Pittsburgh Pirates ace Bob Friend: What might have been

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(Original Caption) They’ve got a right to smile. New York: They’ve got a good right to smile. Little Bill Mazeroski (left), who slammed in ninth-inning single to help Pittsburgh defeat the Mets, Willie Stargell, (center), first Shea Stadium home run hitter, and pitcher Bob Friend, flash winning smiles in clubhouse after beating N.Y. Mets, 4-3 in their debut at the new $25,000,000 Shea Stadium after April 17th victory. Mazeroski singled knocking in run that beat the Mets. /

The What Might Have Been Part

As Stephen J. Nesbitt points out, Friend lost 50 games before he was 24 with the dreadful Pirates, and it doesn’t take much to imagine what might have been had the pitcher just run into a tiny bit more luck, or played with a slightly better team. 227-200, anybody? 232-195?

After retirement, Friend told an interviewer he had a great sinker – he depended on it – as well as a “hard curve,” and a reasonable change-up. To us Pirates fans who were kids and teens, he was just that guy with the congenial smile who didn’t throw as hard as Al McBean. Of course, all we knew was “over the plate,” and an occasional curve. We also knew the Pirates started to be good about 1958, and Friend was part of that. He took the ball.

In ’58, in fact, when the Pirates finished second in the National League to the Milwaukee Braves, Bob Friend tied the truly legendary Warren Spahn for the league lead in victories (22) and posted his career best WHIP, 1.042. Sure, when he was on the mound for the Pirates many years, there were men on base. But run through your head quickly those he faced repeatedly: Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Joe Adcock, and Ernie Banks, to name only a lethal handful.

Consider: What if Friend had played in Milwaukee? What if his 22-14 record and 274 regular-season innings pitched were available to the Braves for the ’58 World Series? Milwaukee did ultimately lose to the New York Yankees, four games to three, but Friend would certainly have started before any of the Braves pitchers not named Spahn or Lew Burdette.

Would such alternate history have given Friend a ring two years earlier than the one he won for the Pirates? For that matter, were Friend in Milwaukee rather than in Pittsburgh in ‘60, would he have picked up two rings in three years after the never-were Braves ran down the Pirates, then beat the Yankees again?

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