Boston, Massachusetts — It’s the opening weekend of the Major League Baseball season, which has excited many sports fans (except for White Sox fans). While skiing and baseball seem to be in stark contrast, there have been some interesting moments when these two sports have crossed paths.
Perhaps one of the most interesting tales was how an injury to a Cy Young winner changed the trajectory of his career and the future of the franchise he pitched for.
Making his debut back in 1965, Jim Lonborg is remembered most for his role in the Red Sox’s “Impossible Dream” season. In 1967, Jim Lonborg’s season was among the best in baseball history. Over the course of 39 starts, he had a record of 22-9 with a 3.16 ERA (Earned Run Average) and 246 strikeouts. His performances were one of the major reasons why the Red Sox made the World Series, their first appearance since 1946.
His dominance continued in the World Series, with a one-hit complete game shutout in Game 2 and a three-hit complete game in Game 5. He tried pitching on two days’ rest for Game 7, but he didn’t have his stuff on such short rest, leading to the Cardinals winning the series. The move to have him pitch Game 7 remains a controversial decision among long-time Red Sox fans.
Alright, let’s get to the skiing portion of this story. Lonborg was skiing in December 1967 at Heavenly Resort when an accident resulted in him tearing ligaments in his left knee. According to an interview with Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe, Lonborg said it occurred while catching an edge while skiing through some slalom gates. Here’s what Lonborg told Shaugnessy about his 1967 injury:
“I skied at Heavenly Valley five days a week in January and February of 1967 and got into the best shape of my life. That was really the major introduction I had to the sport of skiing.
So a year later, after our great season, on Dec. 22, my buddy and I had had a great day of skiing and we went out to the nightclubs at Harrah’s. We stayed up all night and went out skiing on the morning of the 23rd.
It was a beautiful day. We skied hard all day. There was a new part of Heavenly Valley that had just opened up. You could ski over the top on the California side over to the Nevada side. The only problem was getting back. You had to make sure you caught the lift that could carry you back to the state line so you could get back to the California side.
We missed that lift, so we had to hike over the top of the mountain to get back to the California side to get back to our car. So we did that, and got to the top and ran into a slalom race course and decided to do a few of the gates. I caught an edge . . .
I started to fall and heard a ‘pop, pop, pop.’ It didn’t seem to hurt that much. I dusted myself off and got back up again and started to ski back down, and when I went to make that same left turn, there was nothing left in my knee.
The ACL was gone. The medial collateral was gone. There was nothing but mush in that knee, so I ended up having to slip-slide down to where I could get on a chairlift.’’
Because of this crash, the trajectory of his career shifted. After receiving surgery for the torn ligaments, he returned during the 1968 season and had a respectable record and ERA, but he wasn’t at the level he was in 1967. The next few years of being on and off the DL were disappointing, and the Sox ended up trading him in 1971. After coming oh so close in 1967, the Sox wouldn’t reach the fall classic again until 1975 and didn’t win one until 2004, which broke an 86-year championship drought.
The one surprise about researching Lonborg’s career was that he actually had a very respectable stretch of bounce-back years after being traded by the Red Sox. His first post-Sox team was the Milwaukee Brewers. He pitched one season there, accumulating a 14-12 record with a 2.83 ERA. That season began Lomborg’s transition from a flame thrower into someone who used a variety of off-speed pitches.
In 1973, Lonborg was traded to the Phillies. He had a mix of good and so-so years with the Phils, with the highlights being 1974 and 1976, where he led the team’s starting pitchers with the lowest ERA. Injuries caught up to him again, however, leading to his release from the Phillies in the middle of the 1979 season.
After ending his baseball career in 1979, Lonborg went on to become a doctor. He studied at Tufts Medical School and worked as a dentist for a few decades until retiring in 2017. According to his Boston Globe interview with Shaughnessy, he still enjoys skiing.
Image/Video Credits: Boston Red Sox, Heavenly Resort
