Our Interview
with Jerry Reuss
Jerry Reuss pitched in the Major Leagues for 22 years. He played for eight teams which included the St. Louis Cardinals, the Astros, the Pirates, the Dodgers, the Reds, the Angels, the White Sox, the Brewers and finished with the Pirates. He won 220 games, threw a no-hitter, played in two All-Star games and pitched in the World Series for the Dodgers.
Since his retirement as an active player, he has worked in broadcasting as a color analyst for ESPN, the Anaheim Angels and since 2006, Jerry has been in the major leagues working radio and TV for the Dodger broadcasts east of Colorado. Based in Las Vegas, Jerry has done radio and television work (analyst and play by play) for the Las Vegas Stars (now 51’s) in the Pacific Coast League.
Jerry briefly returned to uniform in 2000 as a 2A pitching coach for the Montreal Expos in Harrisburg, PA. The Cubs hired him as their 3A pitching coach in Des Moines, IA for 2001-2003 seasons. In 2004, he was the 2A pitching coach for the Mets in Binghamton, NY.
Harrisburg, PA. The Cubs hired him as their 3A pitching coach in Des Moines, IA for 2001-2003 seasons. In 2004, he was the 2A pitching coach for the Mets in Binghamton, NY.
On June 27, 1980, Jerry, a Los Angeles Dodger, threw his first and only career no-hitter on the road against the San Francisco Giants in an 8-0 victory.
Jerry Reuss is one of only 29 players to have played in four different decades. I chatted with Jerry recently, and here is what he had to say:
BTS: Can you tell us what lead up to your Major League career?
JR: I started playing at age 5-6 in the backyard. I liked it. My older brother Jim took me under his wing and once we started playing ball in the yard, I loved it. That’s all we did in the summer. With friends my age, we found ways to play games, integrating the schoolyard when it was too wet to play on the fields. It wasn’t just baseball, or softball. It was wiffleball, fuzzball, which used a tennis ball that was to beat up for the tennis court, or a rubber ball that we could buy at the confectionery store. There was a ballgame of some kind going on, somewhere in the neighborhood.
As the neighborhood games were played, there was Little League. I got cut by the first team I tried out for. Fortunately, there were still enough kids left in the pool to create another team, so I played and eventually played for the team I wanted. That took me through grade school.
During my freshman year, I tried out for the junior varsity team and made it. I played on the varsity my sophomore year. We won the Missouri High School Baseball Championship during my junior and senior year. We had been playing against one another in Little League for six to eight years so everybody knew one another. That was something for kids that are only 16 years old.
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