Page 101 - 1975 BoSox

94 ’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL
his professional career at Class A Bakers eld in 1963, going 6-2 in 12 games with a 2.63 ERA and striking out 98 in 65 innings. At the age of 18, he spent the 1964 season with the Phillies, and they got him into 25 games. He was hit hard in his rst career start but got a no-decision. Wise’s second start was quite an experience. It came on June 21, 1964, in the second game of a doubleheader against the New York Mets at Shea Stadium. It was Father’s Day and the day’s rst game saw Philadelphia’s Jim Bunning throw a perfect game. Eighteen-year-old rookie Rick Wise had to follow that!
Wise knew he was pitching the second game and readily admitted to jitters. “I was nervous, but, sitting in the clubhouse watching on television, I was really engrossed in Bunning’s game. Finally, when the game was over, I realized I had to go out and warm up, and I couldn’t nd a ball because of the mob of reporters that came in, and the players jumping all over the place. I was trying to nd the bullpen catcher.”4
He got the rst four batters he faced, but when he walked Jesse Gonder, the 32,000-strong Shea Stadium crowd stood and gave the Mets a rousing ovation. “I couldn’t gure out what all the commotion was about until I nally gured out it was their rst baserunner in like 13 or 14 innings,” he recalled. Wise threw the rst six innings, allowing just three hits, and recorded his rst major-league win, 8-2. e Mets’ total of only three hits in a doubleheader tied a league record.
A UPI story out of Philadelphia evaluated Wise’s contribution to the 1964 Phillies. He had, the article said, “stepped in with the poise of a veteran to add depth to a strong Philadelphia pitching sta . He has won ve games, with four of them coming in August.”5 He nished the season 5-3 with a 4.04 ERA.
e following year, 1965, the Phillies asked Wise to polish his game in Triple-A ball, at the club’s Little Rock a liate. at September, on his 20th birthday, Wise signed his Army papers and went into the Reserve; his basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, took him most of the way through baseball’s spring training in 1966. e Phillies had moved their
Triple-A club from Little Rock to San Diego, so Wise joined them there, got into playing shape and pitched in 12 games for the Padres before being recalled to the big-league club in time for his rst big-league start of the season, on June 2. Wise got in 22 games before the year was out, and appeared in at least 30 games, almost all as a starter, each of the next seven seasons.
Wise played under Gene Mauch into the 1968 season, when Mauch was replaced as Phillies manager. Rick said of his rst big-league skipper, “I got along with him as well as I could. I was just a young kid. He was very cold and very hard. But you learned the game from him. He was one of the great strategy managers.”6
Wise’s best year was 1971, his seventh season pitching for the Phillies. On June 23 he threw a no-hitter against the Reds at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium. e nal score was 4-0, and Wise, an excellent hitter, drove in three of the four runs with his two-run homer in the fth and solo home run in the eighth. He’s the only player in major-league history to throw a no-hitter and hit two home runs in the same game.
Wise holds a couple of other distinctions from 1971. On August 28 he again hit two home runs in a game. Another high mark came on September 18, when the Phillies hosted the Cubs at Veterans Stadium. Wise got o to a rocky start, surrendering a solo homer and a couple of base hits in the rst inning, and a leado home run in the second. e Cubs had scored three times. e pitching coach paid a visit to the mound, and Wise said he told himself, “I better start getting things right here and locating my pitches better or I’m not going to be around long.” He set down the next 32 Cubs he faced, all the way until Ron Santo singled in the top of the 12th. Wise won the game in the bottom of the 12th inning when he singled in the winning run.
In 1971 Wise won 17 games (the Phillies were a last- place team that lost 95 games). After the season, Wise was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for Steve Carlton. Both players were in di cult contract talks with their respective teams. Wise was making $25,000 and was looking to general manager John Quinn for a raise of