I couldn't find much information about Jim Hughes. When I typed his name into Google, I got all sorts of non-baseball hits. The first baseball hit I got was for a Jim Hughes who played in the 1950s. I had to type in "Jim Hughes Minnesota Twins" in order to get anything about this Jim Hughes.
He spent several years in the minors before coming up to the Twins in 1974. His best season was in 1975 when he won 16 games for the Twins. He fell off a bit in 1976 (9-14, 4.98). He didn't pitch much at all after that. He appeared in 4 games in 1977, then pitched in 8 games for AAA Tucson in 1978 and in 17 games for AAA Albuquerque in 1979.
I think Jim had arm trouble and didn't bounce back well. Shoulder surgery was a death sentence to a pitcher in the 60's and 70's.
ReplyDeleteJim looks like he's been photographed at his nephew's high school field.
I found his minor league stats on the beta version of baseball-reference.com. It looks like he was sent down to Tacoma in late April 1977 and never made it back to the bigs. He went 9-10, 5.15 in 1977. He then bounced around AAA before calling it a day. Perhaps he got hurt, was sent to the minors to work it out, and never got back.
ReplyDeleteI recall Jim Hughes having some really stellar games with the Twins, esp. during that '75 season. For an out pitch, he threw something called a "palm ball." Not sure...would that be a variant on a changeup?
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