Picture this: You’re a rookie starting pitcher from a hamlet in Iowa, making your big-league debut on the road against the reigning World Series champions. The opposing starter is a future Hall of Famer who rarely has allowed a run during a winning streak on his way to a Cy Young Award.
That’s the challenge Mets right-hander Jim McAndrew faced when he got the start in his first major-league game against Bob Gibson and the 1968 Cardinals.
The degree of difficulty McAndrew faced hardly lessened. In his first four starts, McAndrew allowed six runs total, but the Mets scored none _ and he lost all four.
McAndrew finally got his first win by pitching a shutout, beating the Cardinals and their other future Hall of Famer, Steve Carlton.
A hard-luck hurler, McAndrew nearly quit when he was in the minors but Whitey Herzog convinced him to stay. McAndrew had one winning season in his seven years in the majors, but played for two National League pennant winners and a World Series champion. He was 80 when he died on March 14, 2024.
Help from Herzog
McAndrew grew up on his parents’ 750-acre farm in Lost Nation, Iowa, and developed into a top prep ballplayer. Cardinals scout Ken Blackman showed interest but advised McAndrew he’d be better off playing college baseball, according to the Society for American Baseball Research.
A psychology major, McAndrew pitched for the University of Iowa. On the recommendation of their St. Louis-based scout, Charlie Frey, the Mets took him in the 11th round of the 1965 amateur draft. (Their 12th-round pick was another right-hander, Nolan Ryan.)
After producing 10 wins and 1.47 ERA for a Class AA club managed by St. Louisan Roy Sievers in 1967, McAndrew was dejected when the Mets didn’t put him on their 40-man big-league winter roster. He thought about quitting and going to graduate school. “I had confidence in myself but nobody else seemed to,” McAndrew recalled to Newsday.
When Mets director of player development Whitey Herzog learned McAndrew was thinking of leaving, he talked him out of it. McAndrew was assigned to Class AAA Jacksonville in 1968, but manager Clyde McCullough moved him to the bullpen. “Whitey told McCullough to put McAndrew back into the starting rotation,” Newsday reported.
In July 1968, when Nolan Ryan reported for military duty, the Mets called up McAndrew to replace him.
The heat is on
On a sweltering Sunday, July 21, 1968, McAndrew made his debut against Bob Gibson and the Cardinals at Busch Memorial Stadium. “Some people thought it was throwing a lamb to a lion.” Newsday noted.
Instead, “for five innings he matched zeroes with Gibson, who is in the midst of one of the hottest streaks in all baseball history,” the New York Times reported.
Then, in the Cardinals’ half of the sixth, Bobby Tolan drove a pitch to right-center. Outfielders Cleon Jones and Larry Stahl pursued it, thinking a catch could be made, but the ball hit against the wall. Neither Jones nor Stahl was in position to get the carom and the ball got between them and rolled away. Tolan circled the bases with an inside-the-park home run, giving the Cardinals a 1-0 lead.
After the inning, McAndrew left the game because the searing 94-degree heat got to him more than the Cardinals batters did. “He needed oxygen between innings,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
The Cardinals added a run in the eighth and won, 2-0. Gibson completed his seventh shutout of the season, stretching his win streak to 10 and improving his career mark against the Mets to 20-3. He threw 144 pitches and struck out 13.
McAndrew told the New York Daily News he felt good about how he pitched, “but I didn’t win, and that’s what I’m supposed to do.” Boxscore
Runs are scarce
In his next three starts, McAndrew and the Mets lost 2-0 to the Dodgers, 1-0 to the Giants and 1-0 to the Astros, giving him an 0-4 record. The Mets finally scored in his fifth start, but McAndrew got shelled and lost to the Giants, a 13-3 final.
McAndrew brought an 0-5 record and 3.38 ERA into his next start, a return to St. Louis against Steve Carlton on Aug. 26.
The game was scoreless in the seventh when Tim McCarver lined a pitch deep to left. “McCarver would have had a three-base hit, two bases, at least,” Mets manager Gil Hodges said to the Post-Dispatch, but Cleon Jones made a diving catch. “Maybe the best play we’ve had in the outfield all year,” Hodges said.
The importance of the play was underlined when the next batter, Mike Shannon, singled. Instead of driving in a run, it was a harmless hit because McAndrew worked out of the inning unscathed. “I don’t win it if Cleon doesn’t get that one,” McAndrew told the New York Daily News.
The Mets manufactured the run McAndrew needed against Carlton in the eighth. Tommie Agee singled, moved to second on a Phil Linz sacrifice bunt, stole third and scored on a Cleon Jones sacrifice fly.
Given the 1-0 lead, McAndrew did the rest, retiring the Cardinals in order in the eighth and ninth to secure the shutout and his first win.
Recalling how Whitey Herzog stuck with him earlier in the year, McAndrew said to Newsday, “I attribute my being here tonight to him.” Boxscore
Five nights later, in a rematch at New York, Carlton and Joe Hoerner combined on a shutout and beat McAndrew and the Mets, 2-0. Boxscore
In three starts against the 1968 Cardinals, McAndrew allowed three runs in 23 innings and was 1-2.
Fit for a king
After the 1968 season, the Mets offered the Reds Dick Selma, Larry Stahl and their choice of either McAndrew, Gary Gentry or Steve Renko for Vada Pinson and Hal McRae, according to columnist Dick Young, but Pinson went to the Cardinals for Bobby Tolan and Wayne Granger.
The Mets also offered McAndrew to the Expos for Donn Clendenon but were turned down, The Sporting News reported. (Later, in June 1969, the Mets acquired Clendenon for a package of players and he was a key run producer for them.)
McAndrew stayed with the Mets in 1969 and contributed to their championship season. On a staff with Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan and Jerry Koosman, McAndrew pitched in 27 games, including 21 starts, and was 6-7. One of those wins was a three-hitter against the Cardinals on June 30. Boxscore
The Mets won four of five against the Orioles in the 1969 World Series, but McAndrew didn’t pitch in any of the games.
“He was the team intellectual, the quiet one of the clubhouse, the loner,” Joseph Durso wrote in the New York Times. “On the field, he was even more isolated than that _ the sixth man in a five-man rotation, the hard-luck pitcher nobody scored any runs for, the trade bait whenever deals were discussed.”
To the people of his hometown, though, McAndrew was someone special. On Nov. 1, 1969, residents of Lost Nation held a parade and dinner in McAndrew’s honor. “McAndrew received a number of gifts, including a plaque from Lost Nation mayor Shorty Ales noting Jim’s inspiration for the youth of the community, and a specially designed gold ring,” the Quad-City Times reported.
“Everyone has treated me just like a king,” McAndrew said to the newspaper.
Ups and downs
In 1971, McAndrew twice was injured in on-field accidents. At spring training, he was running in the outfield when a line drive off the bat of teammate Art Shamsky struck him in the jaw. “I lost four teeth,” McAndrew told the Post-Dispatch.
In July that year, during batting practice at Houston, McAndrew was fielding balls hit to the outfield and pitcher Gary Gentry was shagging tosses from coach Rube Walker. While chasing a liner, McAndrew collided with Gentry. McAndrew needed 20 stitches and plastic surgery for a wound over his right ear. Gentry took 15 stitches for facial cuts.
McAndrew had his best season in 1972, finishing 11-8 with a 2.80 ERA. Two of the wins were against the Cardinals, including his first complete game in two years. Boxscore
“He’s sneaky fast,” Mets catcher Duffy Dyer told Newsday. “He’s not a strikeout pitcher and there’s a lot of first-ball swinging.”
The Mets were National League champions in 1973, but McAndrew wasn’t much of a factor. He was 3-8 and had no wins after May 13. The Mets didn’t use him in any of the seven World Series games against the champion Athletics.
Afterward, the Cardinals offered to trade Joe Torre to the Mets for Jerry Koosman. The Mets countered with a package that included McAndrew, but the Cardinals said no. The Mets then sent McAndrew to the Padres. He pitched his final season in the majors with them in 1974.
McAndrew had a career mark of 37-53, including 6-6 versus the Cardinals.
In 1989, his son, pitcher Jamie McAndrew, was taken by the Dodgers in the first round of the 1989 amateur draft. He got to the big leagues with the Brewers in 1995. The catcher in his debut game was Mike Matheny. Boxscore