Sam McDowell Marquee

He led the league in strikeouts in 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969 and 1970, taking 325 the first time at twenty-two and 304 the last. He struck out 2,453 men in fifteen seasons, 2,159 of them for Cleveland, behind only Bob Feller in the club's history, and was chosen for six All-Star teams.

The record reads 141-134, which for that stuff looks wrong until you check the clubs: Cleveland finished above .500 in two of his eleven seasons there and lost 102 games in 1971. He had a 1.81 earned run average in 1968 and won 15. In 1970 he won 20 for the only time.

He was an alcoholic and has said so plainly, and it ended the pitching at thirty-two with about half the career left unused. He got sober, trained as a counselor, and spent years running assistance programs for players in several organizations and for the players' association, which is a more useful thing to have done than the strikeouts. He got no votes at all in 1981.