The great Camilo Pascual was born in La Habana, or Havana Cuba, on this day in 1934.
As a young kid, my favorite Cuban baseball player was Camilo Pascual. He pitched most his career for the original Washington Senators who became the Minnesota Twins in 1961.
As a Senator, Pascual pitched for very bad teams. It got better when the team moved to Minnesota and the Twins became a perennial contender with a young Harmon Killebrew, power hitter Bob Allison, the very good lefty Jim Kaat and fellow Cubans Tony Oliva & Zoilo Versalles.
His numbers were great with the Twins: 20-11 in 1962 and 20-9 in 1963. He led the league in strikeouts 3 years in a row. In other words, he was one of the best right handed pitchers in baseball.
Overall, he won 176 games with a very good 3.63 career ERA. He would have easily won 230 games with a better team!
We say happy birthday to one of my heroes. I don't know what Camilo is doing these days. I read a few years ago that he was scouting for the Twins in Latin America.
Happy birthday to the great Camilo. I hope that you really enjoy your birthday!
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