Sunday, July 30, 2006
Emotional Sutter at long last inducted into Hall
Associated Press
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. -- Bruce Sutter didn't leave baseball the way he wanted,
booed relentlessly when injuries sapped his talent. That doesn't matter any
more.
Eighteen years after he hung up his spikes for good, Sutter was
inducted Sunday into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
"I am in awe," said Sutter, who joined Hoyt Wilhelm,
Rollie Fingers and Dennis Eckersley as the only relief pitchers in the Hall.
"I wish I could turn back the clock and play one more game.
"When I got the call in January, it brought closure to a
baseball career that did not end how I hoped it would," said Sutter, whose
last four years in Atlanta were filled with taunts after rotator-cuff problems
eventually forced him to retire with 300 saves after only 12 years in the major
leagues. "It answered the question: 'Do you belong?' The thought of having
my name in is truly an honor and humbling experience."
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Sutter joins Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers
and Dennis Eckersley as the only relief pitchers in Cooperstown. |
Although Sutter was the lone player selected by the Baseball
Writers Association of America, he was part of the largest class of inductees
in Hall of Fame history. Seventeen players and executives from baseball's
segregated past, all of them deceased, were also inducted, including Effa
Manley, the first woman to be so honored.
"It's a wonderful day," said Rachel Robinson, the
widow of Jackie Robinson, who broke baseball's color barrier 59 years ago.
"I'm very excited about it. It's a long time coming. We're very, very
proud of the Negro Leaguers."
Sutter also shared the dais with J.G. Taylor Spink Award winner
Tracy Ringolsby, current national columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, and
Ford C. Frick Award winner Gene Elston, former broadcast voice of Houston
baseball.
As he did during his stellar 12-year career, Sutter was the closer
on this day. And he fought his emotions throughout his speech, which honored
everybody who helped him become the first Hall of Famer who never started a
game in his career.
"This day is about the people who helped me along the way.
I would not be standing here without them," said Sutter, his familiar
beard now turned gray. "My dad was never too tired to play catch. It was
his temperament that rubbed off on me."
Perhaps the biggest debt Sutter owed was to Fred Martin, the man
who taught him to throw the pitch that saved his career -- the split-fingered
fastball. After undergoing surgery to fix a pinched nerve in his right elbow,
Sutter met Martin, the roving minor league pitching coach for the Chicago
Cubs, in 1973 and three years later was pitching in Wrigley Field.
"Nobody was throwing what he called the split-finger,"
Sutter said. "It was a pitch that didn't change how the game was played,
but developed a new way to get hitters out. Everybody who throws the
split-fingered fastball owes a great deal of thanks to Fred Martin [who died in
1979] because he was the first one to teach it."
In 1976, Sutter registered six wins and 10 saves and a 2.70 ERA
in 52 appearances, and his career took off. The next season he assumed the role
of closer for the Cubs and finished with 31 saves and a 1.34 ERA, and in 1978
registered 27 saves.
Sutter was even better the next season, winning the NL Cy Young
Award, posting a National League record-tying 37 saves, and also was the
winning pitcher in the All-Star Game for the second straight year. But when he
won an arbitration award of $700,000 after the season, the Cubs, who had Lee
Smith waiting for his chance, traded him to St. Louis after the 1980 season.
Sutter signed a four-year contract worth an estimated $3.5
million with the Cardinals, making him the highest-paid reliever in the game.
He averaged almost 32 saves a year and led the league three times, establishing
a league-record 45 in 1984, and keyed the Cards' 1982 World Series triumph over
Milwaukee, their first title since 1967.
"Every pitcher dreams of pitching in the major leagues and
imagines himself striking out the final batter to end the seventh game of the
World Series," said Sutter, who did just that when he fanned Gorman Thomas
to end the 1982 World Series. "Well, I'm one of the lucky ones who got to
realize that dream."
Sutter was a bundle of nerves. On Saturday night, he received
word that the Cardinals were going to retire his No. 42, and his wife, Jayme,
is facing surgery in two weeks to remove a cancerous kidney. Jayme was sitting
with several family members under a tent far to the right of her husband, who
was reluctant to look out at all of his supporters.
"I'm not usually an emotional guy," said Sutter, who
was greeted before his speech by Hall of Famers Ozzie Smith and Johnny Bench
wearing long, gray beards in an effort to relax Sutter. "My kid said the
first time anybody ever saw me cry was when I got that phone call [in January].
A lot of people have seen me cry now."
The first speaker of the day was Buck O'Neil, 94, who received a
standing ovation before and after he spoke. O'Neil, one of the driving forces
in the creation of the
"I have no clue as to why he was not elected," said
Monte Irvin, a former Negro Leagues star and Hall of Famer. "They are
hoping in time there might be some reconsideration. I just hope he'll live long
enough."