Happy Birthday, Dean Chance!

[Hammerin Hank]

Today, Dean turns 64 years old!

[Bluesteve32]

What a season he had in 1964 when he won the major league Cy Young award with that microscopic 1.65 ERA and his 20-9 record. Make you wonder about how beneficial pitching in Chavez Ravine in that era really was.

[CaliforniaCajun]

A rotation of Chance, Messersmith, Tanana, and Ryan

What a season he had in 1964 when he won the major league Cy Young award with that microscopic 1.65 ERA and his 20-9 record. Make you wonder about how beneficial pitching in Chavez Ravine in that era really was.

I asked someone at MLB.com/Angels site who had the best year of any pitcher in Angels history and he said Chance in 1964. He had another 20-win season for Minnesota, and I guess that was pretty much it.

It's a shame the Angels couldn't have had a rotation with Chance, Messersmith, Tanana, and Ryan at their prime with Minnie Rojas coming in out of the bullpen to close. With the ages of these players it could have conceivably happened.

[Bluesteve32]

Bill Singer and Clyde Wright both had 20 win seasons in the early 1970s with the Angels as well.

It seems they never had the bats with the arms, together. Imagine if the Angels did have a decent bullpen in the 1970s rather than the "Arson Squad" of Dave Sells, Lloyd Allen, Dave Selma, Skip Lockwood, Don Kirkwood, Dick Lange, Dick Drago and many others. There were seasons the Angels bulpen leader had single digits in saves.

[Hammerin Hank]

And today Dean is 65! He pitched for only 11 seasons but managed still to get 20 wins twice, with the Angels in '64, and the Twins in '67.

[CaliforniaCajun]

According to the book Once They Were Angels, Chance was voted the best right-handed pitcher of the decade (1960s).

This is one reason I'm kind of glad that the Angels are trying to persevere with their youth movement. Their hitting was so anemic that they only way they could get any help at all was to trade Chance for three lesser players. The Angels had a good 1967, but those players they got in return quickly tailed off.