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Catching Up With . . .
J.R. Richard, Houston Astros
pitcher
March 2,
1981
Posted: Tue March 17, 1998
At
spring training in 1981, some seven months after suffering a
nearly fatal stroke, All-Star pitcher J.R. Richard of the
Houston Astros tried to return to the major leagues. SI
celebrated his valiant comeback attempt in a cover story,
but instead of serving as
a prologue to a triumphant reemergence, the article turned
out to be an epilogue to Richard's big league career.
Before his stroke the
6'8", 240-pound Richard was the most fearsome
flamethrower in baseball. A 100-mph fastball accounted for most
of his National League-leading 303 strikeouts in 1978, and
his 313 whiffs in '79 were the most by any righthander in
the league until the
Philadelphia Phillies' Curt Schilling fanned 319 last year.
Through the first half of the '80 season, Richard seemed a
lock for the Cy Young Award. His 10-4 record and 1.89 ERA
earned him the nod as his league's starter in the
July 8 All-Star Game, in which he lived a dream by striking out
Reggie
Jackson.
But three weeks later Richard collapsed during a workout at
the Astrodome. Despite showing flashes of his old form
during spring training in '81, he never returned to the
majors.
Richard retired the following year and was soon broke. He
lost $300,000 on an oil deal that didn't work out. A
divorce cost him 700 grand. By 1993 Richard, who earned as
much as $850,000 a year in baseball, was living under a
bridge a few miles from the
Astrodome. A
Houston
Post reporter discovered him there, and the ensuing publicity
helped Richard land a series of part-time jobs. In '95 his
major league pension kicked in, and he now lives alone in a
Houston apartment. "You always think you'll never see
hard times, but you
never know what the future holds," says Richard, 48.
"That rainy day is coming, and it will wash you
away."
He often repeats such admonitions at the Now Testament
Church in South Houston, where he is a minister. He is
helping to establish the church's planned community for the
homeless and spends his Sundays as a counselor. Richard
shows no mercy when
dispensing advice. "You can only help someone who wants to be
helped," he says. "They have to understand that
nobody's going to do it for them. They have to do it for
themselves."
He's equally tough on today's major league arms.
"Teams think guys throwing
94 mph are really doing something, because that's the best the
big leagues have got," Richard says. "There just
aren't many real power pitchers
anymore."
—by Richard
Deutsch
Cover photograph by Tony Triolo
Issue date: March 23, 1998
Past Editions of Catching Up With...
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