Vida Blue, a hard-throwing left-hander who became one of baseball’s biggest draws in the early 1970s and helped lead the brazen A’s to three straight World Series titles before his career was derailed by drug problems, died on Saturday, according to the team. He was 73.
Oakland did not disclose a cause of death. Blue had used a walking stick to aid in his movement on April 16 at the 1973 Oakland Athletics championship team’s 50th anniversary event.
“He was committed. He was personable. He was caring,” ex-teammate Reggie Jackson said during an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday. “He was uncomfortable with the crowd.”
Blue was named the 1971 American League Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player after winning 24-8 with 24 full games, eight of which were shutouts, with a 1.82 ERA and 301 strikeouts. He was 22 when he won MVP, the youngest to win the award. He remains one of only 11 pitchers to win MVP and Cy Young in the same year.
Blue finished 209-161 with a 3.27 ERA, 2,175 strikeouts, 143 complete games and 37 shutouts in 17 seasons with Oakland (1969-77), San Francisco (1978-81, 85-86) and Kansas City (1982-83). ). He appeared in the Hall of Fame election four times, receiving his highest endorsement in 1993 at 8.7%, well short of the required 75%.
“This Hall of Famer thing, that’s something I can honestly and frankly say I wish I was a Hall of Famer,” Blue told the Washington Post in 2021. “And I know for a fact that this drug thing was getting in the way of my way into the Hall of Fame—so far.”
A six-time All-Star and three-time 20-game winner, Blue helped the Swingin’ A’s, as Charley Finley’s motley, mustache team was known, to back-to-back World Series titles from 1972-74. Since then, only the 1998-2000 New York Yankees have accomplished this feat.
“I remember watching a 19-year-old phenomenon dominate baseball and change my life at the same time,” wrote Dave Stewart, a generation later a four-time 20-game winner for the A’s, on Twitter. “There are no words for what you meant to me and so many others.”
Jackson was shocked at how much weight Blue had lost when he saw him at the 50th reunion.
“I didn’t recognize him,” Jackson said. “I was shocked. I was shaken. That will accompany me for the rest of my life.”
Selected by the then-Kansas City Athletics in the second round of the 1967 amateur draft, Blue made his major league debut with Oakland on July 20, 1969, about a week before his 20th birthday. He made four starts and 12 backup appearances, and then spent most of 1970 at Triple-A Iowa.
He was called up as the rosters expanded and scored a one-hit shutout in his second start in Kansas City. In his fourth start, Blue threw a no-hitter against Minnesota on September 21 at 21 years and 55 days, making him the youngest pitcher to throw a no-hitter since the live ball era began in 1920.
“There are few players with a more successful career than Vida Blue,” the A’s said in a statement. “Vida will always be a franchise legend and friend.”
He persevered after his MVP season and signed a one-year, $50,000 contract. Blue didn’t make his first start of 1972 until May 24, going 6-10, mostly from the bullpen. From 1973 to 1976 he went 77-48 but his career world series record was 0-3.
In 1975 he threw the first five innings of a no-hitter against the California Angels but was pulled early by manager Alvin Dark to rest him for the playoffs in a game finished by Glenn Abbott, Paul Lindblad and Rollie Fingers.
Blue was among the players who took leadership roles at the A’s and clashed with Finley.
“We were very young kids,” Jackson said Sunday. “Vida was from Louisiana and was black, and me as a black person, as a black person in a white league and a white world, had a huge impact on how you treated yourself, how you acted because you’re always black first were.”
Finley attempted to trade Blue to the New York Yankees for $1.5 million and Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers to the Boston Red Sox for $1 million each in June 1976. Kuhn vetoed deals under the commissioner’s authority to act in “baseball’s best interests.” In December 1977, Kuhn stopped Finley from trading Blue to Cincinnati and minor league first baseman Dave Revering for $1.75 million.
Blue was traded to the Giants the following March, giving Oakland seven players, including outfielder Gary Thomasson and catcher Gary Alexander.
Blue was handed over to the Royals in March 1982 and released in August 1983. In December of that year, he was handed a three-month sentence in federal prison and a $5,000 fine for possession of about a tenth of an ounce of cocaine. Blue was sentenced to a year in prison, but US Judge J. Milton Sullivant stayed most of the sentence.
After sitting out 1983 and 1984, Blue returned to baseball for two seasons with the Giants. Blue was among the players ordered by Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth in 1985 to undergo random drug testing for the remainder of their careers.
After his 2005 arrest in Arizona for the third time in less than six years on suspicion of drink driving, Blue was sentenced to six months in prison after failing to complete his probation. But he was told he could avoid incarceration by spending time in an inpatient alcohol treatment program.
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