Stan Stawas of the Village of Belle Aire took his 11-year-old grandson Casey Grantham with him to meet former Major League Baseball pitcher “Sudden Sam” McDowell.
“I saw you play in Baltimore,” Stawas told McDowell, the featured autograph signer Saturday at the Sports Card & Collectible Show at Savannah Center.
Tony Lupica of New Jersey finally acquired the McDowell autograph that had eluded him in 1961 in Cleveland.
Lupica is visiting The Villages with Sharon Verhagen, daughter of Vinni Verhagen of the Village of Sanibel.
“I spent a long time chasing this autograph,” Lupica said.
McDowell, who now lives in Clermont, played 15 seasons in Major League Baseball, with the first 11 coming for the Cleveland Indians before a 1971 trade to the San Francisco Giants, followed by stints with the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Pirates. A six-time All-Star (1965, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1971), McDowell was primarily a starting pitcher during his major league career.
McDowell is considered a poster boy for what might have been. By his own admission he he was “the biggest, most hopeless, most violent drunk in baseball.”
But he turned it around, went on to study psychology and became a certified addictions counselor, helping many ballplayers along the way.
