All-Time Indians: Dick Donovan

The Indians teams of the 1960’s and the early 1970’s are known for being largely unsuccessful overall, but with incredible pitching. While most of these were younger pitchers like Sam McDowell and Sonny Siebert, one of the most consistent starters at the beginning of the decade was a veteran nearing the end of his career in Dick Donovan.

Donovan was originally signed as an amateur free agent in 1947 by the Boston Braves out of Boston College. Despite great success in AAA in 1949, Donovan only got short periods with the big league clubs from 1950 through 1952, staying in AAA for all of 1953 and 1954. If anything, Donovan can be considered ahead of his time as he played for the Milwaukee Brewers from 1949 through 1952 right before the Braves moved there in 1953, then played for the Atlanta Crackers for two seasons prior to the team moving there in 1966.

After a quick stint with the Tigers, Donovan went back to Milwaukee, but didn’t play before being sold to the White Sox. At 27, he finally came into his own in Chicago and won at least 12 games in each of his first four full seasons, the best of which was a second place Cy Young Award finish in 1957 when he went 16-6 with a 2.77 ERA through 220.2 innings. After five solid seasons in the South Side and a poor campaign in 1960, Donovan was left unprotected in the upcoming expansion draft and was taken in the late rounds by the newly created Washington Senators. That season, he had a resurgence and lead the league in ERA (2.40) and WHIP (1.03), although he pitched in just 22 games. This lead to his second All-Star appearance (the first was not in his great 1957 season, but his first year in Chicago) and some newly found value in the trade market. Just days after the season ended, Donovan was sent to Cleveland along with two other players for the Gold Glover center fielder, Jim Piersall.

Piersall would play 444 more games, but just 164 with the Senators, while Donovan would go on to lead the Indians pitching staff into the future. In his first year in Cleveland, the 34 year old veteran was the ace of the Indians staff making 34 starts with a 3.60 ERA, winning twenty. To start the year, Donovan threw two complete game shut outs and he didn’t slow down after that, completing 16 of his starts with three more shut outs. He began the year with an 8-0 record, then ended the season with decisions in his final 15 starts, ending with an impressive 20-10 record. No other Indians pitcher that season finished with a record higher than .500 as the team allowed 63 more runs than they scored. In fact, only Jim Perry won more than ten games as a starter that year, going 12-12 with a 4.45 ERA.

While he didn’t garner any Cy Young votes (there was only an MLB award and it went to Don Drysdale of the Dodgers), Donovan did make the All-Star game that year and was the highest voted pitcher in the American League MVP voting, finishing fifth behind future Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle and Harmen Killebrew along with former Indian Leon Wagner. In fact, the next best pitcher came in 14th in the voting as Donovan would almost certainly have won the AL Cy Young that year had it existed.

The 1962 season alone made Donovan worth remembering, but he was one of three pitchers to stay in the rotation for the 1963 season and he finished with a 11-9 record through 30 starts. Donovan was a solid innings eater that year, which was all the sixth place team really needed as they were far away from legitimate competition in the American League. While his 4.24 ERA in 206 innings was not very impressive compared to his previous seasons, he would never reach these numbers again in his career.

The following season, Donovan made 23 more starts in his final year as a Major League starting pitcher. After a 4.72 ERA through the beginning of August, Donovan was removed from the rotation and as a late reliever recorded his first save as an Indian. While he would make a few spot starts at the end of the season and during 1964, he would never return to the rotation as a full member. With the east of a relief role, Donovan was able to lower his ERA to 4.55 by the end of the year and still pitch 158.1 innings, remaining a solid option at the age of 36.

For the 1965 season, the Indians had a young, but established rotation headed by Sam McDowell, Luis Tiant and Sonny Siebert, leaving little room for the aging Donovan. While he did pick up a few starts along the way, it was easy to ignore the former ace as McDowell was setting the team record for K/9 with 10.7 and Siebert was posting a top ten WHIP finish with a 0.98. Donovan threw 22.2 innings in 12 appearances before being released in mid-June. With a 5.96 ERA and plenty of strong young pitchers, the Indians no longer needed him and although he may have been open to further employment, the other MLB teams were not interested. He retired from baseball then and moved into business away from the sport. Just over 30 years after his retirement, Donovan died in 1997 back in his home state of Massachusetts at the age of 69.