Forty-four years ago today (June 10,\u00a01966),\u00a0Dick Rusteck\u00a0made his major league debut as a starting pitcher at Shea Stadium, throwing a complete game, four-hit shutout over the Cincinnati Reds. Though not quite Strasburgian, the performance is probably the best by a pitcher making his major league debut in Mets history*. Less than 25 miles away on the very same day, I was making my own debut.<\/p>\n
The future looked pretty bright for both of us that day. Rusteck, a 24-year-old lefty out of Chicago and Notre Dame, was signed as a free agent in 1963. He\u2019d impressed Met brass in Instructional League and Spring Training play and after a 6-1 start at AAA Jacksonville in 1966, earned a call to the big leagues. Manager\u00a0Wes Westrum<\/a>, who caught the likes of\u00a0Sal Maglie<\/strong>\u00a0andJohn Antonelli<\/strong>, and coached\u00a0Juan Marichal<\/strong>, observed \u201che could throw the ball just as good as anybody I\u2019d ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n Against Cincinnati in his debut, Rusteck scattered four singles, walked one and struck out four. No Reds runners reached as far as second base safely. \u201cThe magnificent thing about it is that he threw strikes,\u201d Westrum gushed afterward. \u201cHe was the master all the way. He was calm, cool and collected out there.\u201d Two home runs by shortstop\u00a0Ed Bressoud\u00a0\u2013 hitting 8th that day, it was his best day as a Met too \u2013 accounted for four runs and the Mets had an easy 5-0 victory in a game that lasted just over two hours.<\/p>\n But for Rusteck, the good times evaporated just as suddenly. Four days later in St. Louis, he\u2019d be yanked before recording an out in the second inning, surrendering five runs on five hits and a walk. Complaining of a sore arm, perhaps as a delayed result of taking a line drive off his arm in Jacksonville, Rusteck didn\u2019t appear again until a 1-inning relief appearance two weeks later, then made a third start July 3 vs. the Pirates, in which he was hit hard in the fifth inning, took another loss, and got a ticket back to Jacksonville for his trouble.<\/p>\n Rusteck returned to make a few relief appearances that September but his arm troubles would continue. His uniform\u00a0number 43\u00a0was reassigned to teammate\u00a0Darrell Sutherland, and he\u2019d wear\u00a0No. 40\u00a0then. A writer identifying herself as Rusteck\u2019s wife Tracy, writing on the\u00a0Ultimate Mets Database,<\/a>\u00a0said her husband had elbow surgery in 1967 and continued pitching in the minor leagues through 1971 though \u201cnever fully recovering the dynamic speed of his famed left-arm pitch.\u201d He’d retire with a 1-2 major league record and an ERA of 3.<\/p>\n After a post-baseball career in state government in Wasilla, Alaska (youbetcha!), Rusteck is \u201chappy and healthy\u201d in Arizona, Tracy wrote in a message posted two years ago.<\/p>\n Me, I\u2019m about to surrender No. 43 too. Hello,\u00a0Bob Myrick!<\/p>\n * A quick and not exhaustive review of memory and some data at the Ultimate Mets Database leads me to believe Rusteck\u2019s game was the best by a Mets pitcher making a major-league debut, although he has company when the discussion comes to \u201cbest first career starts\u201d as Mets fromGrover Powell\u00a0(also a 4-hit shutout, 1963). Other impressive debuts were authored by\u00a0Gary Gentry\u00a0(April 10, 1969) and\u00a0Jason Isringhausen\u00a0(July 17, 1995).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Forty-four years ago today (June 10,\u00a01966),\u00a0Dick Rusteck\u00a0made his major league debut as a starting pitcher at Shea Stadium, throwing a complete game, four-hit shutout over the Cincinnati Reds. Though not quite Strasburgian, the performance is probably the best by a pitcher making his major league debut in Mets history*. Less than 25 miles away on … Continue reading “‘Master All the Way’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[488],"tags":[205,208,495],"class_list":["post-1429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meet-the-dicks","tag-darrell-sutherland","tag-dick-rusteck","tag-ed-bressoud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1429"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2325,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions\/2325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}