Felix Day and Harvey Day: The Harrowing History of Major League Clubs Promoting Starting Pitchers

Early in April, a few minutes after 1 o'clock on a perfect Sunday afternoon in Seattle, a few thousand people in Safeco Field's left-field stands, most of them wearing bright yellow t-shirts, stood and cheered. Félix Hernández, the Mariners' starting pitcher and perennial ace, was walking slowly from the bullpen to the bench, shortly before taking the mound against the visiting Oakland Athletics.

The yellow t-shirts were free, as were the large yellow "K" placards; the few thousand tickets were discounted. Welcome to "The King's Court," a portion of Safeco Field reserved for Hernández's cheering section during each of his home starts.

The King's Court hasn't convened since May 27, when Hernández gave up six runs and lost to the lowly Twins; shortly afterward, he was placed on the DL with a calf injury. He won't return to the Mariners' rotation until after the All-Star break. Even the King, who leads the major leagues in innings pitched since 2009, isn't a sure thing. Which reminds us once again just how dicey starting pitchers can be. Even the best of them.

Still, promoting starting pitchers to goose the box office is irresistible. The phenomenon is hardly new—it has been happening since at least 1912. That September, the Boston Red Sox altered their rotation so Smoky Joe Wood, who'd won 13 straight decisions, would face the Washington Senators' Walter Johnson, who earlier in the season had set a league record by winning 16 straight decisions, in a "challenge match."

According to one of Wood's biographers, "a circus-like crowd estimated at 35,000 packed every crevice of Fenway Park—filling the stands, outfield and even foul territory along the right- and left-field foul lines—and cheered wildly with every strike Joe burned across."

Wood beat Johnson 1-0, and ultimately tied Johnson's record with 16 straight wins (an American League record equaled twice in the 1930s, but never broken).

Generally speaking, though, promoting pitchers has never been easy. The notion of a set "rotation" of starters was largely impractical until the 1950s or '60s, so fans could not plan on seeing a particular starting pitcher until a day or two before the game.

Occasionally it did happen, though. In 1948, Cleveland Indians impresario Bill Veeck signed Negro Leagues legend Satchel Paige, who was then 42 but still had plenty left in the tank. After eight relief outings, Paige finally got his first major league start on August 3. Veeck, a master of promotion, made sure everyone knew it was coming. And on a Tuesday night, more than 72,000 fans packed Cleveland Stadium to set the attendance record for a major league night game.

In 1973, the Texas Rangers drafted high-school pitcher David Clyde with the No. 1 overall pick; less than three weeks later, still just 18 years old, Clyde started against the Minnesota Twins in his professional debut. Clyde reportedly began his career in the majors instead of the minors as a condition of signing with the team. But when Clyde pitched well and the Rangers averaged nearly 35,000 fans in his first two starts, management could not justify demoting him. By season's end, and even with a huge attendance dropoff in September—which, coincidentally or not, matched his late-season performance—Clyde's starts averaged 18,188 tickets sold, compared to just 6,780 sold in games Clyde didn't start.

In 1976, unheralded Detroit Tigers rookie Mark Fidrych opened the season as a little-used relief pitcher, pitching just twice in the season's first five weeks. Finally pressed into service as a starter in the middle of May, Fidrych pitched a two-hitter to beat Cleveland 2-1.

Ten days later, he went into the rotation for good. And on the 28th of June, Mark "The Bird" Fidrych became a national sensation. With the Yankees visiting Detroit for ABC's Monday Night Baseball broadcast, nearly 48,000 fans packed the stands for Fidryich's act, which included not just his fine pitching, but also his conversations with the baseball, occasional mound-grooming, and various other things nobody had ever seen before.

"Birdmania" was in full flight, as fans packed the stands around the league and Fidrych showed up on the covers of "Rolling Stone" and (with Sesame Street's Big Bird) "Sports Illustrated."

In later years, Fernando Valenzuela led to "Fernandomania" in Dodger Stadium; Dwight Gooden electrified Shea Stadium; Pedro Martínez, Boston's Fenway Park; When Nationals phenom Stephen Strasburg—like David Clyde, a No. 1 overall draft pick—made his MLB debut in 2010, more than 40,000 fans were in the ballpark for a Tuesday night game featuring two losing teams; for weeks, fans had been anticipating what they called "Strasmas." And Strasburg more than justified the hype, striking out 14 Pirates in seven innings, one strikeout short of the all-time record for a major league debut.

But none of those pitchers were ever promoted quite like the Seattle Mariners have promoted Félix Hernández.

Entering 2011, the Mariners' promotions department had little to sell. The M's had lost 101 games in 2010, finishing 29 games out of first place, and during the subsequent off-season they didn't acquire even one high-profile player.

What they did have? They had reigning Cy Young Award winner Félix Hernández, easily the best pitcher the organization's farm system had ever produced. For three or four years, internet-savvy Mariners fans had already been wishing one another "Happy Felix Day" upon each of Hernández's scheduled starts. So that spring, someone in the Mariners' promotions department had an original idea: Why not set aside a section of seats—initially Section 150, in the left-field corner of the lower stands—and sell discounted tickets, throwing in a free t-shirt and "K card" for good measure?

Five years later, The King's Court is still going strong. Sometimes it's just Sections 149 and 150, down the left-field line, but sometimes it's more; in that early April game, Hernández's first home start of the season, there were seven King's Court sections, both lower and upper deck, waving their K-cards and chanting "K-K-K-K" every time The King got two strikes on a batter (they would be rewarded 10 times with strikeouts, but in what has been a familiar site for many years, he wound up without a decision when the bullpen blew the lead). In 2012, to celebrate Hernández's perfect game a week earlier, the entire stadium became the first-ever "Supreme Court," with every fan receiving the usual goodies.

Since 2011, at least seven other teams have devoted what promotions people call "player sections" to starting pitchers, including the Rangers' Yu Darvish, the Tampa Bay Rays' David Price, and the Miami Marlins' José Fernandez—all names that bring to mind the usual impermanence of these things. Darvish and Fernandez both suffered elbow injuries that sidelined them for more than a year apiece; Price was traded by the Rays last year, and now toils for the Red Sox.

After 1973, David Clyde won only three games for the Rangers (and 14 in his career). After 1976, Mark Fidrych won only 10 games in the majors. Smoky Joe Wood, arguably baseball's greatest pitcher in 1912, began suffering various injuries in 1913, missed most of 1916 and '17, and in 1918 returned to the majors as an outfielder. In the here and now, Strasburg is having a fantastic season, but he just came off the disabled list (again). While he's certainly had his moments, Strasburg was only just named to his second All Star team and has never finished higher than ninth in Cy Young balloting.

Pitcher-centric promotions do live on, and not just in Seattle. This season the A's introduced a "Sonny Siders" section for Sonny Gray, and the Rangers are promoting Cole Hamels with "Hamels Heroes." Hamels has been great for the first-place Rangers; Gray is 3-7 with a 5.12 ERA for the last-place A's.

In 2012, the Mets' Matt Harvey arrived in the majors without the fanfare of Stasburg—he'd been the seventh pick in the draft rather than the first, plus his minor-league numbers weren't nearly as impressive—but he struck out 11 Diamondbacks in his first start, and it wasn't long before Mets fans couldn't wait for the next "Harvey Day."

It also wasn't long before Harvey suffered an elbow injury that kept him out of the Mets' rotation for more than a year. You can still buy Harvey Day t-shirts, but they're heavily discounted, perhaps because Harvey has somehow become the Mets' fifth-best starting pitcher. They might get even cheaper now that Harvey has been placed on thee DL again.

Back in Seattle, there's little reason to think the King's Court won't outlast Hamels Heroes and Sonny Siders and all the others; indeed, the King's Court might forever remain not just the first, but the best. But for every King's Court, there are a dozen Harvey Days, as ephemeral as a young phenom's devastating slider—before, that is, the seemingly inevitable snap of that elbow ligament.

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