SAM MCDOWELL

Sam McDowell was born in Pittsburgh in 1942, and by the time he was twenty-three he had the best fastball in the American League and the worst idea of where it was going. That was the bargain. He came at you six-foot-five from the left side, all knees and elbows and a windup so calm you could time it with a sundial. Then the ball arrived, and it arrived suddenly. So they called him Sudden Sam, which fit like a glove.

For six summers in Cleveland, from 1965 through 1970, he was the most electric thing in Municipal Stadium. Five strikeout titles in that span. Twenty-three shutouts for his career, 103 complete games, 2,453 strikeouts against a walk total that reads like the tax on thunder. He threw strikes and he threw balls, and the balls were part of the show. The walks rode with the heater, same storm.

He wasn't a technician. He was a force of weather, a left-handed gale off Lake Erie who could make a hitter look foolish one pitch and bail him out the next. The Indians weren't always good around him, but on his night, nobody else mattered. The scoreboard told you the story: K, K, K, and occasionally a base on balls, and the fans loved every bit of it.

The fade came later, as fades do, but the peak was real and it was loud. Sam McDowell was the last guy you wanted to face with the game on the line and the summer heat rising off the dirt. Heritage cards you play remember the thunder.