Dan Osinski
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Daniel Osinski (born November 17, 1933 in Chicago, Illinois) is a former Major League Baseball relief pitcher. The 6'2", 195 lb. right-hander was signed by the Cleveland Indians as an amateur free agent before the 1952 season. He played for the Kansas City Athletics (1962), Los Angeles Angels (1962-1964), Milwaukee Braves (1965), Boston Red Sox (1966-1967), Chicago White Sox (1969), and Houston Astros (1970).
Osinski made his major league debut in relief on April 11, 1962 against the Minnesota Twins at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. He pitched the top of the 9th inning and gave up three earned runs in the 8-0 Athletics loss. He struck out one batter, second baseman Bernie Allen. He pitched in three more games that month, continued to be ineffective, and was sent down to the minor leagues. Then, on July 21, the A's traded him to the Los Angeles Angels. This turned out to be a big break for Osinski.
He pitched very well out of the Angel bullpen for the rest of the season, along with Bob Botz, Dean Chance, Art Fowler, Tom Morgan, and Jack Spring. Osinski earned his first big league save three days after the trade with two scoreless innings in game 2 of a home doubleheader against Baltimore. Then, just nine days later, he got his first win with a scoreless inning against the Indians in Cleveland.
In 33 games for the Angels in his rookie year Osinski was 6-4 with 4 saves and an ERA of 2.82. When his Kansas City statistics are added, his final ERA was 3.97.
During his career he started 21 games but usually appeared in relief. The best of his starts was a three-hit, 1-0 shutout over the Chicago White Sox on June 4, 1963...a night game at Chavez Ravine.
From 1963 to 1969 his ERA ranged from 2.54 to 3.61. In 1967 he was part of the Red Sox "Impossible Dream" team. He had a 3-1 record with two saves for Boston and appeared in two World Series games against the St. Louis Cardinals. Released by Boston during Spring Training in 1968, the Chicago native saw service that year with Hawaii in the Pacific Coast League, and pitched his way back to the majors in 1969 with the hometown White Sox, compiling a 5-5 record. He was sold to the Houston Astros during the off-season,where he ended his major league career with three appearances in 1970. After the season, he was placed on the roster of the Houston AAA club at Oklahoma City and was claimed by the San Diego Padres, but retired. Osinski's retirement plans were mentioned in the book I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally when he was briefly a teammate of Jim Bouton in Triple-A Oklahoma City.
His major league career totals include a 29-28 record in 324 games pitched, 21 games started, 5 complete games, 2 shutouts, 122 games finished, 18 saves, and an ERA of 3.34. He had 400 strikeouts in 589.2 innings pitched for a 6.11 K/9IP, slightly higher than the major league average during his era. He made no errors in his last five seasons (193 games).
[edit] Trivia
- Osinski held All-Stars Ken Boyer, Johnny Callison, Bert Campaneris, Jim Fregosi, Alex Johnson, Frank Malzone, Roger Maris, Vada Pinson, Dick Stuart, and Zoilo Versalles to a .112 collective batting average (11-for-98).
- He held Hall of Famers Rod Carew, Al Kaline, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, and Billy Williams to a .119 collective batting average (5-for-42).
- He saw service as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army.
- Plans to transfer Bo Belinski from the Angels to Kansas City as the player to be named in the trade for Osinski were blocked by Commissioner Ford Frick due to a technicality in the rules, and Ted Bowsfield was sent to the Athletics instead.
