Astros Legends Series: Larry Dierker

Larry Dierker as a player and manager guided the Astros franchise to a combined 574 wins. His number 49 is rightfully retired, and he joins us as our Legends Series continues with our sixth entry.

Let’s start at the beginning. You struck out Willie Mays in your first ever start. Incredible. What do you most remember about that?

I was in Cocoa Florida, and I had been averaging almost two strike outs per inning because the general manager Paul Richards taught me how to throw a sinker and a slider which I didn’t know how to throw. If all you have is a fastball, you’re not going to last very long.

I was confident, but they didn’t exactly put me out there against an easy team, they had Harvey Kuenn, McCovey, Cepeda and of course, Willie. I had one strike in the count, and I threw him a change up, and he hit it about 450 feet, but it went 10-foot foul, and that was strike two. So, then I threw him a slider that started inside, and the ball broke over the inside corner. It’s now called a backdoor slider of course, and I kind of threw it by accident and it really worked.

It’s coming up on 50 years since you threw your no-hitter in July of 1976. Did you know you had it going that day?

I was at the end of my career. We were way out of the race. They had brought up a bunch of younger guys, so it was clear that the team was looking to rebuild.

On that day, I decided to just mix it up, and not try to impress anyone that I still knew how to throw. I was cruising along and then once it got into the 8th inning, I decided that I was just going to throw fast balls because we had a 6-0 lead in the dome, and I didn’t have to give in to anybody.

My fastball was awesome that day. In 1969, I had a possible no-hitter in Atlanta with two outs when Felix Millan got an infield hit. I wasn’t going to let that happen again, so I’m in the dome, there’s these fences to protect me, my ball had pop on it.

It was kind of like the game when Lance McCullers threw the Yankees 23 straight curve balls. I just kept throwing fastballs and they couldn’t hit them, and I had a no hitter.

I often wonder about what would’ve happened if you had gotten to the series and faced the Yankees in 1998. How good was that Astros team in 1998?

The Padres were a really good team. Give them credit. Kevin Brown outpitched Randy. Remember, Bob Gibson one year had an ERA of 1.12 and lost a game to me. If your team doesn’t score any runs, you can’t win.

I’m not sure if that was the best team that the Astros ever had in their history, but it was the best team I personally ever had as a manager. When we got Randy and he went 10-1 that summer, he was just overpowering, and the months of August and September were so exciting. I really thought we were going to the World Series.

Do you have any innings left in that arm of yours? The Astros staff has been compromised to say the least.

I think the problem with the Astros pitchers and pitchers all throughout baseball is not necessarily the pitchers themselves or the coaches, it’s the doctors.

If a guy has a little thing in his shoulder, they’ll poke around and find something. In my day, we put hot patches on it, took some painkillers, and went out there. All they could do back then was take X-rays and that only showed inflammation or tendons or anything else.

We couldn’t afford not to pitch because everyone mostly had one-year contracts and you were only paid the next season based upon what you did the season before. Guys didn’t want to miss a start.

You look at some of those guys in the Hall Of Fame who threw 4000 or 5000 innings, are you going to tell me that those guys didn’t have tweaks in their arms, that things didn’t hurt? I took so many cortisone shots, sometimes even from the opposing team doctors from the other club. I was always focused on the next start. That’s just the way it was back then.

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