Chiropractic is one crazy "science".

Man, possibly the greatest tragedy of my youth (probably 2nd to Lyman Bostock). Big, overpowering, scary guy. I hadn't heard that he'd actually had an angiogram. The way I'd heard it, the Astros were dismissive of his symptoms because they just thought he was lazy. Either way, man, what a tragedy.

The article notes that his #1 comp on BB-Ref (by age, ages 29-30) was Bob Gibson. That's a bit misleading, since Gibson's ERA+ thru age 29 beats Richard 121-105 (Richard's home park was the Astrodome). The guy he reminds me of was Randy Johnson. Big, overpowering, scary, and a bit wild early on. They both started to figure it out around the same age in their late 20's. Johnson went on to win 4 straight Cys; Richard had a stroke and ended up homeless. Here's a comparison of them by age: J.R. Richard v. Randy Johnson

Excellent choice for this series.

I should be on this list. Had coach put me in, we would have won state, no doubt in my mind.

Wow, that was 1980. Seemed I was much younger than that when this happened.

One of my favorites and he was indeed intimidating at his peak, but I don't think you can honestly say he was on an HoF track. Kiko's Johnson comp is apt which means that Richard needed an excellent 30s to have an HoF career. The article notes Gibson as the top comp and Kiko's pointed out the limitation of that comp. The others on the "through age 30" list are similar to Richard in many ways -- sometimes dominant, somehow overall performance not always as good as you'd think, short careers. Appier, Jim Maloney, Sid Fernandez, Ramon Marinez, David Cone -- and some of them had better ERA+ than Richard (esp Appier who was a stud). The article notes he was nearly halfway on Black/Gray/etc. Yeah, but he was 30. Pitchers are different than hitters but I'd guess most HoF pitchers are well over halfway by the time they're 30 then close it out and pass milestones. (Also no CYA, only one AS.)

It was definitely possible and there are alternate universes where he's in the HoF but he would have needed to remain highly effective through age 40 just to reach 250 wins in this one. It's hard to see how he could end up looking better than Blyleven barring a couple of CYAs in his early 30s.

J. R. kind of looks like he had finally put all together, though, doesn't it? Basically, his H/9 and BB/9 the year before and the year he was in when he had the stroke had significantly gone down. It looks like he was on his way to his best season by far.

#5 ... for sure which is why it's definitely possible that he'd have made the HoF. But he still has to keep up a very high level of performance to get to HoF-type numbers given where he was. Richard debuted in 1971 at age 21; Blyleven debuted in 1970 at age 19 so they're reasonable contemporaries:

JR: 1600 IP, 108 ERA+, 107-71, 1 20-win, no CYA, 1 AS
BB: 3000 IP, 127 ERA+, 167-148, 1 20-win, no CYA, 1 AS (through 30)

So Richard is already well behind through age 30 in everything but W% (which is important). Richard had no postseason performance and the 80s Astros likely wouldn't have given him much opportunity. Blyleven added another 2000 IP at a 108 ERA+ and 120-102 record (no CYA, 1 AS). So Blyleven had Richard's career from ages 31-41. So that kinda means Richard would have needed Bert's early career in his 30s to match him.

Not that Blyleven should be the minimum standard for an HoF pitcher but he seems to be for the voters. Now, if Richard has that 1980 level of dominance for a while, wins a couple of CYAs, he starts to look pretty good (e.g. Catfish). But his counting totals through age 30 were just too low for a career case to be likely and 30-31 is usually not a good time to start building a peak dominance case (but that's why the Unit comp is interesting).