Juan Pizarro, 1937 - 2021

Lefthander Juan Pizarro spent the prime years of his career, 1961 to 1966, with the White Sox, and pitched for the Cubs from 1970 to 1973. He tossed a one-hit shutout for the Sox on August 11, 1965, and repeated the feat for the Cubs on August 5, 1971. He passed away Thursday at his home in Puerto Rico.

 
    

     Pizarro was rather small for a pitcher, standing 5-feet-11 and weighing 170 pounds as a young man, but he had a very live arm that kept him in the major leagues for 18 seasons. He weighed at least 200 pounds in the latter part of his career. “I came to the end of the road a lot quicker because I loved to eat,” he said after retiring. 

     Pizarro came up to the major leagues with the Milwaukee Braves at the age of 20 in 1957. He played in the World Series in both 1957 and 1958, but never again. His career really took off when he was traded to the White Sox. “When Pizarro first joined the club in 1961,” manager Al Lopez said, “he was fooling around with a screwball. Here was a young pitcher with control trouble, so I told him to concentrate on finding the plate with his fastball and curve and forget about the screwball. He had enough stuff without it.” Pizarro led the club in wins, innings pitched, complete games, strikeouts, and earned-run average that year, then continued on from there.

     Pizarro worked over 200 innings in each of the next three seasons and was an All-Star in 1963 and 1964. He joined Gary Peters, Joe Horlen, and John Buzhardt to comprise the best starting rotation in the American League as the Sox contended for the pennant every year but never quite got there. Pizarro made only 18 starts in 1965, losing much of the season to a salary holdout and then a sore arm. In 1966, he was reduced to pitching in long relief and making an occasional spot start. He was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates after the season for Wilbur Wood, who (of course) ultimately became one of the greatest pitchers in franchise history. 

     Pizarro went 75-47 with a 3.05 ERA in 1,037 innings during his time with the South Siders. As it turned out, more than half of his career victories and innings were logged for the Sox. From then on, he bounced around to six different teams and spent a fair amount of time back in the minor leagues. Pizarro’s admitted love of the night life probably contributed to his uneven later career. “I only remember the parties, the women, the hot times,” he said in a candid post-retirement interview.

    

When Pizarro hooked on with the Cubs in 1970, manager Leo Durocher – quite a carouser himself – took a liking to him. But in those days of four-man rotations, the Cubs’ outstanding quartet of Fergie Jenkins, Milt Pappas, Bill Hands, and Ken Holtzman limited Pizarro’s opportunities. 

     Late in the 1971 season, Pizarro finally was given a regular turn in the rotation, and he took full advantage of it. His first five starts in August yielded four complete-game victories, including the one-hitter mentioned above. In mid-September, he pitched back-to-back complete-game shutouts. In the second of these, a home run by Pizarro himself accounted for all the offense in a 1-0 win over Tom Seaver and the Mets at New York. It was later suggested that this game and Pizarro’s 3-2 victory against Seaver on August 1 cost “Tom Terrific” the Cy Young Award and clinched it for Jenkins. 

     After his big-league career ended in 1974, Pizarro pitched in the Mexican League for several years and continued pitching in the Puerto Rican Winter League, as he had done since 1955. For his entire professional career, he won about 400 games. His regular season count of 392 includes 197 in the U.S. (131 in the majors and 66 in the minors), 38 in Mexico, and 157 in the winter league. He also won an undetermined number of postseason and exhibition games in Puerto Rico. Pizarro was elected as a charter member of the Puerto Rican Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991. 

 

Check out our book Heydays: Great Stories in Chicago Sports on Amazon.