Don Sutton, the curly-haired, wise-cracking Hall of Fame right-hander whose remarkable durability enabled him to amass 324 wins, 3,574 strikeouts and 58 shutouts over 23 major league seasons without the benefit of a blazing fastball, died Monday night according to his son. He had been battling kidney cancer. He was 75. Sutton first contracted advanced kidney cancer in 2008 and had been a national spokesman for the Kidney Cancer Association and the Bayer and Onyx Companies , producers of the drug Nexavar which helped prolong his life for another 13 years.
Though he was never the No. 1 pitcher on his own team and was often in the middle or back end of the rotation behind Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Claude Osteen and Johnny Podres in his early years with the Dodgers, Sutton was fortunate to have remained injury-free throughout his entire career which was a hallmark of consistency. Beginning in 1966 when he was 12-12 with a 2.99 ERA as a rookie, Sutton posted double digit victory totals 17 straight years and 22 times all told. His 324 wins are tied with Nolan Ryan for 10th on the all-time list, his 3,574 strikeouts seventh and his 58 shutouts 10th. In addition, his 756 career starts are third all-time behind only Cy Young and Ryan while his 5,282 1/3 innings rank seventh.
Born in rural Clio, Ala., to teenage sharecroppers, Sutton credited his dad, Howard, for teaching him control and discipline in the absence of above average velocity, telling him: “If you’re going into baseball, there are going to be a lot of people better than you, but don’t let anybody ever out-work you.” Upon graduation from high school, he desperately wanted to go to the University of Florida but the coach there wasn’t interested and he wound up attending Mississippi College in Clinton and later going undrafted. It was while he was pitching in a summer league that Dodger scout Hughie Alexander signed him in September 1964. After just one year of minor league apprenticeship in which he was 23-7, he earned a spot in the Dodger rotation.
It was not until 1970 that Sutton enjoyed his first winning season with the Dodgers and for the next decade won 179 games for them including his one and only 20-win season (21-10) in 1976. The following spring he almost was traded by the Dodgers to the Mets for Tom Seaver. At the time, Seaver was embroiled in an acrimonious contract dispute with Mets chairman M. Donald Grant and the deal came close enough that Sutton had agreed to waive his no-trade rights in exchange for a promise from the Mets of a broadcasting job when his career was over. Ultimately the Mets backed off, only to trade Seaver to Cincinnati three months later.
In 1980, his last season with the Dodgers before signing a four-year free agent contract with the Astros, Sutton won his only ERA title (2.20) although he four times led the National League in WHIP. His highest placement in the Cy Young Award balloting was a fifth in 1972 when he was 19-9 with a 2.08 ERA plus a league-leading nine shutouts and 0.913 WHIP.
During his time with the Dodgers there was bad blood between Sutton, the leader of the pitching staff, and Steve Garvey, the NL Most Valuable Player in 1974, which erupted into a full blown fist fight in the visitors’ clubhouse at Shea Stadium, Aug. 20, 1978. What precipitated it were comments Sutton made to Washington Post baseball columnist Tom Boswell in which he insinuated that Garvey was a phony and that Reggie Smith — “not being a facade or a Madison Avenue image” — was the real leader of the Dodgers. When Garvey confronted him in the clubhouse, Sutton did not deny the quotes and the two quickly came to blows. Afterward, a badly bruised Garvey told reporters that Sutton had made a disparaging remark about his wife, Cyndy while, for his part, Sutton wisecracked that the fight was over which was a better football conference, the Big Ten (where Garvey went to Michigan State) or the Southeastern Conference where Sutton grew up in Alabama.
But a few days later, after a meeting with Dodger owner Peter O’Malley, a tearful Sutton issued an apologetic statement in which he said: “I’ve tried over and over to figure out why this had to happen and the only possible reason I can find is that my life isn’t being lived according to what I know, as a Christian, to be right.”
Sutton grew up idolizing the Yankees, especially Whitey Ford of whom he once said: “They called Whitey Ford crafty, and that’s what I felt I had to be.” Of course, as is now baseball lore, part of Whitey’s “craftiness” was said to be his occasional doctoring of the baseballs and throughout his entire career Sutton also had a reputation for cheating — which came to head Aug. 24, 1987 at Anaheim Stadium. Now with the Angels, Sutton was engaged a tight pitcher’s duel with the Yankees’ Tommy John (who himself was frequently accused putting a little extra on the baseball) when the WPIX TV cameras caught him removing a patch of tape from the palm of his left hand. Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, who was watching the game from New York, immediately called the visitors’ dugout and began berating Yankee manager Lou Piniella.
“Dammit, Lou, the whole world is watching Sutton cheating and you’re just sitting on your ass and doing nothing about it,” Steinbrenner fumed.
“George,” Piniella replied, “what’s the score of the game?”
“We’re winning 2-1. What’s that got to do with anything,” Steinbrenner hollered.
“What that means, George, is that our guy is cheating better than their guy,” said Piniella before hanging up.
Years later, after his retirement, Sutton was pressed by a reporter if he ever used foreign substances on the ball. “It’s not true,” he said. “Vaseline is made right here in the USA.”
After spending two years with Houston, Sutton was traded to Milwaukee on Aug. 30, 1982 and won the last game of the season for the Brewers to clinch the AL East title for them. Sutton wound down his career pitching one year for the A’s, and three years with Angels (where, on June 18, 1986 he hurled a 5-1 complete game over Texas for his 300th win). In 1988, he returned to the Dodgers, but on Aug. 9 went on the disabled list for the first time in his career with a sore elbow and was later elected to retire.
After retiring, Sutton did fulfill his dream of becoming a broadcaster, calling games for the Braves from 1997-2006, the Diamondbacks from 2006-2012 and lastly the Washington Nationals. It took Sutton five years on the ballot before being elected to the Hall of Fame in 1998 and he used the occasion to also celebrate what he called “the miracle baby” — his infant daughter, Jacqueline, who’d been born four months prematurely, Nov. 3, 1996, weighing only one pound, six ounces and given only a one in a hundred chance to live.
At the ’98 induction ceremonies Sutton delivered one of the most moving speeches in anyone’s memory. Looking down at his wife, Mary, holding the tiny little girl in the front row, Sutton said: “As big as this day was, it was all put into perspective when my daughter here was born 16 weeks early. They said it would take a miracle for her to live. My wife Mary is the most secure person I’ve ever known and the best friend I’ve ever had.
“And you little girl, thanks for sticking around to be part of this. For the past two years you’ve helped remind me of how much more important life is than the things in life, even this.”
Sutton is survived by his wife Mary, his daughter Jackie, plus a son Daron and a daughter Stacey from a previous marriage.
