Don Sutton

• Born: April 2, 1945
• Birthplace: Clio, Alabama
• Died: January 19, 2021

Sport: Baseball

Early Life

Donald Howard Sutton was the eldest of three children born to tenant farmers in Clio, Alabama, on April 2, 1945. He was born in a tar-paper shack, grew up in the little coal town, and credits his hardworking father, Howard, with giving him his work ethic. Sutton began playing baseball with a bat that was full of nails and listening to games on the radio late at night. He began throwing curveballs in the sixth grade under the guidance of his teacher, Henry Roper, who had pitched in the Giants organization. As an eleven-year-old, Sutton’s pitching record was 9-0. His idol was the great Phillies pitcher Robin Roberts.

The Sutton family eventually moved to the Pensacola area of Florida, where Sutton played high school football, basketball, and baseball; was an A student; and was runner-up in the Florida boy of the year contest. He briefly attended Mississippi College before signing a professional contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was signed by Leon Hamilton, the Dodgers’ legendary scout in the South. Sutton married and fathered two children, Daron and Staci. Daron grew up to become a college and minor-league pitcher and, like his father, a baseball-telecast analyst.

The Road to Excellence

Sutton pitched only one year in the minor leagues. He began 1965 with Santa Barbara in the California League but was soon promoted to Albuquerque, the Dodgers’ AAA club. He won twenty-three games in thirty starts for the two teams and never saw the minor leagues again.

In 1966, barely twenty-one years of age, Sutton came to the Los Angeles Dodgers and appeared in thirty-seven games, thirty-five as a starting pitcher. He was the fourth starter in a pitching rotation that also featured Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, and Claude Osteen. That year, his 12-12 record, a 2.99 earned run average (ERA), and 192 hits allowed in 225 2/3 innings earned him the Sporting News rookie pitcher of the year award. His 209 strikeouts in 1966 were the most by a National League (NL) rookie since Grover Cleveland Alexander’s 227 in 1911. At 6 feet 1 inch tall and 185 pounds, Sutton had the perfect build for a major-league pitcher.

Sutton’s rookie year served as a harbinger. Only twice during the next twenty-two seasons did he win fewer than eleven games. When the articulate young pitcher soon found work in the off-season as a disc jockey at California radio stations, it was yet another sign of things to come.

The Emerging Champion

The pitching rotation of Koufax, Drysdale, Osteen, and Sutton proved to be the first foursome in baseball history in which every member pitched 40 or more shutouts during his career. Perhaps Sutton suffered by comparison with these great Dodger pitchers who were closing out their careers as he was beginning his. Still, from 1966 to 1970, his first five seasons in the majors, he averaged thirteen wins per year. By the end of his career, Sutton had won 128 games more than Osteen, 115 games more than Drysdale, and 159 games more than Koufax—the latter two are in the National Baseball Hall of Fame as pitchers.

Continuing the Story

By the 1970’s, Sutton had become the ace of the Dodger pitching staff. During the decade, he never won fewer than twelve games annually. His best season was 1976; he had a 21-10 record and a 3.06 ERA. Apart from 1976, Sutton’s most wins in any year totaled nineteen, but by the time he left the Dodgers, following the 1980 season, he had won 230 games. He was the team leader in wins, losses, games pitched, games started, strikeouts, innings pitched, hits allowed, shutouts, and opening-day starts. He never struck out fewer than 128 batters in a season and struck out 200 or more five times. During his best year, 1969, he struck out 217.

Sutton pitched for the Dodgers in three League Championship Series and three World Series—1974, 1977, and 1978. His record was 3-1 in the League Championship Series and 2-2 in the World Series. He was not an overpowering pitcher, as were Koufax and Drysdale. However, because of his excellent physical condition, he could be relied upon to pitch more than 200 innings every year. He gained a reputation as a “money player,” the pitcher a manager wanted on the mound during a crucial game. Sutton’s best pitch was an impressive curveball—so impressive, in fact, that he was often accused of “doctoring” the baseball with sandpaper. In 1978, he was ejected from a game for defacing the ball, but, when he threatened a lawsuit, the league let him off with a warning.

After fifteen seasons in Los Angeles, Sutton spent 1981 through 1987 pitching for the Houston Astros, Milwaukee Brewers, California (now Los Angeles) Angels, and Oakland Athletics. He pitched for the Brewers in the 1982 American League Championship Series and for the Angels in the 1986 League Championship Series. While in Milwaukee, he also appeared in his fourth World Series, in 1982. He returned to Los Angeles for an abbreviated 1988 season, collecting the last 3 of his 324 career victories. Sutton struck out 100 or more batters for twenty-one consecutive seasons and struck out 99 in his last full season, 1987. He pitched five one-hitters and nine two-hitters. His lifetime winning percentage was .559, and his ERA was 3.26. By the time of his retirement, Sutton had defeated every team in the major leagues.

Several factors may account for the insufficient appreciation often attached to Sutton’s career. He won twenty or more games only once, and he never won the Cy Young Award. He never pitched a no-hitter. He was a member of excellent pitching staffs—seven times his staff led the National League in ERA, so he often shared the spotlight with other fine pitchers. Sophisticated, forthright, and outspoken, Sutton was not a person to curry favor. Once he even had a highly publicized altercation with a teammate, the popular Steve Garvey. The fact remains that only a tiny minority of all the pitchers who have ever played have won three hundred games or more, and Sutton was a member of that elite minority.

Summary

A crowning achievement of Don Sutton’s career was starting and winning the 1977 all-star game, of which he was named most valuable player. Overall, he allowed no runs in 8 all-star innings. He used his speaking ability in announcing postseason games when his team was not involved. After retirement from baseball, he became a full-time member of the Atlanta Braves radio and television crew. In 2007, he became a commentator for the Washington Nationals. In 2009, he negotiated a release on his contract, which still had two years left, to take a a job as a commentator for the Braves.

Sutton was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, on July 26, 1998, after having been passed over on four previous ballots. Sutton settled in Roswell, Georgia, with his wife, Mary, and his third child, daughter Jacqueline. Born sixteen weeks premature, Jacqueline had been given about a one in one hundred chance to live. In his emotional hall-of-fame induction speech, Sutton expressed his gratitude that Jackie was able to be there to share the moment with him. He died from cancer at age seventy-five on January 19, 2021, at his home in Rancho Mirage, California.

Bibliography

MacKay, Joe. The Great Shutout Pitchers: Twenty Profiles of a Vanishing Breed. McFarland, 2004.

McNeil, William F. The Dodgers Encyclopedia. Sports, 2003.

Sandomir, Richard. "Don Sutton, Hall of Fame Right-Hander, Is Dead at 75." The New York Times, 22 Jan. 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/sports/baseball/don-sutton-dead.html. Accessed 29 Apr. 2021.

Westcott, Rich. Winningest Pitchers: Baseball’s Three-Hundred-Game Winners. Temple University Press, 2002.