#63 - Steve McCatty

What a card: Steve McCatty was still trying to come back from a rotator cuff injury in 1985. The ailment first cropped up in 1982 and eventually led to the end of his career. McCatty's final season in the majors would be in '85.

My observation on the front: I count at least five shades of green on this card.

More opinion from me: McCatty was one of my favorite young pitchers of the early '80s, one of those guys that I wanted to see do well for no apparent reason other than that he wore a mustache.

Something you might know: McCatty, along with Mike Norris, Rick Langford, Matt Keough and Brian Kingman, formed a formidable starting pitching rotation for the A's under Billy Martin in 1980. Although all are cited as examples of what pitching a lot of innings can do to a career, McCatty is often singled out. He finished second in the American League Cy Young voting in 1981 and was out of the majors less than five years later.

Something you might not know: McCatty is now the pitching coach for the Washington Nationals, which means he's the pitching coach for Stephen Strasburg. That must be quite the responsibility. McCatty was just featured Wednesday afternoon having a "discussion" with Strasburg after the sixth inning of a game against the Blue Jays. Strasburg had suffered a minor cut to his finger and wanted to continue to pitch, but McCatty was explaining to him that they were taking him out of the game, much to Strasburg's displeasure.

Said McCatty in an earlier interview a couple years ago, "It's like telling Secretariat not to run very often."

My observation on the back: I don't have the time to do an exhaustive search on whether Dave McNally still holds the record of consecutive hitless innings in a championship series. I think he still might, although I'm surprised that Mariano Rivera wouldn't have broken it by now.

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