Oscar Azocar 1965-2010
Posted by Raphy on June 14, 2010
The news of Oscar Azocar's passing at the young age of 45, brought back nostalgic memories of my youth. At a time when my team, the Yankees, were bad, Azocar's free swinging style was a comical interlude in an all-together pitiful season. To commemorate this memory, I even chose the screen name "OscarAzocar" several years ago when I started commenting on this website. Here are a couple of Azocar facts.
Azocar was famous for taking few pitches and his PA event finder listing confirms this. In fact, in July of 1990, Azocar went 7 consecutive at bats without taking a pitch.
| Cr# | Yr# | Gm# | Date | Tm | Opp | Pitcher | Score | Inn | RoB | Out | Pit(cnt) | RBI | Play Description | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 11 | 3 | 1990-07-21 | NYY | @MIN | Mark Guthrie | down 0-2 | Out | t 7 | 1-- | 2 | 1 (0-0) | 0 | Groundout: 2B-SS/Forceout at 2B (SS-2B) |
| 12 | 12 | 1 | 1990-07-22 | NYY | @MIN | Scott Erickson | tied 0-0 | Out | t 1 | --- | 2 | 1 (0-0) | 0 | Lineout: CF (Deep LF-CF) |
| 13 | 13 | 2 | 1990-07-22 | NYY | @MIN | Scott Erickson | ahead 2-1 | HR | t 3 | 1-- | 2 | 1 (0-0) | 2 | Home Run (Fly Ball to Deep RF Line); Mattingly Scores/unER; Azocar Scores/unER |
| 14 | 14 | 3 | 1990-07-22 | NYY | @MIN | Scott Erickson | ahead 4-2 | 1B | t 6 | --- | 1 | 1 (0-0) | 0 | Single to LF (Ground Ball thru SS-3B Hole) |
| 15 | 15 | 1 | 1990-07-23 | NYY | @TEX | Kevin Brown | ahead 1-0 | Out | t 1 | 1-- | 0 | 1 (0-0) | 0 | Groundout: 2B-SS/Forceout at 2B (SS-2B); Azocar to 1B |
| 16 | 16 | 2 | 1990-07-23 | NYY | @TEX | Kevin Brown | tied 1-1 | Out | t 3 | --- | 2 | 2 (0-1) | 0 | Groundout: 1B unassisted (2B-1B) |
| 17 | 17 | 3 | 1990-07-23 | NYY | @TEX | Kevin Brown | down 1-3 | Out | t 6 | 1-- | 1 | 2 (0-1) | 0 | Groundout: C-1B (Front of Home); Mattingly to 2B |
For his career, Azocar saw only 1 pitch in 122 of his 460 plate appearances (26.5 %).
On the BBTF thread dedicated to Azocar, a commenter mentioned that Azocar holds the record for most career stolen bases without being caught. Here are the leaders (1951-2010, prior to 1951 the CS records are incomplete.)
| Rk | Player | SB | CS | From | To | Age | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | IBB | SO | HBP | SH | SF | GDP | Pos | Tm | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oscar Azocar | 10 | 0 | 1990 | 1992 | 25-27 | 202 | 460 | 439 | 38 | 99 | 16 | 0 | 5 | 36 | 12 | 2 | 36 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 5 | .226 | .248 | .296 | .544 | /793 | NYY-SDP |
| 2 | Tim Spehr | 9 | 0 | 1991 | 1999 | 24-32 | 363 | 656 | 556 | 76 | 110 | 31 | 1 | 19 | 72 | 67 | 2 | 153 | 14 | 14 | 5 | 6 | .198 | .298 | .360 | .657 | *2/739 | KCR-MON-TOT |
| 3 | George Smith | 9 | 0 | 1963 | 1966 | 25-28 | 217 | 706 | 634 | 64 | 130 | 27 | 6 | 9 | 57 | 59 | 7 | 142 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 15 | .205 | .277 | .309 | .586 | *4/65 | DET-BOS |
| 4 | Todd Linden | 8 | 0 | 2003 | 2007 | 23-27 | 270 | 559 | 502 | 64 | 116 | 22 | 3 | 8 | 36 | 44 | 1 | 148 | 8 | 5 | 0 | 13 | .231 | .303 | .335 | .638 | 7/98 | SFG-TOT |
| 5 | Jose Morban | 8 | 0 | 2003 | 2003 | 23-23 | 61 | 77 | 71 | 14 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 21 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | .141 | .187 | .225 | .412 | /64D5 | BAL |
| 6 | Jeff Baker | 7 | 0 | 2005 | 2010 | 24-29 | 332 | 933 | 849 | 129 | 227 | 54 | 9 | 28 | 119 | 69 | 3 | 223 | 5 | 1 | 9 | 25 | .267 | .323 | .451 | .774 | 4/5397D | COL-TOT-CHC |
| 7 | Alex Romero | 6 | 0 | 2008 | 2009 | 24-25 | 144 | 299 | 280 | 27 | 67 | 14 | 4 | 2 | 30 | 14 | 1 | 43 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 10 | .239 | .279 | .339 | .619 | /978 | ARI |
| 8 | Jeff McNeely | 6 | 0 | 1993 | 1993 | 23-23 | 21 | 44 | 37 | 10 | 11 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .297 | .409 | .378 | .787 | /*8 | BOS |
June 14th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Azocar was one of a number of young Yankees who came up in 1990. None of them ever amounted to much, but they sure had us excited. (Well, us young fans....some older folks who had seen rookies come and go probably knew they were nothing special.)
In my memory, Randy Velarde was the first, and he actually turned out to have a very solid career as a utility man. Kevin Maas was later in the summer, and had people going crazy as he was the quickest to hit 10 homers, 11, 12.... Hensley Meulens (who had a brief cameo in '89) had me so excited as he came up through the minors. I thought Alan Mills was our closer of the future. I remember Mark Leiter making about three great defensive plays in one of his first starts.
Now that I check the records, I see Velarde was actually up for a couple years before 1990. I think I confused his debut with Jim Leyritz, a nominal catcher who also posed as a utility man when he came up. I think I heard him get a big hit on the radio as I rode to school's-out party -- may well have been this game, his first: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BAL/BAL199006080.shtml
In some ways I enjoyed those teams more than the ones now.
June 15th, 2010 at 12:29 am
as a yankee season ticket holder since 1974, i struggled through the 1990 season, one of only three years in their history in which they finished last (1912 and 1966) and remember oscar azocar for a rare feat: until he received his first walk well into the season, he had the distinction of having a higher batting average than his on base percentage; his one sacrifice fly lowered his on base percentage but not his batting average. he eventually had two walks, which "raised" his obp to .257, still only marginally better than his .248 ba.
June 15th, 2010 at 12:38 am
Raphy, I was at the Tigers-Pirates game Sunday and Austin Jackson hurt his back after a catch in the top of the first, but stayed in the field the rest of the inning. Bottom of the first, the Tigers pinch hit Ryan Raburn for Jackson. I honestly can't remember a game where the home team (or either team) led off with a pinch hitter.
Is there any way to check that through play index? I tried player batting finder and tried batters who started but recorded 0 PA's for a home team, but it said no games were found. Any chance we could look this up? Thanks,
Xander (Caught Looking Blog)
June 15th, 2010 at 12:41 am
Actually I think I just figured out the search...it found 50 games. I didn't think there would be that many, but still pretty rare.
June 15th, 2010 at 4:38 am
[...] Baseball-Reference Blog » Blog Archive » Oscar Azocar 1965-2010 [...]
June 15th, 2010 at 8:29 am
I knew those '90 Yanks were a passing occurance -- but that didn't stop me from enjoying the show. My prayers go out for Azocar, whose frantic style of pitch selection will always be a memory in the best Mickey Rivers tradition.
June 15th, 2010 at 8:59 am
Oscar was the next Yogi Berra (constantly hitting pitches around his eyes for base hits) until pitchers figured out they could just keep thowing balls in the dirt or 3 ft outside to get him out. He was a Yankee for a short while, but very fun to watch. You really need to enjoy the lean years to truly appreciate the good times. We all could have stopped watching when the Yanks fell out of it early, but we would have missed out on Maas, Leyritz (as the future 3B) and Oscar.
June 15th, 2010 at 9:09 am
Can the play index find other streaks of one-pitch plate appearances? I'm curious to see what else is out there.
June 15th, 2010 at 9:51 am
No Azocar, but Leyritz was in left field for Andy Hawkins' non-no-no.
(Heh, sorry, but I couldn't resist bringing it up one more time!)
Hensley Meulens... now that's a name I've not heard in a long time.... a long time. (And no he's not me.)
June 15th, 2010 at 9:52 am
Raphy, now seems like a good reason to ask--why did you adopt the screen name OscarAzocar before you started as an author here?
June 15th, 2010 at 10:13 am
Oscar started off his career with a 5-game hitting streak.
I watched every one of those games, and Phil Rizzuto was excited about him. We all were. That team was so bad, and it hadnt been that long since we had Rickey-Willie-Donnie-Winfield and won 97 games, missing the playoffs by one game to the Blow Jays. RIP O.A.
June 15th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
Andy - I wanted an obscure but memorable baseball name. For me that player was Azocar.
June 15th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Stopping by to pay my respects. As a kid the Padres came to Cincinnati and Oscar came to the plate.
Being a dumb kid, I read his name wrong and thought it was pronounced 'Oscar Oscar'. I laughed uncontrollably for an inning or two.
RIP Oscar.
June 15th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Yeah, I remember the higher BA than OBP myself. I remember me and my dad laughing about that one day. Incidentally I remember Soriano one year with the Yankees had that distinction too, until he drew his first BB of the season on like the last day of April (or thereabouts). I do remember Azocar had a couple decent seasons with the Padres as a PH (well, I could check here for sure, but I admit to feeling a little lazy today)
Incidentally, I looked up fewest BBs in a 400 AB season a couple of weeks ago, and I found another free-swinger from my younger days. Andres Thomas SS of the awful late 80s Braves on there a couple of times. Wonder what he is doing now?
June 18th, 2010 at 9:14 am
[...] the one time in my life when I didn’t follow baseball obsessively), but Raphy at B-R.com sheds some light. [h/t reader [...]