Vida Blue
| Vida Blue | |||
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Vida Blue at FanFest 2010
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| Pitcher | |||
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Born: July 28, 1949 Mansfield, Louisiana |
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| MLB debut | |||
| July 20, 1969, for the Oakland Athletics | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| October 2, 1986, for the San Francisco Giants | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Win–loss record | 209–161 | ||
| Earned run average | 3.27 | ||
| Strikeouts | 2,175 | ||
| Teams | |||
| Career highlights and awards | |||
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Vida Rochelle Blue Jr. (born July 28, 1949) is a former Major League Baseball left-handed pitcher. During a 17-year career, he pitched for the Oakland Athletics (1969–77), San Francisco Giants (1978–81; 1985–86), and Kansas City Royals (1982–83). He won the American League Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player Award in 1971. He is a six-time All-Star, and is the first of only four pitchers in major league history to start the All-Star Game for both the American League (1971) and the National League (1978); Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson and Roy Halladay later duplicated the feat.
Blue, the oldest of six children, was born and raised in Mansfield in DeSoto Parish in northwestern Louisiana. His father worked as a laborer in an iron foundry. In high school, Blue pitched for the baseball team and also was the quarterback for the football team. In his senior year, he threw for 3,400 yards and completed 35 touchdown passes while rushing for 1,600 yards in football. Also in his senior year, Blue threw a no-hitter. In seven innings pitched one game, Blue had 21 strikeouts. He received several offers to play college football, but after his father died suddenly Blue signed a contract with the Oakland A's.
Blue benefited from coverage by Jerry Byrd of the since defunct Shreveport Journal, one of the first white sportswriters to report on black athletes in the middle 1960s.
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