Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
RIP, Gaylord Perry
Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry passed away on December 1, 2022, at the age of 84.
Gaylord Jackson Perry was born on September 15, 1938, to Evan and Rubi Perry in Williamston, North Carolina. Perry had two siblings a younger sister Carolyn and an older brother Jim. The family farmed a small plot and their father, who pitched semi-pro baseball, passed along his sports knowledge to his athletic sons. Both sons took the same general path with Gaylord following Jim by two or three years – starring in basketball and baseball in high school (both brothers turned down college basketball scholarship offers), both attended a local college for a year or so pitching for the baseball team before signing professional baseball contracts as pitchers and making their way to the majors within several years.
Gaylord signed a professional contract with the San Francisco Giants in June 1958. He started out in the low minors and worked his way up the minor league ladder to the parent club in 1962. He bounced up and down between the majors and Triple A for a couple of years before sticking for good in 1964. Coincidently or not, 1964 was also when he learned how to throw a spitter from journeyman pitcher Bob Shaw. More about that a bit later.
Perry joined a very good ball club in the Giants. The team won 103 games and the NL pennant in 1962 and would average 91 wins a year over the next decade led by all-time greats Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, and Juan Marichal. Perry did his part winning 134 games with a 2.96 ERA over that decade including two 20-win seasons (1966 & 1970). He was involved in a blockbuster trade after the 1971 season, getting shipped to the Indians in exchange for lefty fireballer Sam McDowell. He would have his best season in 1972, winning the Cy Young Award with 24-16 1.92 effort in 342 innings pitched. His season stands the test of time as the recent advanced WAR metric scores it at an impressive 11.0. And, although he would continue to be a very good pitcher for a number of years (he would win a second Cy Young with a 21-6 2.73 record for the Padres in 1978), he had entered the nomadic phase of his career getting traded every couple of years to a team in need of pitching. In the succeeding years, he pitched for the Rangers, Padres, Yankees, Braves, Mariners, and Royals, retiring after the 1983 season at age 44.
Perry’s career stats are very impressive. He had five 20-win seasons and his 314 career wins are 20th on the all-time list. He was a workhorse completing 303 of his 690 career starts. He had six seasons with 300+ innings pitched and his career 5,350 innings pitched are 6th all-time while his 3,534 career strikeouts are 8th all-time.
Umpire inspecting Gaylord Perry for foreign substances
OK, it’s time to get back to what he’s most famous for – the spitter. As mentioned above, he learned the pitch in 1964 but it’s not clear how often he used said pitch. Perry himself was always coy about the issue and whether he ever gave an honest answer on the subject is an open question. The people who saw him pitch – his teammates, his opponents and sportswriters also give conflicting answers to the question. Some (maybe many) say it was his main pitch, while others say he rarely threw it; he was just psyching out opposing hitters. And, what he used for the pitch (saliva, vaseline or something else) has no definitive answer. For the record, he only got caught once getting ejected from an August 23, 1982, game against the Red Sox late in his career. Perry had an elaborate pre-pitch routine he would go to – hand to his cap, then down to adjust his belt, wipe his hand on his jersey, back up to his cap, then to his mouth, then wipe his brow first the right side then the left, then his hand to his right ear and touching his hair (he admitted to practicing this regimen in front of a full-length mirror). The obituary I linked to includes a five-minute video of his career, which shows this pre-pitch ritual.
Perry was elected to the Hall of Fame in his third year of eligibility in 1991.
Perry and his brother Jim may be the best pair of pitching brothers of all time. Or maybe they are just behind a contemporary pair of pitching brothers Phil and Joe Niekro. Interestingly, each pair of brothers is headed by a clear Hall of Famer, a 300-game winner while the other brother was a very good pitcher with 200 + wins. It’s a hard call to say which pair was better. Let me post a chart and you can decide for yourself.
Brothers Jim & Gaylord Perry
Perrys
Gaylord (1962-83) 777 G 5,350 IP 314-265 3.11 ERA 367 WS
Jim …… (1959-75) 630 G 3,285 IP 215-174 3.45 ERA 205 WS
Perrys (1959-83) 1407 G 8,635 IP 529-439 3.23 ERA 572 WS
Niekros
Phil …. (1964-87) 864 G 5.404 IP 318-274 3.35 ERA 375 WS
Joe ….. (1967-88) 702 G 3.584 IP 221-204 3.59 ERA 188 WS
Niekros (1964-88) 1566 G 8.988 IP 539-478 3.45 ERA 563 WS
Please note that WS stands for Win Shares which is an attempt to measure the value of everything a player does on the field.
After his playing career, Perry returned to North Carolina where he resumed farming, principally growing tobacco and peanuts. He was preceded in death by his wife Blanche who died in a 1987 auto accident. The couple had four children three of whom survive their father.
Published in General
It’s kind of astounding how similar the lines are for the Niekros and the Perrys.
It seems like being a spitballer – or at least having a reputation as a spitballer (or equivalent – Vaseline, emery board, etc.) isn’t much of a thing anymore. The spitball heyday lasted from about 1946-1985. Why is that?
Another good baseball post, @tigerlily! Thanks.
Thanks Charlotte. Regarding spitballers or doctoring the ball, can you imagine any pitcher getting away with that today? There are cameras at many different angles with slo-mo and high resolution closeup. Plus, each pitch is tracked not just for velocity, but also spin rate. No one could get away with it more than once today.
The spitball was legal in the first part of the 20th century. After 1920, primarily because of the death of Ray Chapman, it was ruled illegal and the pitchers already in the league were the only ones who could use it. (I guess they were grandfathered in)
It is worth noting that just anyone cant throw a good spitter. You have to have a live enough arm to make it do all the things claimed :). And the possible threat of it is also a weapon :). I only caught one guy in college who could come close to making one move like it should to be a difference, and him hardly at all.
Loved watching him pitch for the Rangers, he and Fergie Jenkins the best they have ever had.
He would definitely play it up to keep them thinking . . .
Right. The last guy who legally threw a spitball in the majors was Burleigh Grimes whose last game was in 1934. Grimes was a pretty good pitcher in his own right (270-212 3.53) and he was eventually elected into the Hall of Fame by a Veterans Committee.
I had forgotten about him until his name came up in a crossword last week or so. That got me reading about his time in the majors again. I mentioned him to my baseball friend (everybody has categorical friends so no scoffing) and he remembered him fondly. He did add “Did that guy ever not look 60?” RIP.
Getting away with it once could be enough.
(Yes. At heart I am a baseball outlaw.)
Gaylord had a sense of humor.
Like most pitchers, Perry was not much of a hitter (.131 career BA). However, when he hit his first home run on July 20, 1969 shortly after American astronauts had walked on the moon for the first time, Hal Bock, the AP sportswriter had some fun with the headline the following day. Here’s a bit more about this.
Men Walk on Moon Gaylord Perry hits home run
People gradually developed pitches with somewhat similar movement like the slider, cutter, and split-finger, which were legal and therefore easier to master through practice. Also, new balls are used practically every time a ball is fouled, pitched into the dirt, or put into play, so one would have to doctor the ball over and over again, and the accumulated effects of a ball doctored throughout the game (such as with the Dead Ball Era) would be impossible.
That said, many fans believe there is a (tolerated) epidemic of cheating through the use of substances that give a tighter grip on the ball, in contrast to the spitter.
As for Gaylord Perry, he apparently wrote a book in the middle of his career explaining how he was throwing the spitter, and was still only caught once (the book itself could have been a psy-op, but he obviously threw the pitch at least some of the time, and people still only caught him once despite always being on the look-out….the man was essentially a stage magician who could pitch.
Two stories about spitballers… I forget if they involved the Perry’s or the Neikros…
Although Whitey Ford was rarely accused of a spit ball, he was often accused of doctoring the ball by roughing it up or cutting it to help that curve ball of his and was often checked on the mound and was never caught. Later in life it was disclosed that he had had a tiny section of file welded on the side of his wedding ring and he could mark the ball by rolling the ring slightly on his finger (he was a lefty) :)
The pitch actually moved towards banning in a couple of stages. The winter before Chapman was beaned, there was a partial ban, with teams allowed to select two pitchers who could use it. The next year, it was banned, except for some “legacy” spitball pitchers (17) who were grandfathered. Weird.
There is controversy over whether Carl Mays, who beaned Chapmen, hit him with a spitball or fastball, although Mays was known as a spitballer. Chapman was crowding the plate, and the ball rebounded off him with such force that Mays fielded it and threw to first, thinking that it had hit the bat.
Perry claimed that he lined his zipper with a “substance” on the theory that Umps would be reluctant to be seen checking his crotch area.
I got to watch them both too at old Arlington Stadium. I miss that place. It is probably my all-time favorite pro baseball stadium. RIP, Mr. Perry. Saint Peter doesn’t need to know if you threw a spitter either.
Gaylord always resented being accused of using a foreign substance. As he liked to point out Vaseline is made right here in the good ol’ US of A.
What?! 118 degrees in all aluminum bleachers?! Skin frying to the seats while being blinded by the sun rays reflecting of ’em?! Yeah, I miss it, too.
Sparky Anderson swore Don Sutton doctored the baseball when Sutton was with the Dodgers. He would ship a dozen baseballs off to the National League office every single time he faced the Reds at Riverfront, win or lose.
Joe Niekro, on the other hand, got caught red handed…
Throwing spitballs might be against the rules of Major League Baseball, but I don’t think it qualifies as a sin.
Gaylord told the story that he had made an offer to endorse Vaseline. He got a post card from them that said “Our product is for soothing babies’ bottoms, not baseballs.”
A thought occurred to me… Will there be pallbearers at Gaylord’s funeral or will they just coat a ramp with Vaseline 60’6” from the end of the grave and slide him in? He will be 6’ under but that’s close enough for Angel Hernandez to call a strike…
Only two active players have more than wins than his brother — Justin Verlander 244 (age 39) and Zack Greinke 223 (age 38).