Hall of Fame reliever Bruce Sutter, who began his career with the Cubs, revolutionized the split-finger fastball and won the 1979 NL Cy Young, has died. He was 69.
Sutter was recently diagnosed with cancer and died in hospice. According to The Baseball Hall of Fame, he died Thursday in Cartersville, Georgia.
The Cubs expressed their deepest sympathy to the Sutter family in a tweet honoring the reliever who played his first five major-league seasons on the North Side of Chicago and was an All-Star in all but his debut season. Over 12 seasons, Sutter played for three teams, continuing his career and winning the 1982 World Series with the Cardinals, and finishing his playing days with the Braves.
The Sutter family said in a statement: “All our father ever wanted to be remembered as was being a great teammate, but he was so much more than that. He was also a great husband to our mother for 50 (years), he was a great father and grandfather and he was a great friend. His love and passion for the game of baseball can only be surpassed by his love and passion for his family.”
Sutter was the first Hall of Fame pitcher who never started a game in the majors. In addition to earning 300 saves, perhaps the six-time All-Star’s greatest claims to fame was the way he changed pitching.
‘’I feel like a pioneer with the split-finger fastball,’’ Sutter said in 2006, during a conference call with reporters before his Hall of Fame induction. ‘’It was a pitch I had to have, and if I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t have been in the big leagues. It didn’t really change the game, but it changed the way pitchers were going to get hitters out.’’
The story goes, while Sutter was recovering from elbow surgery during minor-league spring training in 1974, Cubs minor-league pitching instructor Fred Martin suggested a new fastball grip. And Sutter’s famous splitter was born.
“Bruce was a fan-favorite during his years in St. Louis and in the years to follow,” Cardinals owner and CEO Bill DeWitt Jr. said in a statement. “He was a true pioneer in the game, changing the role of the late-inning reliever.”
Most Cardinals fans’ favorite memory of Sutter is of him ending Game 7 of the 1982 World Series against the Brewers with a strikeout.
When Cubs fans think of Sutter in St. Louis, they think of “The Ryne Sandberg game.” Sandberg calls it “The Bruce Sutter Game.”
The Cubs beat the Cardinals 12-11 in 11 innings on June 23, 1984, on the Saturday “Game of the Week.” Sandberg went 5-for-6 with seven RBI. Against Sutter, he forced extra innings with a ninth-inning home run and then tied it up with a 10th-inning shot.
“Nobody would talk about my game against him if he wasn’t the best reliever for a long period of time and at that time,” Sandberg said in 2005, leading up to his own Hall of Fame induction. “Otherwise, there would be no story. I mean, so what? But two home runs off Bruce Sutter, everybody talks about it because he was unhittable.”
Sutter debuted with the Cubs in 1976. During his 1979 Cy Young season, he recorded 37 saves, a 2.22 ERA and 110 strikeouts.
Sutter was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in January 1953. The Cardinals said Sutter is survived by his wife, three sons, a daughter-in-law and six grandkids.
Contributing: Associated Press
