Pole

TROUT CREEK — His playing career may not have played out the way he would have liked but Trout Creek native Dick Pole put together a solid major league career as a pitching coach.

In all, he filled that role for four clubs. Much of that time came with the Chicago Cubs, whose manager, Dusty Baker, had a long association with him.

“We got along real well,” Pole recalled in an interview in 1996. “He (Baker) liked the way I worked with pitching staffs.”

Pole was first noticed by big league scouts in 1969 after he pitched several strong games for the town baseball team.

“He (Pole) had a good arm,” recalled longtime Ontonagon County sports fan Dan Ojala. “Plus, he had the size (6-foot-3, 205 pounds) and was a good athlete.”

Pole was a standout basketball player at Ewen-Trout Creek High School (ETC), according to Tom Caudill, who would coach later at ETC.

“He was a strong inside player,” said Caudill. “He also had a good shot from mid-range.”

The Boston Red Sox signed him to a contract in 1969. He had good seasons at Greenville, Winter Haven, Winston-Salem and Pawtucket, the Red Sox International League affiliate.

He was named Most Valuable Pitcher in the International League after compiling a 12-9 record with a 2.03 earned run average in 1975.

After Red Sox starting pitcher Ray Culp was injured, Pole was called up to the big team later in 1975 and posted a 3-2 mark.

After seeing spot duty in 1974, the Upper Peninsula product returned to the majors in 1975. He was performing ably until being seriously injured when a line drive off the bat of Tony Muser of the Baltimore Orioles struck him in the face.

Pole had a four-hit shutout going into the ninth inning when the incident took place. He suffered a broken cheekbone and retina damage from the line drive, which bounced into left field for a double.

Although he recovered gradually and pitched again later in the season. Pole was never the same pitcher afterward.

He did, however, make a brief appearance against Cincinnati in the 1975 World Series.

After posting a 6-5 record and a respectable 4.33 ERA in 1976, he ended up going to the Seattle Mariners in the 1977 expansion draft.

He posted a 7-12 record for the Mariners, who were playing in the cavernous King Dome, a place where homers flew out on a regular basis.

“It (King Dome) was a very tough place to pitch in,” Pole later said. “I didn’t like it at all.”

After a 4-11 mark in 1978, Pole’s pitching career was over. He ended up with a 25-37 record with a 5.05 ERA.

After spending some time in the Mexican League, he was hired by Chicago Cubs’ Don Zimmer to be the pitching coach in 1988.

He was there for four seasons and was often credited with making Greg Maddux a compete pitcher.

“He (Pole) told me to just concentrate on getting batters out …. and not trying to strike everyone out,” Hall-of-Famer Maddux said after recording his 3,000th strikeout in 2005. “He taught me how to pitch.”

He also would be a coach with San Francisco, the Los Angeles Angels and Cincinnati before ending his career in 2009.

Dick was elected to the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame in 1988.