R.I.P Gaylord Perry

Gaylord Perry, a righthanded pitcher known for throwing the occasional spitball in his Hall of Fame baseball career, died on December 1st 2022 in Gaffney, South Carolina. He was 84 years old. The cause of death was listed as natural causes.

The North Carolina native began his major league career in 1962 with the San Francisco Giants. He wrote in his memoirs that he learned how to throw the spitball from teammate Bob Shaw. How much he threw it is uncertain; Perry would go through a lot of motions on the mound and basically messed with batter’s heads by making them think he was doctoring the ball with some substance he kept somewhere on his person or uniform. He was only thrown out of a game once for throwing a doctored pitch, and that wasn’t until 1982.

Perry was a strikeout pitcher and workhorse who racked up a lot of innings. He pitched over 300 innings six times in his career, and had 20 or more complete games seven times. Perry pitched for the Giants through the 1971 season. His best years in San Francisco were 1966, when he was 21-8 with a 2.99 ERA and 201 strikeouts, and 1970 (23-13, 3.20, 214). He pitched a no hitter in 1968.

Perry was traded to the Cleveland Indians after the 1971 season. If the Giants thought the 33 year old was past his prime, they were very wrong. In 1972, Perry was 24-16 with a 1.92 ERA, 29 complete games, five shutouts, and 234 strikeouts; he was the American League Cy Young Award Winner that season.

In June of 1975, Perry was traded to the Texas Rangers, and in January of 1978, he was on the move again, this time to the San Diego Padres. In his first of two seasons with San Diego, the 39 year old was 21-6 with a 2.78 ERA and won the National League Cy Young Award. He was 12-11 with a 3.06 ERA in 1979, in his last good year. He played for five different clubs from 1980-1983, closing out his career in ’83 with the Kansas City Royals.

Perry was 314-265 with a 3.11 ERA and 3534 strikeouts, 303 complete games, and 53 shutouts. His 5, 350 innings rank sixth all time, he is eighth in career strikeouts, 16th in shutouts and 17th in career wins. He was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991. Gaylord is the younger brother of Jim Perry, another pretty good pitcher. Jim Perry pitched from 1959 through 1975 and had a record of 215-174 with a 3.45 ERA. Jim and Gaylord both played for Cleveland in 1974 and part of 1975 before they both were traded during that season.