Vida Blue, Oakland A’s MVP and three-time champion, dead at 73

Vida Blue, a former Cy Younger-winning pitcher and MVP who received three straight World Sequence championships with the Oakland A’s within the Nineteen Seventies and was a six-time All-Star, has died, the group introduced.

He was 73.

A reason behind demise was not revealed.

“There are few gamers with a extra adorned profession than Vida Blue,” the Athletics stated in a press release on Twitter. “He was a three-time champion, an MVP, a six-time All-Star, a Cy Younger Award winner, and an Oakland A’s Corridor of Famer. Vida will all the time be a franchise legend and a pal. We ship our deepest condolences to his household and associates throughout this arduous time.”

Blue attended a ceremony in Oakland through the A’s-Mets collection final month honoring the 50-year anniversary of the 1973 championship group.

The southpaw from Louisiana, who pitched a no-hitter in 1970, received the AL MVP and Cy Younger awards in the identical season in 1971, when he went 24-8 with a 1.82 ERA, 0.95 WHIP and 301 strikeouts in 312 innings, pitching 24 full video games and eight shutouts alongside the best way.

After that breakout season, the 22-year-old Blue and proprietor Charlie Finley have been locked right into a contract dispute that reportedly led Blue to briefly retire.

He ended up pitching in solely 151 innings in ’72 and principally pitched out of the bullpen within the postseason.

Blue pitched 5 extra seasons for Oakland earlier than he was traded to the Giants.

He pitched 4 seasons for San Francisco and was then dealt to Kansas Metropolis, the place he pitched two seasons for the Royals.

In 1983, Blue was sentenced to a few months in jail for possession of roughly a tenth of an oz. of cocaine amid a federal cocaine investigation, in response to an AP report on the time, and was banned from MLB for the 1984 season.

Blue pitched two extra seasons for the Giants in 1985 and ’86.

He completed his profession with a 209-161 document, a 3.27 ERA and a pair of,175 strikeouts.

“Vida Blue relaxation in peace, my mentor, hero, and pal,” former Oakland A’s star Dave Stewart wrote on Twitter. “I bear in mind watching a 19 12 months outdated phenom dominate baseball, and on the identical time alter my life. There aren’t any phrases for what you will have meant to me and so many others. My coronary heart goes out to the Blue household.”