Gaylord Perry

At 85 years old, Gaylord Perry has this physical status:

Perry played semi-professionally in Alpine, Texas at Kokernot Field in the early 1950s for the Alpine Cowboys. Bobby Biedermann was his catcher and roommate.

Perry was signed by the San Francisco Giants on June 3, 1958, for $90,000 per year, which was a big contract at the time. He spent 1958 with the St. Cloud Rox team in the Class A level Northern League, compiling a 9–5 record and a 2.39 ERA. In 1959 he was promoted to the Class AA Corpus Christi Giants, where he posted a less impressive 10–11 record and 4.05 ERA. He remained with the team as they became the Rio Grande Valley Giants in 1960, and an improved ERA of 2.82 earned him a promotion to the Class AAA Tacoma Giants for the 1961 season. At Tacoma, he led the Pacific Coast League in wins and inning pitched in 1961.

He had a brief call-up to the Major Leagues in 1962, making his debut on April 14 against the Cincinnati Reds. He appeared in 13 games in 1962, but had a 5.23 ERA and was sent back down to Tacoma for the remainder of the year. With the addition of Perry, Bill James called that 1962 Tacoma squad, which featured numerous future major-league players, the best minor league lineup of the 1960s.

After his brief call-up in 1962, Perry joined the Giants in 1963 to work mostly as a relief pitcher that year, posting a mediocre 4.03 ERA in 31 appearances. Nevertheless, in 1964 he was given the opportunity to join the starting rotation, finishing 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 (5–0, 0.90 ERA, 31 SO). 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 had a low ERA and allowed only seven hits per nine innings pitched.

Perry had similar numbers in 1968: he posted a 16–15 record, but with a then-career-best 2.45 ERA on a Giants team that finished second to the St. Louis Cardinals. On September 17 of that year, two days after his 30th birthday, Perry no-hit the Cardinals and Bob Gibson 1–0 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 would hit that season. The very next day, the Cardinals returned the favor on the Giants on a 2–0 no-hitter by Ray Washburn—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 (23) and innings pitched (328). 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 2.76 ERA. In what would be his only two postseason appearances, Perry won one game and lost the other against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Before the 1972 season, the Giants traded the then 33-year-old Perry and shortstop Frank Duffy to the Cleveland Indians for 29-year-old flamethrower Sam McDowell, the ace of the Indians' staff. After that trade Perry went on to win 180 more games in his career while McDowell won only 24 more.

Perry went 24–16 in 1972 with a 1.92 ERA and one save, winning his first Cy Young Award. He stood as the only Cy Young winner for Cleveland until 2007 (CC Sabathia).

By the 1973 season, Perry was widely suspected of throwing a spitball. That season, Bobby Murcer of the New York Yankees publicly criticized Bowie Kuhn, the Commissioner of Baseball, and Joe Cronin, the president of the American League, for lacking the "guts" to enforce Rule 8.02, which banned the spitball; in response, Kuhn fined Murcer $250 (equivalent to $1,526 today). After losing a game to Perry, Billy Martin, the manager of the Detroit Tigers, told reporters that he instructed his pitchers to throw a spitball, leading to Cronin suspending Martin for three games. Publicly, Perry insisted that the pitch was a "hard slider".

After the 1973 season, Perry approached Bob Sudyk, sportswriter for the Cleveland Press, about co-authoring an autobiography. Sudyk said that Perry would have to be willing to discuss the rumors that he threw a spitball, and Perry agreed. Phil Seghi, the general manager of the Indians, tried to dissuade Perry from sharing his secrets, but was unsuccessful. Perry showed Sudyk how he threw spitballs with substances like Vaseline and K-Y Jelly, and a "puffball" using rosin dust. Perry also showed Sudyk how he hid additives on his uniform and body. The book, called Me and the Spitter, was released in 1974.

Perry was named AL Player of the Month in June 1974 with a 6–0 record, 1.00 ERA, and 39 strikeouts, thus becoming the first player to win the award in both leagues (the AL had only begun to issue the award in April of that season). Perry continued as Cleveland's staff ace until 1975. He went 70–57 during his time in Cleveland, but the team never finished above fourth place. He started four consecutive Opening Day games for the team, the first Indians pitcher to do so since Bob Feller from 1946 to 1949. Perry accounted for 39 percent of all Cleveland wins during his tenure. Tensions between him and player-manager Frank Robinson led to Perry's trade to Texas in June 1975. Gaylord Perry remained as Cleveland's last 20-game winner (21 wins in 1974), until Cliff Lee in 2008.

On June 13, 1975, at the start of a three-game series with the Texas Rangers, the Indians traded Perry to the Rangers in exchange for pitchers Jim Bibby, Jackie Brown, and Rick Waits. Perry was feuding with Indians player/manager Frank Robinson. Perry would win nearly 80 more games in his career than the three combined. With the Rangers, Perry formed a one-two punch with Ferguson Jenkins, with Perry earning 12 wins, and Jenkins 11, during the remainder of 1975. However, the Rangers, who had finished second in the AL West in 1974, slipped to third place that year.

The next year, with Jenkins moving to Boston, the 37-year-old Perry became the staff ace, winning 15 games against 14 defeats. The Rangers, however, slipped to fourth place in the AL West. But then, in 1977, the Rangers surged to second place in the AL West, winning 94 games, a total that the franchise would not surpass until 1999. Perry again won 15 games, this time against only 12 defeats, in a rotation that included double-digit winners Doyle Alexander, Bert Blyleven, and Dock Ellis.

Before the 1978 season, San Diego acquired Perry from Texas in exchange for middle reliever Dave Tomlin and $125,000. The 39-year-old Perry wound up winning the Cy Young Award going 21–6 for San Diego while the 29-year-old Tomlin never pitched for Texas and pitched barely 150 innings the rest of his career. Perry's 21 wins in 1978 accounted for 25 percent of the club's victories all year long, and he became the first pitcher to win the Cy Young Award in both leagues. In this season he became the third pitcher to strike out 3,000 batters, accomplishing the feat two weeks after his 40th birthday.

In 1979, Perry posted a 3.05 ERA and a 12–11 record before quitting the team on September 5, saying he would retire unless the club traded him back to Texas. The Padres traded Perry to the Texas Rangers on February 15, 1980.

In 1980, Perry posted a 6–9 record and 3.43 ERA in 24 games with Texas before being traded to the Yankees on August 13, 1980, for minor leaguers Ken Clay and a player to be named later (Marvin Thompson). Many Yankees players had complained about Perry during his stints with the Rangers, and the club even used a special camera team to monitor his movements during one of his starts at Yankee Stadium. Perry finished the season with a 4–4 record for the Yankees.

Perry's contract was up after the 1980 season and he signed a one-year, $300,000 contract with the Atlanta Braves. During the strike-shortened 1981 season, Perry, the oldest player at the time in Major League baseball, started 23 games (150.2 innings) and had an 8–9 record. The Braves released Perry after the season, leaving him three victories short of 300.

After being released by the Braves, Perry was unable to find interest from any clubs, and missed his first spring training in 23 years.

He eventually signed with the Seattle Mariners, where he acquired the nickname "Ancient Mariner." Perry won his 300th game on May 6, 1982, becoming the first pitcher to win 300 games since Early Wynn did so in 1963. On August 23, he was ejected from a game against the Boston Red Sox for doctoring the ball, and given a ten-day suspension. It was the second time Perry had been ejected in his entire career, and it was his first ejection for ball doctoring.

After starting the 1983 season 3–10, Perry was designated for assignment by Seattle on June 26 and the Kansas City Royals picked him on a waiver claim ten days later. In August, Perry became the third pitcher in history to record 3,500 strikeouts. In the final months of the season, Perry experimented with a submarine delivery for the first time in his career and took a no-hitter into the eighth inning against the first-place Baltimore Orioles on August 19.

Also in 1983, he became the third pitcher in the same year to surpass longtime strikeout king Walter Johnson's record of 3,509 strikeouts. Steve Carlton and Nolan Ryan were the others. Also in 1983, Perry was involved in the Pine Tar Game against the New York Yankees. The game originally ended when the umpires called Brett out for too much pine tar on his bat, negating his home run and drawing a vehement protest from him and the Royals. Perry absconded with Brett's bat and gave it to a bat boy so he could hide it in the clubhouse, only to be caught by Joe Brinkman. When the Royals won the protest, Perry was retroactively ejected for doing this.

He announced his retirement on September 23, 1983.

Post-playing career

Perry retired in 1983 after pitching for eight teams (the San Francisco Giants, Cleveland Indians, Texas Rangers (twice), San Diego Padres, New York Yankees, Atlanta Braves, Seattle Mariners and Kansas City Royals).

Perry retired to his 500-acre (2.0-square-kilometer) farm in Martin County, North Carolina, where he grew tobacco and peanuts, but had to file for bankruptcy in 1986. He briefly worked for Fiesta Foods as a sales manager, and later in the year Limestone College in Gaffney, South Carolina, chose Perry to be the college's first baseball coach. Perry was there until 1991 when he retired. In 1998, Perry was inducted into the Limestone College Athletics Hall of Fame (Class of 1998). He later moved to Spruce Pine, North Carolina.

Despite his admission of illegal pitches, he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1991 and was nominated as a finalist for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. In 1999, The Sporting News ranked him 97th on their list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players.

Perry supported the Republican Party, campaigned for Jesse Helms and contemplated a bid for Congress himself in 1986.

On July 23, 2005, the San Francisco Giants retired Perry's uniform number 36.

Perry was inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame on March 9, 2009.

He was honored on April 9, 2011, at AT&T Park with a 2010 World Series ring along with other San Francisco Giants greats Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, and Willie Mays. Of the four, only Mays, as a member of the 1954 team, had previously received a World Series ring while playing for the Giants. He was honored again on April 18, 2015, at AT&T Park with a 2014 World Series ring along with Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, and Juan Marichal.

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