Роберт Велч: Звезда американского бейсбола

American baseball player (1956–2014)

Robert Lynn Welch (November 3, 1956 – June 9, 2014) was an American professional baseball starting pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Los Angeles Dodgers (1978–87) and Oakland Athletics (1988–94). Prior to his professional career, he attended Eastern Michigan University, where he played college baseball for the Eastern Michigan Hurons baseball team. He helped lead the Hurons, coached by Ron Oestrike, to the 1976 College World Series, losing to Arizona in the Championship Game. Welch was a two time MLB All Star, and he won the American League Cy Young Award as the league's best pitcher in 1990. He was a three time World Series champion – twice as a player and once as a coach. He is the most recent major league pitcher to win at least 25 games in a single season (27 in 1990).

Welch gained national fame with the Dodgers during their 1978 season, when as a 21 year old rookie he struck out Reggie Jackson of the New York Yankees with two men on base and two out in the top of the ninth inning of Game 2 of the 1978 World Series. On May 29, 1980, Welch pitched a 3–0 one hitter against the Atlanta Braves, facing the minimum 27 batters. The only Atlanta base runner was Larvell Blanks, who singled in the fourth inning and was retired on a double play. Welch won the 1981 World Series, his first, as the Dodgers defeated the Yankees in six games. In 1983, Welch became the sixth pitcher to throw a complete game shutout and hit a solo home run for his team's only run. This was not accomplished again until Noah Syndergaard did so in 2019.

Welch was the third starting pitcher in the rotation for the 1989 World Series champion Oakland A's, compiling a regular season record of 17 8 and recording a win in his only start in the American League Championship Series against the Toronto Blue Jays. In an odd twist of fate, however, Welch did not throw a single pitch against the San Francisco Giants during the World Series itself. Just minutes before Welch was to take the mound in Game 3, Candlestick Park and the Bay Area were struck by the Loma Prieta earthquake, which caused extensive damage in the region and forced the postponement of the game. When the Series was resumed 11 days later, A's manager Tony La Russa opted to re use his Game 1 starter, Dave Stewart, for Game 3 in place of Welch, and his Game 2 starter, Mike Moore, for Game 4 in place of originally scheduled starter Storm Davis. The strategy worked, as the A's swept the Series in four games, giving Welch his second World Series title. A two time All Star (1980 and 1990), Welch won 14 or more games in eight years, with a career high 27 in 1990. He received the Cy Young Award that season, and was considered in the MVP vote. His 27 wins were the most by any pitcher since Steve Carlton also won 27 in , and as of 2023 stands as the last time a pitcher has won 25 or more games in a season (the closest anyone has come to that mark since is 24, accomplished by John Smoltz in 1996, Randy Johnson in 2002, and Justin Verlander in 2011). The last pitcher to win more games in a season was Denny McLain, with 31 wins in Nineteen of his wins were saved by Dennis Eckersley, which remains a record. Welch was the starting pitcher of Game 2 of the 1990 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. Welch's personal catcher throughout much of his Oakland Athletics career was Ron Hassey, as opposed to Terry Steinbach, who caught the majority of the Oakland pitching staff.

In 1991, Welch and The New York Times sports columnist George Vecsey co wrote Five O'Clock Comes Early: A Cy Young Award Winner Recounts His Greatest Victory, which chronicled Welch's battle with alcoholism that he said started at the age of sixteen: "I would get a buzz on and I would stop being afraid of girls. I was shy, but with a couple of beers in me, it was all right." He became a pitching coach at Presentation College, an NAIA school in Aberdeen, South Dakota in 2014.

Welch died of a broken neck resulting from an accidental fall in the bathroom of his Seal Beach, California, home on June 9, 2014, at the age of 57. The Orange County Coroner's Office ruled that Welch suffered a cervical spine fracture "with epidural hemorrhage due to hyperextension of neck" suffered in the fall, negating earlier reports that he had died from a heart attack.