J.R. Richard

Sport: Baseball

Induction Year: 1988

In 1980, James Rodney Richard was on a roll.

He became the National League’s first right-handed pitcher to strike out more than 300 hitters in one season in this century with 303 in 1978. The following year, he broke his own record with 313. In both seasons, he led the league in allowing the fewest hits per game; in 1979, he had the best earned run average (2.71) in the big leagues. He won 18 games in both seasons.

In 1980, Richard was 10-4 at the All-Star break and his Houston Astros were in the thick of the National League West Division race.

The 6-foot, 8-inch fastballer was on his way to the Cooperstown Hall of Fame.

Then the roof caved in on his major league career.

After delivering two scoreless innings with his 98 mile-per-hour fast ball as the starting pitcher in the All-Star game, Richard suddenly became a pitcher who couldn’t go more than three or four innings without tiring.

On July 14, he wobbled off the mound after three innings, complaining of an upset stomach and tender arm.

Then he was checked into Houston’s Methodist Hospital in the middle of the season for a series of tests.

“It’s more than a checkup,” said Astros team physician Dr. Harold Breisford. “It’s an investigation. J.R. will get the same type of workup the president of the United States gets. It’s not the kind of thing you do in the office. We’ll get a neurological workup, a vascular workup, radioactive studies. If there is any problem with him, we should find it out.”

The checkup revealed blockage in the right should area, but the doctors didn’t think surgery would be necessary and allowed him to resume workouts.

When Richard was placed on the 21-day disabled list in July, there was speculation in Houston that his problem was mental or emotional rather than physical. “If J.R. has any mental problems,” Dr. Breisford said, “it’s just too much pressure and too much tension. You can apply that to just about any ballplayer.”

‘What happened to Richard in an Astrodome workout after the examination wasn’t something that could’ve happened to any other ballplayer.

“I was on the field, tossing balls back and forth,” Richard recalled. “All of a sudden, I felt a loud ringing in my left ear. I just laid down on the field. I remember the ambulance coming to pick me up. Then I passed out.”

A larger blood clot, in a different position from the one discovered in the examination the previous week, was removed in a two-hour operation a few hours later. If it had occurred when Richard was not close to medical help, Dr. Breisford said, “There was a real possibility he might have died.”

Richard spent eight months in the hospital, undergoing the rehabilitation for as much as 13 hours a day. He attempted a comeback in 1984, but was eventually released by the Astros.

The start of Richard’s career was as strange as the finish. At Ruston’s Lincoln High, he pitched a no-hitter and hit four consecutive home runs, three of them with the bases loaded, in a 48-0 victory over Jackson High of Jonesboro.

“He was big and strong, and had natural athletic talent,” recalled Lincoln High coach Robert Smith. “The thing about J.R. was that everybody expected him to be good, and he would then go out and try to live up to those expectations. He hated to fail.”

Richard had a perfect earned run average in his senior season, but his statistics in two other sports were just as impressive.

As the Lincoln High quarterback, he completed 65 percent of his passes in his senior year, and had a 48-yard punting average. In one game, he threw the ball from his 20 yard-line to the opponents’ goal line. In basketball, he averaged 35 points and 22 rebounds per game, and was considered one of the top five college prospects in the state.

He was the stuff legends were made of before he finished high school, with Heywood Hale Broun coming to Ruston to do a feature on him – and following it up throughout the early years of his baseball career.

Richard’s towering presence was intimidating. “When he throws his fast ball,” complained one batter, “it’s like he’s handing the ball to the catcher.”

He grew up within rock-throwing distance of Grambling College (provided that J.R. was throwing the rock) and once dreamed of following Willis Reed’s footsteps in basketball. But the Astros made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

In his first starting assignment with the Astros, he struck out 15 hitters (whiffing Willie Mays three times) to tie a major league record set by Karl Spooner in his debut.

For several years, he had control problems. But he managed to get the ball over the plate and win 20 games in 1975 – a feat accomplished by only one Astro pitcher before Richard – and led the league by allowing only 6.86 hits per game. He was runner-up to Tom Seaver in that category in 1976, and was No. 1 in the next two seasons.

Richard won 18 games apiece in 1977, 1978 and 1979 seasons, and his earned run average was under 2.20 in each of his last five seasons. He led the league three times in that department.

He said 1976 was the turning point in his career because of a change of pace – not on the pitching mound, but in his lifestyle.

“I was living between being a Christian and being a hell-raiser,” he said. “After the 1975 season, I took the Christian route.”

His faith came in handy in 1980, when the near-tragedy that ended Richard’s major league career brought to mind a comment he made in 1971 – one month before he tied Spooner’s record.

“God is taking care of me,” J.R. said. “The talent is His gift, and I’m very grateful for everything