Our Baltimore Orioles blog, Camden Chat, has posted a minimalist tribute to Mike Cuellar, who passed away Friday at the age of 72. He wasn’t a Hall of Famer, and the casual baseball fan has likely never heard of him, but his story is a pretty remarkable one.
Mike Cuellar, 1937-2010: A Story That Defied Common Logic
↵Cuellar was an 18-year-old in the Cuban army when he tossed a no-hitter for his military baseball team. Scouts took notice, and the Cincinnati Reds (then the Redlegs, so named because McCarthyism was still running wild) signed him.
↵At age 22, Cuellar made two relief appearances for the Redlegs. He was awful, and the team promptly sent him away. Cuellar spent the next few years bouncing between the minors and Mexican baseball. That’s how most stories end, but not this one. Cuellar managed to make it back to the majors as a 27-year-old, and after a couple of unremarkable seasons he posted a 2.22 ERA in 227 innings for the Astros. At age 32, he won a Cy Young. At 33, he won 24 games and a World Series ring with the Orioles.
↵If Cuellar had thrown in the towel early in his career, as legions upon legions of baseball players have, we wouldn’t be talking about him today.
See More:
