Dave Morehead, who pitched for the Boston Crimson Sox from 1963-68 and the Kansas Metropolis Royals from 1969-70, handed away on Nov. 23. He was 82.
Born in San Diego on Sept. 5, 1943, Morehead signed with the Crimson Sox after graduating from Herbert Hoover Excessive Faculty. The Crimson Sox had already struck gold on the faculty as soon as earlier than; Ted Williams had been the baseball crew’s star hitter and pitcher within the mid-Thirties. Throughout Morehead’s senior 12 months, Williams returned to Hoover to look at him on the Crimson Sox’s behalf.
Fellow Hoover alum Ray Boone, who grew to become a scout after ending his 13-year MLB profession with the 1960 Crimson Sox – and whose grandson at the moment manages the New York Yankees – signed the newly-graduated Morehead as an beginner free agent in 1961. By 1962, Morehead was pitching for Boston’s Triple-A Seattle Rainiers and being managed by Crimson Sox legend Johnny Pesky. The next season, the Crimson Sox promoted Morehead and Pesky to the large leagues, the latter named supervisor.
Morehead made his main league debut at Fenway Park on April 13, 1963. That day, at 19 years previous, he pitched a complete-game shutout of the visiting Washington Senators (now Minnesota Twins), propelling Boston to a 3-0 victory with 5 hits, 4 walks and 10 strikeouts. It was the primary of six complete-game shutouts Morehead would throw over his eight-year profession, and simply the fourth such debut in MLB historical past by a pitcher youthful than 20.
Morehead was the sixth pitcher in franchise historical past to pitch a complete-game shutout in his first profession sport. 4 years and someday later, teammate Billy Rohr grew to become the seventh – and thus far – most up-to-date Crimson Sox pitcher to realize the feat.
These 9 shutout innings had been the primary of 664.2 regular-season frames Morehead threw in his six Crimson Sox seasons. Over 128 video games (115 begins), he posted a 4.17 ERA and 1.435 WHIP. His 3.88 FIP (Fielding Unbiased Pitching) signifies he was harm by his crew’s protection.
Morehead’s most memorable efficiency, nonetheless, was on the afternoon of Sept. 16, 1965, when he threw the 14th no-hitter in Crimson Sox historical past. At Fenway’s lowest-attended sport of the season, based on the Society for American Baseball Analysis, Morehead was one pitch faraway from an ideal sport towards the Cleveland Indians, who had future Crimson Sox legend Luis Tiant on the mound; Rocky Colavito was the one visiting baserunner that day, drawing a leadoff stroll on a 3-2 pitch within the prime of the second.
The next day’s version of the Boston Herald recorded Morehead’s rationalization of the hectic last out thusly: “I went to catch it, and I used to be going to run over to first the way in which Mel Parnell did in his no-hitter, both step on the bag myself or hand it to the primary baseman so I wouldn’t take the prospect of throwing it away. In my haste, the ball hit the heel of my glove and I began to run with out the ball. The ball lay on the mound. I went again to choose it up and threw it to first base actual fast. The throw was low within the filth, and Mad Canine Lee Thomas scooped it out. I had my no-no.”
That it got here towards Cleveland was significantly candy for Morehead; on July 2, 1963, he had a no-hitter going towards them till the eighth inning, when a floor ball took a peculiar hop into proper discipline. That day, he needed to accept a complete-game two-hitter.
Morehead’s no-hitter was the final by a Crimson Sox pitcher till Hideo Nomo in 2001, and the final on the membership’s house discipline till Derek Lowe’s in 2002. Morehead’s accomplishment was rewarded with a $1,000 bonus from crew proprietor Tom Yawkey, however overshadowed by the firing of basic supervisor ‘Pinky’ Higgins that very same day.
Primarily as a starter, Morehead labored out of the Crimson Sox bullpen throughout the 1967 Inconceivable Dream postseason, making scoreless reduction appearances totaling 3.1 innings between two of the crew’s losses to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Arm points restricted Morehead to 33 video games over his last three seasons in Boston. The Royals chosen him within the Growth Draft in October ‘68, and although he loved a strong ‘70 season, posting a 3.62 ERA over 28 video games, together with 17 begins and one last complete-game shutout, Morehead retired from baseball after that season. His last big-league sport, on Sept. 29, was 24 days after his twenty seventh birthday.
Following his baseball profession, Morehead returned house however remained a follower of the Crimson Sox. He earned a advertising diploma at San Diego State College and have become a enterprise proprietor. He was a husband, father, and grandfather.
