The great Camilo Pascual was born in Havana, Cuba, on this day in 1934. As a young kid, Pascual was my favorite Cuban baseball player. He pitched most of 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 and 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 and 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, but I read a few years ago he was scouting for the Twins in Latin America.
Happy birthday to the great Camilo. I hope that you really enjoy your birthday!