RIP to pitcher Pat Zachry, the 1976 NL Rookie of the Year and part of one of the biggest trades of the decade the very next year. He died on April 4, according to a post from former teammate Johnny Bench on X (formerly Twitter). Yahoo Sports added that Zachry, 71, died after a lengthy illness. During his 10-year major-league career, Zachry pitched for the Cincinnati Reds (1976-77), New York Mets (1977-82), Los Angeles Dodgers (1983-95) and Philadelphia Phillies (1985).
Patrick Paul Zachry was born in Richmond, TX, on April 24, 1952, and grew up in Waco. Zachry’s baseball aspirations — and his life, for that matter — almost ended abruptly and tragically. When he was 15 years old in 1966, he and a group of friends went to a girl’s house at 11:30 after going to a party with her. Zachry and another boy went to the back of the house and scratched on a window to wake her. The girl’s father woke up, assumed the house was being burglarized, and grabbed his .22-caliber pistol. He went outside and saw two people fleeing down the driveway to a car. The car pulled away before Zachry could get there, and the man shot him once in the back. The bullet missed Zachry’ spine by about an inch, according to hospital officials.
Comparatively speaking, the rest of Zachry’s youth was relatively normal. He was a pitcher for Richfield High School and also pitched for youth leagues in the summer. He once struck out 21 batters in a game while playing for an Allied Van Lines team. Zachry, who would reach a height of 6’5″, also played basketball and football. In his senior year of high school in 1970, he won a playoff game with his bat, whacking a pinch-hit single into center field to give Richfield a 2-1 win over Temple. The hit raised his batting average to .115 on the season. In the summer, he tossed a couple of no-hitters in the Senior Teenaged League and was drafted in the 19th Round of the June Amateur Draft by the Cincinnati Reds.
Zachry made his pro debut in the Florida Instructional League before making the jump to Sioux Falls of the Northern League. That promotion was a day to remember. “The day they told me about it, I had just passed out on the mound,” Zachry told Waco Times-Herald writer Lew Harris. The young righty also battled through homesickness as he made the adjustment to his new career. “Baseball isn’t all the glory and good times you think it is,” he said. “You are out there on your own, making decisions. It’s not a game anymore. You have to consider it a job.”
When it came to pitching, Zachry made the adjustment to pro ball quickly. Though he won only 3 of 8 decisions in 1970, he had a 2.76 ERA and struck out 74 batters in 75 innings. He moved to Tampa of the Class-A Florida State League in 1971 and won 12 games there against just 4 losses. He completed 7 of his 22 starts, including a couple of shutouts, and he had 115 strikeouts. His first season at Double-A Trois-Rivieres in the Eastern League resulted in a 7-7 record but a strong 2.64 ERA. That October, the Reds purchased his contract, adding him to the 40-man roster. Zachry won 12 games in Double-A in 1973 and then 10 games while pitching for Triple-A Indianapolis in both 1974 and 1975. Each spring, he attended training camp with the Reds and made a favorable impression, but never enough to reach the majors. In 1975, he led the American Association with a league-leading 2.43 ERA and was named to the league’s All-Star Team.
By 1976, the Reds were left with the decision of bringing Zachry to the majors or risk losing him through the waivers process, so he made the team as a reliever. In his debut on April 11, Zachry threw 2-2/3 scoreless innings in relief against Houston in a 9-3 win. He had a few more scoreless relief appearances and pitched rather well in a spot start. An injury to Don Gullett gave Zachry a chance to start regularly, and he never let up. He started against the Chicago Cubs on May 9 and beat them 14-2, pitching 8 innings and allowing 2 runs. He won his next three starts, getting his first career complete game and first career shutout in the process. But it was the second start, against Los Angeles and their reliable starter Don Sutton on May 17, that solidified Zachry’s spot in the rotation. After getting staked to an early lead, Zachry began to struggle and gave up a run. When he got back to the dugout, Reds manager Sparky Anderson pulled him aside and lit into him. “You are a big league pitcher,” Anderson told him, as the story was related in the newspapers. “I know that is Don Sutton you are going against. That is just a name and a name don’t mean nothing. If Sutton was better than you, he wouldn’t be losing 4-1. I want you to go out there, look in that other dugout and snub your nose at Sutton.”
Zachry did just that. That win against the Dodgers put the Reds in first place , and he went on to beat the Dodgers a total of 5 times in the regular season. He finished with a 14-7 record, which was second-best among Reds starters behind Gary Nolan’s 15 wins. His 2.74 ERA led the staff and was 5th best in the NL. He struck out a career-high 143 batters — the only time in his career he would reach three-digit strikeout totals, in fact. He added a win in the NL Championship Series by pitching 5 innings in a 6-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 2. He also got a World Series start in Game Three, facing the New York Yankees and starter Dock Ellis. He held the Yankees to 2 runs over 6-2/3 innings and picked up the win in the 6-2 victory, despite allowing 5 walks. The Reds went on to sweep the Yankees to win the World Series.
Off the field, it was an up-and-down year for the rookie. Zachry was a nervous person who admitted to throwing up before his starts because of anxiety. He also got into a scuffle with a fan after a game in August that led to assault charges being filed against him. On the bright side, Zachry was welcomed into the fold by his Reds teammates. “Most first-year players can’t expect to step right in and be accepted,” Zachry said. “But it’s easy here. These guys make you want to play.” The team even forgave Zachry for almost dry-cleaning the starting shortstop. One day, during a slump, Dave Concepcion crawled into a dryer and said it might get him on a hot streak. As a joke, Zachry turned it on, and Concepcion took a few tumbles in the dryer before his teammates could turn it off. The shortstop was uninjured, save for having all the hair on his arms burned off. “It scared me worse than it did him,” Zachry said. “I could see them sending me home and my daddy asking why and I’d have to tell him I trapped Dave Conception in the dryer.”
During the World Series, Zachry was somewhat of a sensation as the rookie Texan who helped save the Reds season from disaster. He spoke about his beloved dog Bronco, and the papers always wrote it as “dawg” to mirror his Texas twang. When asked what he was going to do with his World Series share, Zachry said, “I’m gonna take it right on out to the bank and cash it in for all ones. Then I’m gonna carry it home, throw all of them ones on the bed and jump right in the middle of it. After that I’m gonna buy my dawg a couple of cans of dog food.” After the World Series win, Zachry was named co-Rookie of the Year, after voting resulted in a tie between Zachry and San Diego pitcher Butch Metzger. But that thrill was tempered by a tragedy. While Zachry was off playing the World Series, someone stole Bronco from the pitcher’s Waco home. “I’d love to trade it to get my dawg back,” Zachry said of the award. I could not find any information about whether or not Zachry and Bronco were ever reunited.
The hardships of baseball began to set in during the 1977 season. Zachry quickly found that his success brought a distinct lack of privacy, and he had to deal with celebrity for the first time. He stumbled out of the gate once the season started; after a couple of wins in April, he went 0-4 in May and saw his ERA soar past 5. He had a 3-7 record and 5.04 ERA on June 15, when he was part of a stunning trade at the 1977 trade deadline. He, Doug Flynn, Steve Henderson and Dan Norman were all traded to the New York Mets for star pitcher Tom Seaver. Seaver, the ace of the Mets pitching staff, had feuded with the team’s ownership, and the relationship had made it impossible for him to stay in New York. It took a king’s ransom to get Seaver, and the package included the reigning co-Rookie of the Year. Despite the fact that Zachry was going from a team near first place to one that was in last place — and despite the fact that the trade happened a week before he was to get married in Cincinnati — Zachry turned his season around with the Mets. He won 5 of his last 6 decisions to finish the year with a 10-13 record, including a 7-6 record with the Mets. He dropped his ERA down to 4.25 and discovered that he and his new wife Sharron both enjoyed life in New York City. The Mets did their best to make him feel welcome. When Zachry and Sharron got married shortly after joining the team, they were treated to a honeymoon suite in Chicago, complete with flowers and champagne.
Zachary said his troubles with the Reds started in the 1976-77 offseason, when he underwent a hernia operation. The operation kept him from training in the offseason, and he developed a sore elbow during spring training. The Mets trainer discovered a couple of knots in Zachry’s elbow that were straining his right forearm. Once the trainer massaged the knots away, the pitcher started winning. Zachary faced a tall order in replacing Seaver, but he did his best. He made the 1978 All-Star Team with a 10-3 record, though he didn’t pitch in the game. He faced the Cincinnati Reds on July 24 and gave up 9 hits in 6-1/3 innings. One of those hits extended Pete Rose’s hitting streak to 37 games, tying him with Boston Brave Tommy Holmes for the longest hitting streak in National League history. Zachry had retired Rose twice on fastballs, but the hit came when Zachry threw nothing but changeups in the third at-bat. When he got back to the dugout, he was upset and kicked at a helmet. But he missed the helmet and ended up kicking a concrete step, breaking his foot and ending his 1978 season. “I was mad. I was stupid enough to throw Pete three changeups in a row — now I’ve fouled myself up,” Zachary said. “The hit didn’t bother me. What hurt was the pitching. It was a dumb call by catcher John Stearns and it was even dumber for me to accept it.” The injury left him with a 10-6 record and a 3.33 ERA in 21 starts for the season.
The broken foot was fine by 1979, but Zachary’s right arm was a problem. He made three starts in April, two in May and two more in June. He won 5 of 6 decisions and had a 3.59 ERA, but an elbow injury limited him to those 7 starts. He underwent surgery that summer to relocate the ulna nerve in his right elbow. The Mets brought Zachary and his surgically repaired elbow along slowly. He didn’t pitch in 1980 until May, and he didn’t pitch past the fifth inning of a game until June. Zachary had a much better season than his 6-10 record in 1980 would indicate. His ERA was 3.01 (sixth-best in the National League), and opposing batters hit just .241 off him with a .668 OPS. He was named the NL Pitcher of the Month for July with a 4-0 record and 1.40 ERA, including 3 shutouts. Zachry signed a 5-year contract with the Mets in January of 1981 for about $2 million. He again had a losing record in 1981, but his own pitching struggles played a part. He led all of baseball with 14 losses in that strike-shortened season, against just 7 wins, and his ERA of 4.14 was the highest mark he’d ever had with the Mets. He also led National League pitchers by surrendering 13 home runs.
Zachry almost started 1982 on a historic note. In his first start of the season on April 10 against Chicago, he took a no-hitter into the eighth inning before Bobby Molinaro singled with 2 outs. He needed help from Neil Allen to close out the game after the Cubs made the final score 9-5. Within just a few starts of that win, Zachry was out of the starting rotation, banished to the bullpen by manager George Bamberger with an ERA well over 5. Zachry returned to the starting rotation on May 19 with a 4-2 complete-game win over Cincinnati (and Tom Seaver, of all people), but the assignment was only temporary. Zachry moved in and out of the rotation all season long, finishing with 16 starts and 20 relief appearances. He recorded his first career save on August 15 against the Cubs. He was brought into the game to preserve a 5-3 lead after relievers Mike Scott and Jesse Orosco had walked the bases loaded. Zachry got Keith Moreland to hit a sacrifice fly for the second out of the inning and then fanned Jody Davis to secure the 5-4 win. Along with the save, Zachry had 6 wins, 9 losses and a 4.05 ERA.
By the end of 1982, the Mets were starting to more toward younger pitchers, and the 30-year-old Zachry asked for a trade. The Mets sent him to the Los Angeles Dodgers in late December in exchange for outfielder Jorge Orta. He kept his expectations low compared to his hopes for the team. “All I want to do is be a winning pitcher,” he said. “I want to get these guys back in the World Series, put a ring on their fingers and a little extra money in their wallets.” Aside from one spot start, the Dodgers used Zachry as a reliever in 1983, and he responded with an excellent season. If ERA+ is your measuring stick, then with a 145 ERA+, it was the best year of the pitcher’s career. Zachry made 40 appearances and won 6 of 7 decisions, with a 2.49 ERA in 61-1/3 innings. He didn’t allow a single earned run in the month of August and won 3 games. One of those was his only start of the season, and it came against the New York Mets on August 30. Zachry worked into the 6th inning and scattered 6 hits and 4 walks while striking out 4 batters. Even though he was several injuries past being a dominant fastball pitcher, he was still an asset to the Dodgers. “Zachry pitched a heckuva game,” Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda said of his start. “What Zachry lacks in stuff, his bulldog pulls him through.”
The Dodgers finished first in the NL West in 1983 but lost to the pennant-winning Phillies in 4 games. Zachry pitched in 2 of those games and gave up a run in 4 innings. He pitched in a career-high 58 games for the Dodgers in 1984 and recorded 2 saves, but his 5-6 record and 3.81 were significant downgrades from the previous season. The Dodgers traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies on February 4, 1985, in exchange for first baseman Al Oliver. Zachry appeared in 10 games for Philadelphia, with no record and a 4.26 ERA. He walked 11 and struck out 8 in 12-2/3 innings. His time with the Phillies ended on June 6, when he was designated for assignment to make room for veteran Jerry Koosman, who was activated from the disabled list. The move also ended his playing career.
Zachry pitched for parts of 10 seasons in the majors and recorded a 69-67 record and a 3.52 ERA. He started 154 of his 293 career appearances and had 29 complete games, 7 shutouts and 3 saves. He struck out 669 batters and walked 495. Zachry had a career 10.7 WAR per Baseball Reference, and his ERA+ was 102.
Zachry took a job in 1987 as the pitching coach of the Class-A Vero Beach Dodgers. While working in the minors as a pitching instructor for a few years, he also launched Pat Zachry’s Batter-Up in Waco, a batting cage located near a little league park. The cages were intended to benefit the young ballplayers in Waco, but it attracted a diverse crowd. “We get doctors and lawyers in here who haven’t hit balls in 20 years,” Zachry noted. “They go straight to the adult speed (87 mph at 45 feet). All you hear is 12 thuds — the ball hitting the back mat — and then they come in here covered with sweat and say, “Man, I love it.”
Zachry returned to pitching and played in the Senior Professional Baseball Association in 1989, with the St. Petersburg Pelicans. The Pelicans won the league championship, but Zachry had an ineffective, injury-riddled season, capped off with a broken leg courtesy of a line drive off the bat of Pat Putnam. “I think a lot of people initially felt it was going to be all fun and games,” he said. “But I tell you what, it turned out to be pretty serious. There were no knockdown pitches or charging the mound. Not this year, anyway. But it was good baseball.”
The Waco resident ran instructional clinics in his hometown and made occasional appearances at card shows and other events. Zachry also worked as a physical education teacher at South Bosque Elementary School. He was inducted into the Waco ISD Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003. Sharron Zachry was killed in a car accident in 2016 that also injured her husband. She had been a school principal and a beloved educator in Texas for many years before her retirement. They were married for 39 years and had two children, Josh and Meredith.
When Zachry first arrived with the Mets, it took some time and conversations with his new manager Joe Torre and pitching coach Rube Walker, as well as a local clergyman, to get over the fact that he would be known as “the guy who was traded for Tom Seaver.” “We all agreed that there was only one Tom Seaver,” Zachry said in a 1981 interview. “When we decided that, we also agreed that there was only one of me and that the only thing I could do was my best. If people liked that, fine, and if they didn’t, that was fine, too. Maybe it sounds like oversimplification but that was what the whole thing boiled down to. I felt a whole lot better about everything after that.”
Follow me on Instagram: @rip_mlb
Follow me on Facebook: ripbaseball
Follow me on Bluesky: @ripmlb
Follow me on Threads: @rip_mlb
Follow me on X: @rip_mlb
Support RIP Baseball
RIP Baseball 