Atlanta Braves Opening Day countdown: 39, arm quartet

Coach Extradinaire

Tom House is generally known for his work after he left the game as an active player for two reasons – first, he was an incredible pitching coach and throwing instructor. House would work with pitchers and potential NFL quarterbacks for years as a consultant after he finished up a two-decade-long coaching career in the major leagues, mostly with the Texas Rangers.

House’s second claim to fame is that he’s honest. House admitted to using steroids during the 1970s and has spoken often about how he was nowhere near the only one in the game using steroids at the time. That’s put a significant mark against those who want to deem steroids as a problem that appeared in the game in the late 1980s and exploded in the 1990s.

Originally an Atlanta Braves 3rd round draft pick in the June secondary draft, House moved quickly through the Braves system to make his major league debut in 1971. The lefty reliever would pitch 5 seasons with the Braves before being traded to the Boston Red Sox. In his 5 seasons with the Braves, he tallied 185 appearances, 279 1/3 innings, 28 saves, a 3.06 ERA, a 1.22 WHIP, and a 103/160 BB/K ratio.

Mad Hungarian

One of the more entertaining pitchers on the mound, Al Hrabosky had lost some of the zip on his once-dominant fastball by the time he got to the Atlanta Braves in 1980. By then he was relying primarily on his intimidation on the mound to get things done, and that intimidation routine was quite entertaining, to say the least.

From 1980-1982, Hrabosky appeared in 100 games for the Braves, tossing 130 2/3 innings, posting a 3.51 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, and posting a 57/64 BB/K ratio.