Diego Pablo Seguí González was born August 17, 1937– or 1938 by other reports — in Holguín, Cuba. His repertoire of pitches and mound quirks exasperated batters and umpires. He took his time, rubbed the ball between each pitch, and defended himself against allegations of using a spitball when he blew on his hands.
Welcome to Baseball History Podcast, featuring baseball biographies. I’m your announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 19 of the 2011 baseball season.
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 2 week of May.
May 11
1971 Indian Steve Dunning’s homer off A’s hurler Diego Segui makes him the last American League pitcher to hit a grand slam.
Diego Pablo Seguí González was born August 17, 1937– or 1938 by other reports – in Holguín, Cuba.
His repertoire of pitches and mound quirks exasperated batters and umpires. He took his time, rubbed the ball between each pitch, and defended himself against allegations of using a spitball when he blew on his hands.
He took leisurely strolls around the edge of the mound while blowing through his right fist, and re-arranged the dirt in front of the pitcher’s rubber with his right foot. At times he paused between pitches by standing still, staring at the outfield while working on the ball, in deep contemplation as tension at home plate rose to an unnerving level.
Joe Garagiola criticized his pitching performance before the 1975 World Series and described Segui’s delivery as “like spreading ether over the ballpark,” prompting the outraged pitcher to confront Garagiola before Game Five and attempt to get an apology out of him for the insult. His teams put up with his rituals, as they valued his work ethic and variety of pitches. He never complained whether he was a reliever or a starter, or called in for only part of an inning. And he could throw a very decent forkball. Segui attempted to explain, “It acts like a screwie. It drops and sometimes acts like a screw-ball — sometimes.”
He learned to throw the elusive forkball at a farm in Cuba, where a left-handed pitcher from a semi-pro team taught him to throw the traditional southpaw pitch. In a Cuban cow pasture he perfected his signature pitch, called the “tenedor.” But was Segui’s forkball truly a forkball? Or was it really a Pedro Ramos “Cuban forkball”, a pitch that was suspected as a spitball? After all, the doubters hinted, he spent such a long time working over the ball before the windup. Such an accusation was vehemently denied by Diego.
“Definitely not!” he said, “maybe it reacts a little like a spitter, but it isn’t.”
Diego Segui was first signed by the Cincinnati Reds as an amateur free agent early in 1958 after he was discovered while playing for Tucson’s independent club.
Released in April, Diego played for Tucson that year and was purchased at the end of September by the Kansas City Athletics. The next four seasons he pitched for minor league clubs and spent winters with teams around Central America and Venezuela, prompting concern that he would squander his pitching arm on meaningless games, instead of saving it for the major leagues, but he considered the off-season an opportunity to stay in shape. When Fidel Castro cancelled the Cuban Winter League season in 1961, players were confronted with a choice between returning to Cuba and joining amateur leagues or professional baseball outside their homeland.
In 1960, U. S. players had been barred from playing in games in Havana where the Winter League had long attracted many major league prospects. Cuban sports commissioner Jose Llanura struck the final blow in 1961 when he announced that any Cuban player who failed to return to Cuba by the end of November would lose all his property and be required to have their 1962 contracts in order to receive a visa. Among those who chose to remain outside Cuba and pursue their major league aspirations were Luis Tiant with the Mexico City Tigers and Diego Segui, the Earned Run Average leader for Hawaii of the Pacific League.
Segui worked his way through the Athletics minor league system until the 1962 season when he joined the Kansas City Athletics, finishing 8-5 in 37 games. After three more years as a starting pitcher for a dreadful team, Segui was sold to the Washington Senators as the 1966 season got underway and was reacquired by the Athletics on July 30 of the same season. At the time of the latter deal he was pitching in the minors, and he finished the season for Vancouver, the A’s Pacific Coast League affiliate. He spent most of the 1967 and 1968 seasons with the Athletics, who moved to Oakland for the 1968 season.
Segui’s best year on the mound was 1969 with the expansion team the Seattle Pilots.
A’s owner, Charles O. Finley had good reason to regret giving up Segui — believing the A’s would have won the American League West division if he’d kept him on — as Segui was named Seattle’s most valuable player. Finley spent most of the season trying to get him back. When the Pilots folded and the team moved on to Milwaukee, Segui returned to Oakland for the third time. Seattle would not forget him.
The Athletics reacquired Segui in December 1969. The A’s intended to turn him into their primary right-handed reliever, but his fine performance earned him 19 starts among his 47 games pitched.
After two-and-a-half fine seasons in Oakland, on June 7, 1972, the A’s sent Segui to the Cardinals for future considerations. Segui played the next year and a half for St. Louis.
On December 7, 1973, St. Louis traded Segui to the Red Sox. The Red Sox were in dire need of some bullpen help, and asked those in the know around the National League who were the best right-handed relievers. Segui’s name came up frequently.
Although many within the Red Sox organization looked forward to his arrival in the bullpen, Diego Segui wondered. As the Most Valuable Player of the Pilots in 1969, an Earned Run Average leader in the American League in 1970, and owning respectable stats overall, why was he trade material year after year? In a March, 1974 interview with Boston Globe reporter Clif Keane during spring training at Winter Haven, Segui said:
“I sit and wonder each time that I have been traded, have I done something wrong? Did I not get along with the people? Why don’t they like me, so that I have to go from one team to another so much? If you are confused about it, you can say that I am more confused than anyone else.”
Segui pitched regularly early in the season with great success. By early June he developed calluses on two fingers of his throwing hand, causing a control problem that would nag him until late August. An epidemic of bumps, bruises and sore shoulders swept through Boston’s bullpen forcing the starters into leading the league in complete games. In early September, Segui lost a couple of crucial games in late innings and ended up the season with a 6-8 record and 10 saves.
Segui returned to the Boston roster for the 1975 season with his place in the bullpen assured. Confident that his pitching would be solid; there was no need to worry. Without comment nor complaint he resumed his role as a short reliever, willing to pitch anytime, anywhere he was needed.
When Luis Tiant’s shoulder came up lame in July, Segui was ready to jump in as a starter, a role he had not played since May, 1972. It was July 29, and Diego lost a complete game, 4-0, to Milwaukee’s Jim Colborn. He gave up 10 hits, but struck out 11. Three solo home runs were the key blows.
Throughout the 1975 season, the Red Sox pitchers kept everyone on edge. Bill Lee and Diego Segui didn’t want the paying customers to be bored, wrote Peter Gammons in the Boston Globe. Yet, the hitting, fielding and pitching brought the team to an American League pennant as well as the World Series, and Diego Segui made his one and only appearance on the mound at the World Series in the eighth inning of Game Five.
Just prior to the start of the 1976 season, Segui was released. He was not picked up by another major league team and instead signed on with the Hawaii Islanders of the Pacific Coast League.
When the newly-formed Seattle Mariners began organizing their roster, Diego Segui’s memorable year with the Pilots was recalled, and he not only made the team, he was anointed the opening day starter. On April 5, 1977, Segui faced the Angels with a crowd of over 57, 000 in the Kingdome loudly applauding his return to Seattle. The win was not to be his, the Angels shut out the Mariners in their inaugural game, 7-0.
Seguí holds the unique distinction of having pitched for both of Seattle’s major league baseball teams, the Pilots and the Mariners, in the first game ever played by each franchise
His most productive season came in 1969, for the Pilots, when he posted a career-high in wins. He was the starting pitcher in the Mariners’ inaugural game in 1977 but for the season compiled a 0-7 record with a 5.69 Earned Run Average. He turned 40 in his last season with Seattle, being tagged “The Ancient Mariner”. He was the only player to play for both the Seattle Pilots and the Seattle Mariners.
Over and over, Segui tried but could not get his pitches to sing again for him. His arm, that arm that he once called “the funniest one in the world” was not giving him much to smile about.
He had some good moments that year, like when he struck out 10 Red Sox, a record that stayed on the Mariner’s books for a long time. He tried so hard to make his famous forkball work, but it remained incorrigible, and his year with the Mariners had an unfortunate ending when he was released.
He spent one more season playing in the minor leagues before finally retiring from professional baseball. His major league career statistics include 92 wins and 111 loses, a 3.81 earned run average, and 71 saves.
His son, David Segui, is former Major League Baseball player. David had a very successful 15-year baseball career, playing from 1990-2004 for seven different teams, including the Mariners, from 1998-99.
A large part of this biography comes from the SABR Baseball Biography Project written by Joanne Hulbert. It can be found online at http://bioproj.sabr.org
Leave a comment at the BHP web site at baseballhistorypodcast.com or write a review on iTunes, search for Baseball History Podcast.
You can email me at baseballhistory@gmail.com.
Well, that’s it for today’s Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
