Gaylord Perry, 2-time Cy Young winner, dies at 84
GAFFNEY, S.C. » Baseball Hall of Famer and two-time Cy Young Award winner Gaylord Perry, a master of the spitball and telling stories about the pitch, died Thursday. He was 84.
Perry died at his home in Gaffney at about 5 a.m. Thursday, Cherokee County Coroner Dennis Fowler said. He did not provide additional details. A statement from the Perry family said he “passed away peacefully at his home after a short illness.”
The native of Williamston, N.C., made history as the first player to win the Cy Young in both leagues, with Cleveland in 1972 after a 2416 season and with San Diego in 1978 — going 21-6 for his fifth and final 20-win season just after turning 40.
“Before I won my second Cy Young, I thought I was too old — I didn’t think the writers would vote for me,” Perry said in an article on the National Baseball Hall of Fame website. “But they voted on my performance, so I won it.”
Perry was drafted by the San Francisco Giants and spent 10 seasons among legendary teammates like Hall of Famer Willie Mays, who said Thursday that Perry “was a good man, a good ballplayer and my good friend. So long old Pal.”
Perry, who pitched for eight major-league teams from 1962 until 1983, was a five-time All-Star who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1991. He had a career record of 314-255, finished with 3,534 strikeouts and used a pitching style where he doctored baseballs or made batters believe he was doctoring them.
Perry’s 1974 autobiography was titled “Me and the Spitter,” and he wrote that he learned the spitball from San Francisco teammate Bob Shaw.
According to his book, he later looked for other substances, like petroleum jelly, to doctor the baseball. He used various motions and routines to touch different parts of his jersey and body to get hitters thinking he was applying a foreign substance.