In a city resting on a foundation of glamour, Don Sutton provided a terrific contrast. With a workmanlike manner, Sutton reigned over the pitcher’s mound with consistency complemented by endurance. No ego. No nickname. No razzle-dazzle.
Sutton began his major league career with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1966; the Baltimore Orioles swept the Dodgers in the ’66 World Series. He went 12-12 in his rookie season, not breaking .500 until 1970. It was a record hardly indicating greatness. Despite a moderate beginning to his career, Sutton flourished. In 1980, Sutton led the National League in Earned Run Average—2.20. His Hall of Fame plaque calls attention to his reliability—100 or more strikeouts in a season 21 times, 15 or more victories in 12 seasons, and the fifth best career strikeout total.
Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda said, “When you gave him the ball, you knew one thing—your pitcher was going to give you everything he had. You win as many games as he did—to me, that should be automatic Hall of Fame.” Lasorda’s quote is on Don Sutton’s page on the Baseball Hall of Fame web site.
After his lengthy stint in Los Angeles, which ended with the 1980 season, Sutton played for Houston, Milwaukee, and Oakland before playing for the California Angels in the mid-1980s. He returned to the Dodgers in 1988, which was his last season in the major leagues.
On June 18, 1986, the curly-haired pitcher reached a pinnacle rarely achieved by hurlers. 300 victories. In the Los Angeles Times, Mike Penner detailed Sutton’s dissimilarity with pitching legends, for example, Warren Spahn. “And today, they have the company of the sport’s ultimate Everyman, Donald Howard Sutton,” wrote Penner. “Sutton, who won 20 games in a season only once, who never struck out 300 batters in a season, who never had a no-hitter, who just, in his own words, kept getting people out, became the 19th pitcher in major league history to win 300 games by beating the Texas Rangers, 5-1, before an Anaheim Stadium crowd of 37,044.”
Sutton’s stoic manner disappeared after his 300th victory. Penner described the scene taking place more than two hours after Sutton punctuated the day by striking out Gary Ward to end the game: “But there in the darkness, still clad in his Angel uniform, was Sutton, still grinning, still clasping a celebratory plastic cup of champagne.” It was a contrast, certainly, to Penner and other baseball insiders familiar with a pitcher uninterested in the openness connected to being a public figure. Rhetorically and kiddingly, Penner questioned, “So this is Mr. Unemotional, eh? The man who supposedly wears nothing on his sleeve except cuff links? The pitcher who prides himself on two decades’ worth of poise, who attributes his long-running success to never leaving himself vulnerable to an unguarded moment?”
In 1998, the Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Don Sutton. During his speech, Sutton said, “My mother used to worry about my imaginary friends ’cause I would be out in the yard playing ball. She worried because she didn’t know a Mickey, or a Whitey, or a Yogi, or a Moose, or an Elston, but I played with them every day.”
Sutton’s trajectory led him to the major leagues, where he played with and against other legends—Seaver, Palmer, Niekro, and Carlton, to name a few. Without star power enjoyed by his peers, Sutton compiled a career undeniably worthy of belonging in the hallowed halls of Cooperstown.
A version of this article appeared on www.thesportspost.com on December 8, 2015