The Rituals Were the Job

Mike Cuellar never threw hard. What he had was a screwball, a changeup that fell off a table, and total command of everything he could possibly control. Which may explain the rest of it.

His teammates called him Crazy Horse. He would not step on the foul lines. He would not accept a ball thrown to him at the start of an inning, so the ball had to be sitting on the mound waiting for him, and someone had to kick the rosin bag to the back of the mound before he would climb up. Same steps to the water cooler, every time. Chinese food the night before every start. Blue suit on every flight. And a cap he believed carried a spirit in it. When the Orioles left it in Baltimore before a start in Milwaukee, he made them fly it to him, then took one look, said it was his practice cap, and refused to pitch.

In 1972, Cleveland's Alex Johnson figured out how much the ball ritual mattered and tried to hand it to him personally. Cuéllar ducked. The bat boy tried. Boog Powell tried. The umpire tried. Cuellar dodged all of them until Bobby Grich finally rolled the ball to the mound, which was apparently acceptable.

Then he went out and pitched like this: 23-11 and a shared Cy Young in 1969, the first pitcher born outside the United States to win one. 24-8 in 1970. A grand slam in Game 1 of the 1970 ALCS, hit by a .115 career hitter. A complete game to close out the World Series that October. One of Baltimore's four 20-game winners in 1971, the last rotation in baseball history to do that. 185 wins, 172 complete games, four seasons of 20 or more.

People love to file all of this under "quirky." It's worth considering the other reading. A man who came out of the Cuban sugar cane fields and got to the big leagues without a fastball built a routine so precise that nothing could shake it. The rituals were not the joke. They were the job.