Tim Leary

Timothy James Leary (born December 23, 1958) is an American former professional baseball right-handed pitcher.

Amateur career

Leary posted a 10–2 record in his senior year at Santa Monica High School, and was named to the All-California Interscholastic Federation first-team. He went 19–1 to lead his American Legion Baseball team to the national championship. Much more in stature than his teammate and fellow former major leaguer, Rod Allen, he received the opportunity to play college baseball at UCLA.

Leary attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he was a three-year letterwinner for the UCLA Bruins baseball team while completing an economics degree. Over his college career, Leary compiled a 21–15 record with a 3.09 earned run average. His sixteen complete games is a school record, and his 258 strikeouts are the school's fourth highest total.

In , Leary helped lead the United States national baseball team to the silver medal in the World Cup played in Italy. He was also a member of the national team for the 1979 Pan American Games.

Professional career

New York Mets

Leary was selected by the New York Mets as the second overall pick of the 1979 Major League Baseball draft. He went 15–8 with a 2.76 ERA and 138 strikeouts for the Jackson Mets in his first professional season, prompting the Mets to make the controversial decision to bring him all the way to the majors for his second season. Making his major league debut on April 12, , Leary faced just seven batters, before leaving the game after just two innings with a strained elbow. After four months inactive, he appeared in six games with the Mets' triple A affiliate, the Tidewater Tides toward the end of the 1981 season. He strained his elbow a second time during Spring training , and was shut down for the entire 1982 season.

He returned to Tidewater in , and fell to 8–16 with a 4.38 ERA, mostly due to an increase in home runs allowed (11 versus just 5 in ). Regardless, he received a second call up to the majors that September, and never made it out of the second inning in his return, mostly due to two errors by George Foster in left field that led to five unearned runs. His second start, however, went far better, as he pitched a complete game for his first major league victory against the Montreal Expos.

Leary split the season between Tidewater and the Mets

Milwaukee Brewers

During the 1984–85 offseason, Leary was part of a four team trade in which the Mets sent him to the Milwaukee Brewers and received Frank Wills from the Kansas City Royals.

Leary spent the season with Milwaukee's triple A affiliate, the Vancouver Canadians, and once again returned to the majors when rosters expanded that September. He finally enjoyed his first healthy major league season in when he went 12–12 with a 4.21 ERA and 188.1 innings pitched. Following the season, he and Tim Crews were traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Greg Brock.

Los Angeles Dodgers

Leary went 3–11 with a 4.76 ERA splitting his time between starts and as a reliever in . After the season, Leary pitched in the Mexican Leagues so he could learn how to throw a split-finger pitch. He had to drive from Santa Monica to Tijuana nearly on a daily basis to play. This led to a breakthrough season for the Dodgers in . He held the Philadelphia Phillies to just one hit on May 25, and was named the National League's "Pitcher of the Week" for the week of July 18–24, during which he shut out the St. Louis Cardinals and earned a complete game victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates. He finished the season second on his team behind Cy Young Award winner Orel Hershiser in wins (17), ERA (2.91), shutouts (6), complete games (9) and innings pitched (228.2), while leading his club with 180 strikeouts.

The Dodgers won the National League West by seven games over the Cincinnati Reds to face Leary's former franchise, the New York Mets, in the 1988 National League Championship Series. Leary appeared in the game four twelve inning marathon won by the Dodgers, and made the start in game six, taking the loss.

In the World Series against the Oakland Athletics, Leary was used out of the bullpen by manager Tommy Lasorda. His three innings of scoreless work allowed the Dodgers to come back from a 4–2 deficit in game one, and he appeared in game three, allowing one run in 3.2 innings.

Following the Dodgers' World Series victory, Leary was named the ''Sporting News National League Comeback Player of the Year for his regular season performance.

Cincinnati Reds

He was traded to the Cincinnati Reds midway through the season with Mariano Duncan for Kal Daniels

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