The Legitimately Interesting Ryne Duren

As the attentive reader will already know, rising NotGraphs star Dayn Perry commemorated — earlier today, in these very same pages — he commemorated America’s most important holiday (i.e. Repeal Day) by naming baseball’s All-Time All-Drinking Team.

That same attentive reader will also likely know that I, Carson Cistulli, rode Mr. Perry’s entirely fashionable coattails en route to my first post of the day, in which I submitted for the readership’s consideration the fruits of at least one or one-and-a-half minute’s worth of arduous research — namely, a video of the 1926 World Series featuring exactly two members of Perry’s All-Drinking Team.

Here, I’d like to consider briefly another of the All-Drinkers, Ryne Duren.

Duren is an interesting case for at least 11 reasons — some of which, owing to space and time restrictions, I’m unable to address.

Notably, Duren is distinct from most of the other names on this list in that he was active during a time when alcoholism began to be regarded not merely as the harmless pastime of rakes and/or roustabouts but rather as a real-live disease. In fact, the internet reveals to us that Duren (who’s still alive) not only outlived the worst of his drinking, but has gone on to serve as an alcohol abuse educator.

The internet also reveals to us that Duren was a showman, as the following passage suggests (and our own Erik Manning noted last year, too):

In those days the Yankee bullpen was a part of the short-porch right field and only a low chain link fence served as the boundary. When called upon by Casey Stengel to relieve, he wouldn’t use the gate, but preferred to hop the fence with one hand and begin a slow walk to the mound with his blue Yankee warm-up jacket covering his pitching arm; he followed this routine even on the hottest days. When he finally took the ball and began his warmups, the first pitch was typically a hard fastball 20 feet over the catcher’s head. The succeeding warmup pitches would be thrown lower and lower (but not slower) until Duren would finally “find” the plate.

Finally, it needs to be mentioned: Duren was really good. In a time when the concept of the “relief ace” was just becoming understood, Duren was one of the best — or, at least one of the brightest.

Consider what happens if you point your browser to FanGraphs historical leaderboards, set the minimum innings-pitched at 70, and sort by K/9:

1958:

1959:

1961:

1962:

“Hooah,” as Al Pacino would say.

The only year that’s omitted there, 1960, actually saw Duren post a career-high strikeout rate of 12.31 K/9, but in just 49.0 IP.