Gaylord Perry
Gaylord Jackson Perry was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for eight teams from 1962 to 1983, becoming one of the most durable and successful pitchers in history. A five-time All-Star, Perry was the first pitcher to win the Cy Young Award in both leagues. He won the American League award in 1972 after leading the league with 24 wins with a 1.92 earned run average for the fifth-place Cleveland Indians, and took the National League award in 1978 with the San Diego Padres after again leading the league with 21 wins; his Cy Young Award announcement just as he turned the age of 40 made him the oldest to win the award, which stood as a record for 26 years. He and his older brother Jim Perry, who were Cleveland teammates in 1974-1975, became the first brothers to both win 200 games in the major leagues and remain the only brothers to both win Cy Young Awards.
Perry gained notoriety for doctoring baseballs, and perhaps even more so for making batters think he was throwing them on a regular basis—he went so far as to title his 1974 autobiography Me and the Spitter, though he claimed that his use of the prohibited practice was in the past. He was the subject of two decades of controversy during which opposing managers, umpires and league officials frequently attempted to catch him in a violation, even revising rules and guidelines; despite the constant scrutiny, he was not ejected from a game for the practice until his 21st season in the majors in 1982. In the meantime, Perry firmly established himself as one of baseball's most accomplished pitchers. He won 20 games five times and struck out 200 batters eight times, leading his league in innings pitched and complete games twice each. He pitched a no-hitter in September 1968, three weeks after throwing a one-hitter, and also pitched thirteen career two-hitters. In 1978 Perry became the third pitcher to register 3,000 strikeouts, and while pitching for the Seattle Mariners in 1982, he became the first pitcher in 19 years to join the 300 win club; he joined Walter Johnson to become only the second pitcher to reach both milestones.
During a 22-year career, with most of its second half spent with losing teams, Perry compiled 314 wins; upon his retirement, he ranked third in major league history with 3,534 strikeouts and his 690 games started placing him behind only Cy Young's 815. His 5,350 innings pitched ranked fourth; he had been the first right-handed pitcher since the 1920s to surpass 5,000 innings. He was the last pitcher to throw 300 complete games and was then the eighth-oldest pitcher ever to start a major league game. Perry was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991 in his third year of eligibility, a delay widely regarded as resulting from his career-long controversies.
Early life
Gaylord Jackson Perry was born on September 15, 1938, in Williamston, North Carolina, and named after a close friend of his father's, who had died while having his teeth pulled.Gaylord was the son of Evan and Ruby Perry, who were farmers. Evan had been a noted athlete. Gaylord grew up with his older brother Jim and younger sister Carolyn in Williamston and the small area of Farmlife, a populated place located within the Township of Griffins, a minor division of Martin County. Gaylord assisted his father with farming on their family's land in this area. Jim and Gaylord both began playing baseball with their father during their lunch break on the farm as youths.
Gaylord attended Williamston High School, where he played football, basketball, and baseball. He was All-State as an offensive and defensive end as a sophomore and junior, before giving up football. In basketball, Gaylord and Jim helped Williamston to reach the state finals in Gaylord's first year. In his career at Williamston, Gaylord averaged nearly 30 points and 20 rebounds per game, as Williamston had a 94–8 record. He would turn down dozens of college basketball scholarship offers.
In baseball, Perry initially was a third baseman as a freshman, and Jim was the pitcher for Williamston. However, near the end of Gaylord's first year, he began sharing pitching duties with Jim. In 1955 Williamston High won the North Carolina Class A state tournament, as the Perry brothers threw back-to-back shutouts to sweep the best-of-three finals. Gaylord had a 33–5 win–loss record in his high school career.
As a teenager, Perry played semi-professional baseball for the Alpine Cowboys in Alpine, Texas at Kokernot Field. Perry and his brother both attended Campbell University, where they played college baseball.
Pitching style
Perry said he was taught the spitball in 1964 by pitcher Bob Shaw. Perry had a reputation throughout his career for doctoring baseballs, and was inspected on the mound by umpires and monitored closely by opposing teams. During a game on April 6, 1974, for Cleveland against New York, Perry threw a pitch that umpire Marty Springstead signaled to be illegal as the "first victim of baseball's new enforcement" of the spitball rule. On August 23, 1982, he was ejected from a game against the Boston Red Sox for doctoring the ball for the first and only time of his career; though umpire Dave Phillips ejected him without inspecting the ball, Perry was still suspended for 10 days.Perry reportedly approached the makers of Vaseline about endorsing the product and was allegedly rebuffed with a one-line postcard reading, "We soothe babies' backsides, not baseballs." Former manager Gene Mauch famously quipped "He should be in the Hall of Fame with a tube of K-Y Jelly attached to his plaque."
Gene Tenace, who caught Perry when they played for the San Diego Padres, said: "I can remember a couple of occasions when I couldn't throw the ball back to him because it was so greasy that it slipped out of my hands. I just walked out to the mound and flipped the ball back to him."
Perry used his reputation to psych out the hitters too. As he looked in to his catcher for the pitch selection, Perry would touch various parts of his head, such as his eyebrows and his cap. In this manner, he may or may not have been applying a foreign substance to the ball on any particular pitch. Reggie Jackson was so upset after striking out against Perry in a 1982 game that Jackson was ejected from the game. Jackson returned from the dugout with a container of Gatorade, splashing Gatorade onto the field while yelling at the umpire that Perry should be allowed to use the Gatorade on the baseball.
The spitball was not his only method for upsetting batters. Sportswriter Joe Posnanski described Perry's "Puffball," writing that Perry "would load up on the resin bag and so when he threw the pitch, this big puff of resin smoke would form and the hitter would have a hard time even finding the ball, much less hitting it. The puff ball was outlawed in 1981 strictly because of Perry."
Professional career
Minor leagues
The San Francisco Giants signed Perry on June 3, 1958, and he received a $90,000 signing bonus. He made his professional debut in the 1958 season with the St. Cloud Rox team in the Class A level Northern League, compiling a 9–5 record and a 2.39 earned run average in 17 games.In 1959, the Giants promoted Perry to the Double-A Corpus Christi Giants, where he posted a 10–11 record and 4.05 ERA in 41 games. He remained with the franchise as they became the Rio Grande Valley Giants in the 1960 season, and he finished with a 9–13 record and an improved ERA of 2.82 in 32 games. His performance earned him a promotion to the Triple-A Tacoma Giants for the 1961 season. At Tacoma, Perry led the Pacific Coast League in wins and innings pitched in 1961.
San Francisco Giants (1962–1971)
Perry made his major league debut with the Giants on April 14, 1962, against the Cincinnati Reds. In the game, he allowed four earned runs on five hits in innings, picking up a no-decision. He appeared in 13 games for the Giants, but had a 3–1 record and a 5.23 ERA and was sent back down to Tacoma in June, where he went on to lead the PCL with a 2.44 ERA. Perry was promoted back to the Giants in September, but was not on the roster for the team's World Series appearance; it would be the only time in his career that he pitched for a pennant winner.After his brief call-up in 1962, Perry joined the Giants in 1963 to work mostly as a relief pitcher, going 1–6 with a 4.03 ERA in 31 appearances. Nevertheless, he was given the opportunity to join the starting rotation in 1964. In 44 games, Perry finished with a 2.75 ERA and a 12–11 record, both second-best for the Giants that year behind Juan Marichal. In 1965, his record was 8–12, and with two full seasons as a starter, his 24–30 record attracted little national attention.
Perry's breakout season came in 1966 with a tremendous start, going 20–2 into August. Perry and Marichal became known as a "1–2 punch" to rival the famous Koufax/Drysdale combination of the Los Angeles Dodgers. While Marichal was NL Player of the Month in May, Perry was so named in June. He played in his first All-Star game, but after August, he slumped the rest of the season, finishing 21–8, and the Giants finished second to the Dodgers. Marichal missed much of the 1967 season with a leg injury, and Perry was thrust into the role of team ace. While he finished the season with a disappointing 15–17 record, he posted a 2.61 ERA and allowed only 7.1 hits per nine innings pitched in 39 games.
Perry had similar numbers in 1968: he posted a 16–15 record, but with a then-career-best 2.45 ERA in 39 games, helping the Giants to a second-place finish behind the St. Louis Cardinals. On September 17 of that year, two days after his 30th birthday, Perry threw a 1–0 no-hitter against the Cardinals and Bob Gibson at Candlestick Park. The lone run came on a first-inning home run by light-hitting Ron Hunt—the second of the only two he hit that season. The next day, Ray Washburn of the Cardinals no-hit the Giants, winning 2–0, and marking the first time in major league history that back-to-back no-hitters had been pitched in the same series.
Like most pitchers, Perry was not renowned for his hitting ability, and in his sophomore season of 1963, his manager Alvin Dark is said to have joked, "There would be a man on the moon before Gaylord Perry would hit a home run." There are other variants on the story, but either way, on July 20, 1969, just an hour after the Apollo 11 spacecraft carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon, Perry hit the first home run of his career.
In 1969, Perry led the league in innings pitched, but the Giants finished second in the pennant race for the fifth straight season. Perry took over as the Giants' ace in 1970, and led the league both in wins and innings pitched. Perry's strong 1970 performance salvaged the Giants' season, helping them finish above.500 but in third place. In 1971, the Giants finally won their division, with Perry posting a 16–12 record and 2.76 ERA in 37 starts. In what would be his only trip to the postseason, Perry won Game 1 of the National League Championship Series but lost the decisive Game 4 against the Pittsburgh Pirates.