|
Jim Chesbro and Tom Reisdorph circa 1983 |
In 1983, the IAL underwent an expansion from eight to ten teams. The two teams, the Hell's Kitchen Twelvetrees managed by Jim Chesbro and the Marine Drive Janitors managed by Dave Mensch, went in opposite directions almost immediately. While the Janitors languished in 9th place, the Twelvetrees took the IAL by storm thanks in part to their #1 expansion pick, shortstop Robin Yount who hit .327 and scored 121 runs. When all was said and done, the Chesbro took his team to the playoffs and won the IAL Championship.
The Most Valuable Player award that year went to East Moline Bomber Brian Downing who had 43 homeruns and led the league with 146 rbis. Northeast Cardinal firstbasemen Al Oliver won the batting title with a .340 batting average. Chicago Champion thirdbaseman Mike Schmidt led everyone with 47 homeruns. He might have won the MVP had it not been for his .245 batting average and his relatively low 106 rbi total.
There were two words to describe dominant pitching in 1983. Steve Carlton. Carlton followed up on his triple crown, Cy Young year of 1982 with an equally if not more impressive performance. He may not have had a 1.69 ERA like he did in 1982 but in comparison to the rest of the league, he simply dominated. Once again, he had a triple crown season leading the IAL in wins (2.56), ERA (2.56) and strikeouts (266). Not only that he led in pretty much every other category including complete games (21), shutouts (6), innings pitched (295), WHIP (.98), and K/IP (8.12). Needless to say, he won the Cy Young award.
Record performances in 1983 (and rank all-time):
| Steve Carlton | Northeast Cardinals | 266 K | 10th |