Ralph Terry obit

Famed Yankees pitcher Ralph Terry dies at 86

 

He was not on the list.

It’s one of the most indelible moments in baseball history, Bill Mazeroski’s game-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series to lift the Pirates over the Yankees at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The man who threw the fateful pitch was Ralph Terry.

On Wednesday, Terry died at a long-term care facility in Larned, Kansas, after having suffered a recent head injury when he slipped on ice, according to his wife, Tanya. He was 86.

“I don’t know what that pitch to Mazeroski was,” Terry told Mike Aubrecht in the book Yankee Killer. “All I know is that it was the wrong one.”

That may be the most memorable pitch he threw, but it was just the beginning of an impressive career.

Terry went on to be a part of World Series championship teams each of the next two years with the Yankees, which included being named Series MVP in 1962 after going 2-1 with a 1.80 ERA and 16 strikeouts in 25 innings over three games. The Yankees defeated the Giants in seven games, with Terry recording the final out of a 1-0 Game 7 victory.

He was also a two-time All-Star.

Terry was born on Jan. 9, 1936, in a one-room, dirt-floor cabin between Chelsea and Big Cabin, Oklahoma His parents were just teenagers at the time. He went on to be a four-sport star for Chelsea High School and was offered a scholarship to play football at Oklahoma State but turned it down and instead was drafted by the Yankees at age 18.

Three years later, in August 1956, he made his major league debut. The Yankees traded him, however, along with Billy Martin, to the Kansas City Athletics the following June. Terry struggled for much of his next two years there and was traded back to the Yankees in May 1959. But he found his form in 1960 and his career began to blossom.

Between 1959 and 1964, Terry went 76-56 for the Yanks, which included a 16-3 mark in 1961 and a 23-12 record the following year. Terry was eventually traded to the Indians and spent one year in Cleveland before being dealt to the Athletics and then the Mets, where he appeared in just 13 games over two seasons before retiring.

Terry finished his career with 107 wins, 99 losses and a 3.62 ERA. He also had 20 shutouts and recorded 12 saves.

In five World Series (1960–64), Terry posted a record of 2–3, 31 strikeouts and a 2.93 ERA in nine appearances and 46 innings pitched. Both wins came in the 1962 World Series against the Giants, including a 1–0 shutout in Game 7 over Giants ace Jack Sanford. That game – and thus the Series – ended with Yankee second baseman Bobby Richardson catching Willie McCovey's line drive.

Terry finished the 1957 season with a 4–11 record and 3.38 ERA in 19 starts for the Athletics. He rebounded somewhat the next season, going 11–13 with a 4.24 ERA and 134 strikeouts (setting a new career high) in 40 games, including 33 starts. In 1959, he started 2–4 with a 5.24 earned run average (ERA) in 9 games. On May 26 of that year, he was traded to the New York Yankees along with Hector Lopez.

Return to New York and stardom (1959–1964)

 

Upon his return, Terry went 3–7 with a 3.39 ERA in 24 games, including 16 starts. His career began to take off in 1960, when he posted a 10–8 record and 3.40 ERA. That year, he made his first postseason appearance, in two games of the 1960 World Series. He was 0–2 with a 5.40 ERA in the two games, one start and one relief appearance, and gave up  Mazeroski's walk-off home run in Game 7.

In 1961, Terry posted a 16–3 record with a 3.15 ERA in 31 games (27 starts). During the 1961 World Series, he was 0–1 with a 4.82 ERA in two starts,[1] but won his first championship when the Yankees defeated the Cincinnati Reds in five games.

For 1962, Terry went 23–12 with a 3.19 ERA. That year, he posted career bests with 23 wins, 39 starts, 298+2⁄3 innings pitched, and 176 strikeouts against 57 walks. His 23 victories led the American League. In the 1962 World Series, he went 2–1 with a 1.80 ERA and 16 strikeouts in 25 innings over three games against the San Francisco Giants. His performance earned him the World Series MVP award that season.

The next year, Terry was 17–15 with a 3.22 ERA in 37 games, including a career-high 18 complete games. He pitched three innings in the 1963 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, finishing with a 3.00 ERA, as the Yankees were swept in four games.

In 1964, Terry went 7–11 with a 4.54 ERA. In the World Series that year against the Cardinals, he gave up two hits and struck out three batters as the Yankees lost. On October 21, Terry was traded to the Cleveland Indians as a player to be named later for Pedro Ramos.

He is survived by his wife, two sons, Raif and Gabe, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.