Vida Blue, the dynamic left-handed pitcher who starred for both the Oakland Athletics...
in a prolific and tumultuous career, has died, his family and the A’s announced in a statement Sunday. He was 73.
“I say there are A’s fans, Giants fans and Vida Blue fans,” Blue said that day. “So I don’t know, I got lucky, I guess.” Blue later pitched for the Giants and Royals and retired with a 209-161 record and 3.27 ERA. He started All-Star Games in both leagues – the first pitcher to do so – even amid off-the-field issues that impacted his career and later, he believed, his chances at the Hall of Fame.
“It’s unbelievable, the stuff that he had,” former A’s and Hall of Fame reliever Rollie Fingers told MLB Network in 2018. “I would go down to the bullpen and watch him warm up before the ballgame walk back to the dugout and go boys, ‘Hey, game’s over. He’s got his stuff on. He’s not going to give up any runs today.’”
Blue settled with the A’s in May for a reported $63,000 but said at the time that Finley had “soured my stomach for baseball. … I’ll never forget that he treated me like a damn colored boy.” Sal Bando, the third baseman and captain of those A’s teams, told Sports Illustrated in 1973 that where Blue was “overpowering” hitters in 1971: “Now he is overmatching them. … He has learned that he can get people out without throwing hard all the time.”
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