Cubs TV analyst Jim Deshaies took a few minutes Tuesday to scroll through Baseball Reference’s “Today in Baseball History” page, something he’d done many times before. Mining for a nugget that might fit into that night’s broadcast is never a bad idea, especially when the team is bordering on unwatchable.
He saw the name of Ty Cobb, who recorded his 1,000th extra-base hit on March 26, 1925, against the White Sox. And the name of Josh Gibson, who on that same date in 1946 homered for the Homestead Grays at Yankee Stadium. And that of Hank Aaron, who in 1969 swatted his 500th double to go with his 519 homers at the time.
Great stuff. What’s better than nerding out about baseball?
The 65-year-old southpaw scrolled on, and there it was:“1986 — Houston Astros pitcher Jim Deshaies records his first major league win.”
How about that?
It was 40 years to the day since Deshaies toed the rubber in St. Louis, struck out 10 Cardinals hitters — slugger Jack Clark three times — and got himself off the schneid in his fifth start of the season and the seventh of his career.
It’s safe to say the details of that game aren’t burned into Deshaies’ brain.
“Had I not seen it today and if someone would’ve asked me who my first win came against, I don’t think I would have known,” he said.
What he does remember, though, is the feeling he had early on as a rookie that his leash was short. He’d won a three-man battle for the Astros’ final rotation spot that had lasted all of spring training, and it was a team and a veteran rotation — with Nolan Ryan going strong at 39, and eventual 1986 Cy Young winner Mike Scott and Bob Knepper also in their 30s — built to win now.
“Nobody had said anything to me, but I felt pressure,” Deshaies said. “I hadn’t had a win yet, and it was Memorial Day. I didn’t know if I might get shipped out.”
In the last days of spring training in Kissimmee, Florida, Deshaies had braced for news — good or bad — from manager Hal Lanier. Instead, Lanier never got around to telling him he’d made the team. As Deshaies’ wife, Lori, prepared to hit the road from Kissimmee a day or two ahead of the team for wherever they’d be living, Deshaies told her, “Just head toward Houston.” If it was going to be the Triple-A Tucson (Arizona) Toros, she could simply keep barreling west on Interstate 10.
It turned out nicely that year for Deshaies, who won 12 games — at the time, the Astros’ rookie record — on a 96-win team that ran away with the National League West by 10 games only to be felled by the glory-bound Mets in the NLCS.
Deshaies was even more effective for the Astros in 1988 and especially in 1989, when he posted career bests in wins (15), ERA (2.91), innings (225⅔) and strikeouts (153). He later pitched for the Padres, Giants, Twins and Phillies and retired in 1995 with 84 wins in 257 appearances, 253 of them starts.
But his favorite start? That came in his rookie season, and it wasn’t his maiden “W” in St. Louis. It was in late September in Houston against the Dodgers, whom Deshaies mowed through in a two-hit shutout, striking out the first eight hitters he faced — at the time, a major league record — and 10 in all. It put him in double digits in wins and gave him a sense that maybe, just maybe, he was where he belonged even if he wasn’t as dominant as Scott or as awe-inspiring as the godlike Ryan.
“I was intimidated by Nolan, star-struck by Nolan,” Deshaies said. “He’d walk through the clubhouse and you’d just kind of watch him. It was an out-of-body, surreal-type experience.”
Exactly one night after Deshaies’ finest outing, Ryan started against the Giants and allowed one hit and no runs, blowing away 12 batters.
“After that one, I joked to Alan Ashby, our catcher, ‘You’d think he’d let me have the spotlight for once,’ ” Deshaies said. “But ‘Ash’ said, ‘You watch, Scott’s going to be even better tomorrow.’ ”
Anyone want to guess what Scott pulled off the next day?
Hint: It rhymes with “no quitter.”
And not only that, but Scott’s 13-strikeout no-no clinched the division title.
Jim De-who?
“Those guys were great,” Deshaies said.
Heck of a thing to be a part of for a 25-year-old just starting to find his way.
It all goes back to that first “W.” Deshaies is pretty sure he possesses a baseball from that game, though where it might be is another matter. He’s certain there was no beer shower in the clubhouse to celebrate his win, or anything else along the lines of what players do now. Lori was in Houston watching the game on TV. Deshaies is just about certain his older brother, Mike, wasn’t in the stands in St. Louis, because Mike went to a lot of his games and little bro always seemed to lose them.
Ah, well. So it wasn’t the biggest night of Deshaies’ life.
Forty years later, though, how nice to be able to look back on it.
