 1984 after rotator cuff surgery, Vuckovich charted pitches and worked the radar gun. He studied hitters’ tendencies. All of this eventually prepared him for his current position.

“In ’82, he probably topped out at maybe 85 miles an hour with his fastball, yet he’s 18-6 and wins the Cy Young,” Thomas said. “That tells you he knows how to pitch. You have to be a competitor to pitch at that level. It shows that you can be crafty and manipulative in your own special realm to get the job done.

“He was probably more of a professor of the game than a student. He knew how to set hitters up. It was like a chess game to him. A guy hasn’t even put his batting gloves on yet and Pete is figuring out what he’s going to throw to him.”

Thomas marveled at how Vuckovich played mind games with the opposition.

He was intimidating because of his size, long hair and goatee. Sometimes, Vuckovich wore two different brands of spikes, one Puma and one Adidas.

“He could throw any pitch at any time for a strike,” Gantner said. “He set up hitters like you couldn’t believe. He didn’t have all the computer stuff they have nowadays. He was like a computer himself. Every time he went out there, you knew you had one heck of a chance to win the game that day. That gives your whole team confidence when a guy like that steps on the mound.”

In addition to his five seasons with the Brewers, Vuckovich played for the Chicago White Sox in 1975-76, was selected in the expansion draft by Toronto and played for the Blue Jays in 1977, then was traded to St. Louis in 1978. The Cards and Brewers made a blockbuster deal that sent Rollie Fingers, Ted Simmons and Vuckovich to Milwaukee in December 1980 for Sixto Lezcano, David Green, Lary Sorenson and Dave LaPoint.

“The 1982 Brewers were the best team I played on. We went to a World Series,” Vuckovich said. “But I played for other teams before that. I played for the White Sox. I was a young kid playing for Toronto in their first year. I played in St. Louis.

“I remember Bill Melton, a third baseman, taking care of me in my first year as a young kid with the White Sox. I remember playing with Lou Brock in St. Louis. My memories extend beyond one ballclub.”

After his career ended, Vuckovich was a color analyst for the Brewers television network. He appeared in the 1989 motion picture “Major League” as the obnoxious, tobacco-spitting Yankees first baseman Clu Haywood.

In 1992 his former catcher Ted Simmons, then the Pirates GM, hired Vuckovich as a roving pitching instructor.

After two seasons he was promoted to special assistant to General Manager Cam Bonifay.

The Pirates named Vuckovich their pitching coach in 1997, a position he held for four years until moving back to a special assistant to the GM role in 2001.

“You do some reflecting,” Vuckovich said, when asked what the Pennsylvania Hall of Fame honor meant. “While you’re still working in the game and you have responsibilities you don’t have time to think about it. You don’t expect such things.”