In the summer of 1978, Ron Guidry went 25-3 with a 1.74 ERA, struck out 248, threw nine shutouts and won the Cy Young unanimously. Nearly half a century later, it is still the season every great Yankees pitching year gets measured against.
DID YOU KNOW?
The Stadium tradition of fans standing and clapping for a strikeout with two strikes on the hitter started on June 17, 1978, when Guidry struck out 18 California Angels. The crowd was up for every two-strike pitch by the fourth inning - and it never really sat back down.
They called him Louisiana Lightning. Ron Guidry grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, and arrived in the Bronx as a 25-year-old in 1975, part of a young pitching core Steinbrenner's new regime was quietly assembling. He pitched well in 1977, winning 16 games and the opener of the ALCS. Then came 1978, and nothing was the same.
The Summer of Lightning
Start with the numbers, because they do not look real. Guidry went 25-3 - the .893 winning percentage remains the best ever for a 20-game winner - with a 1.74 ERA, the lowest by an American League left-hander since the mound was lowered in 1969. He struck out 248, setting a franchise record that stood for decades, and threw nine shutouts, tying Babe Ruth's 1916 club mark.
The signature night was June 17 against the Angels: 18 strikeouts, a franchise record, with the crowd inventing the two-strike standing ovation on the fly. Guidry had a way of making the best hitters in the league look like they were swinging underwater. Rod Carew once said facing him was "like eating coffee grounds."
He won the Cy Young unanimously and finished second in MVP voting to Boston's Jim Rice - a rivalry-season detail that still stings a little, given how it turned out.
The Biggest Game
The 1978 season, of course, was no regular year - it was the Bronx Zoo at full boil, and it ended with the one-game playoff at Fenway Park on October 2, the Bucky Dent game. What gets forgotten is that Guidry started that game on three days' rest and gave the Yankees six-plus strong innings to make Dent's homer matter.
In the World Series, with the Yankees down 2-1 to the Dodgers, Guidry won Game 3 - going the distance in a 5-1 win - and the Yankees never lost again, taking the title in six. For the season he was 2-0 in the postseason with a 1.93 ERA.
The Standard
Guidry spent his entire 14-year career in pinstripes, won 170 games, collected five Gold Gloves, and later served two stints as the club's pitching coach. The Yankees retired his number 49 in 2003.
Every time a Yankee ace has a big year - and there have been plenty since - the comparison gets made. So far, 1978 Guidry still wins. That season is the mountain, and everyone else is still climbing it.
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Sources: Baseball-Reference.com (Ron Guidry 1978 statistics and awards) · MLB.com (Guidry player page) · Wikipedia (1978 season and career records) · SABR BioProject (Ron Guidry)
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