1975 Profile: Doc Medich

"Doc. A medical student with a decidedly adult view of baseball.
'I've been at an operating table when hearts have stopped beating,' he says. 'The worst that can happen in a baseball game is that you lose. When someone dies on the operating table, then the game's really over.' He stepped into the role of the team's ace after an injury to Mel Stottlemyre and responded very well. Particularly tough in pressure games, Doc pitched magnificently against the Milwaukee Brewers on the next-to-last night of the season, but a misplay cost him his 20th victory of the season and the Yankees a chance at the division title.
A bright, introspective man, Doc was born in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania and is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh where he currently attends med school. He plans to be an orthopedic surgeon. Baseball is a satisfying but temporary career for him.
'I'll know when I've had enough,' he says. 'It will be a gut feeling.'"

-Joe Gergen, The Complete Handbook of Baseball, 1975 Edition

"In only his second major league season, George Medich turned into a 19-game winner for the Yankees in 1974. He was the American League's Player of the Month for July when he pitched the Yankees into the pennant race, and with Mel Stottlemyre's injury, became a big man all summer on the pitching staff.
George has become as well known for his winter interest as for his baseball activities. He is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Pittsburgh and is scheduled to become Dr. Medich early in 1977. The intensity with which he approaches both pursuits is exemplary.
Medich, a college football player, has adjusted well to the demands of a major league schedule. In the minors, he never worked more than 119 innings in any season but has pitched 515 in two years with the Yankees. The work has agreed with him and he has earned the respect of all American hitters.
George is married and the father of a two-year-old girl. He was only the 29th round selection of the Yankees in the June 1970 Draft, but has gone on to emerge as one of the outstanding stars of the American League."

-The New York Yankees Official 1975 Yearbook

"George 'Doc' Medich tied with Pat Dobson as the leading winner on the Yankee staff in 1974. It followed a brilliant rookie campaign which produced the fifth-best earned run average in the American League. Doc was the American League's Player of the Month for July 1974 when he won five straight complete games, including an eight-inning no-hitter (broken up in the ninth) against Kansas City. He led the staff in complete games.
Having never pitched at the Triple-A level, the Yanks brought him up in 1972 to pitch the Mayor's Trophy Game. He beat the Mets 2-1, then rejoined the club after the West Haven schedule was complete. 1973 was his first spring training, as he had always been in school at that time.
Medich was an all-around athlete who starred in baseball and football at Pitt, after a career of baseball, football and basketball in high school. He's now a fourth-year medical student who hopes to become an MD in 1977. Dr. Bobby Brown, the former Yankee who became a heart specialist in Fort Worth, has been an advisor to George during his career.
Doc has a strong arm and has adjusted well in the past two years to a major league schedule; he never pitched more than 119 innings in any one season in the minors."

-1975 New York Yankees Press/TV/Radio Guide