Bob Friend Marquee

In 1955 he had a 2.83 earned run average, the best in the National League, pitching for a Pittsburgh club that went 60-94 and finished eighth of eight. He was twenty-four. Three years later he won 22 games and led the league in that too, and in 1960 the Pirates won the World Series and he started three games of it.

Sixteen seasons gave him 197 wins and 230 losses — more losses than any pitcher who never won 200 — with a 3.58 earned run average, 3,611 innings, 163 complete games and 36 shutouts. The losses are what happens when a durable pitcher spends his twenties on a club that lost 90 or more games in six of them.

He was the players' representative for the National League for years and took the job seriously, and after he stopped pitching he was elected controller of Allegheny County and held the office for a decade. He never appeared on a Hall of Fame ballot. He died in 2019, at eighty-eight.