Page 77 - 1975 BoSox

70 ’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL
bought into a farm there, was not thrilled to be traded. He let a bad attitude and his waistline both get out of hand. He had his worst year in the majors in 1979, 1-5 with a 6.71 ERA while pitching only 55 innings. Cleveland also had more walks than strikeouts for the rst time in his career.
He came to spring training in 1980 with a new attitude and a new physique. A few of his teammates failed to recognize the new, svelte Reggie at the Brewers’ Sun City, Arizona, spring training facility.21 Cleveland reported a week early and 25 pounds lighter, telling manager George Bamberger, “You guys are going to be proud of me at the end of the season.”22 He pitched well in relief but still wanted to start. (Cleveland liked short relief. He once told e Sporting News’s Tom Flaherty,“ e idea is you go in with the game on the line. You either do it or you don’t. I like that situa- tion.”)23 When his chance to start came June 16 in the second game of a doubleheader against Detroit, he made the most of it. Cleveland had a one-hitter through 72⁄3 innings before giving up home runs to Steve Kemp and Richie Hebner. Milwaukee won the game 5-3 with Cleveland getting the victory.
In his next start, Cleveland shut out Oakland on six hits and then followed with a 5-2 complete-game victory over California. On July 25 Cleveland won the 100th game of his career by beating Jim Palmer and the Baltimore Orioles with a four-hit shutout.24 He was ashing brilliant once again and, unexpectedly, leading the Brewers’ sta . He nished the year at 11-9 with an impressive 3.73 ERA. He pitched in 45 games with 13 starts, ve complete games and two shutouts. Again he was recognized by Rolaids as the best reliever on his team.25
e next season, 1981, was a troubled one for baseball in general and for Reggie Cleveland in particular. For baseball, there was a two-month strike in the middle of the season. Players received only about seven days’ notice of the resumption of the season. Cleveland overtrained to get ready quickly and developed ten- dinitis in his right shoulder.26 In addition, the “major- league lifestyle” and family problems (Cleveland’s family was still in Texas) were starting to catch up
with him. He was pitching poorly and the worse he pitched, the more he drank.
Eventually the 33-year-old Cleveland went to manager Buck Rodgers and said, “You’ve got a team in the playo s [the Brewers were the second-half winners of the split season schedule], and you don’t have any con dence in me and I don’t have any con dence in me. Get somebody you’re going to be able to use because I got to get out of here or I’m going to end up in the tank.”27 Cleveland played in his nal game on September 23, 1981, ttingly against the Red Sox. He pitched one-third of an inning, striking out 1975 World Series nemesis Tony Perez.
Reggie Cleveland’s 13-year major-league career spanned three decades with the birth of free agency right in the middle. He nished with 105 victories against 106 defeats, appearing in 428 games, striking out 930.28 He won at least 10 games in seven straight years (1971-77). At the time of his retirement, his 105 victories (Cleveland won another 53 games in the minors) were second only to Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins’ 284 victories among Canadian-born pitchers. (He has been passed as of 2014 by Kirk McCaskill and Ryan Dempster.)
After his playing career, Cleveland moved to Calgary, Alberta, with his second wife, Charlene, and their two children. Son John became a three-time Olympic swimmerforCanada(1988,‘92,and‘96)andsonTodd, played shortstop for the University of North Florida.29 Always a able, Reggie Cleveland put his personality to work selling cars for Shaganappi Chev-Olds in Calgary and, later, selling real estate. From 1991 to 1995, Cleveland worked for the Toronto Blue Jays as a pitching coach at their various minor-league a liates, from the instructional league in Florida, to St. Catharine’s in the New York-Penn League, to Hagerstown (Maryland) in the South Atlantic League.30 Cleveland became a US citizen in 1980. He lived in the Dallas, Texas, area, and sold luxury cars for Park Place Lexus. As of 2014, he resided in Anna, Texas. He was inducted into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame and the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 1986.