Wilbur Wood obit

Three-Time All-Star for Red Sox, White Sox, Pirates Dies

A knuckleballer who set the standard for durability en route to three All-Star Game appearances in 17 MLB seasons died at age 84.

 

He was not on the list.

Wilbur Wood, who set the standard for pitching durability en route to three All-Star Game appearances over 17 seasons in Major League Baseball, died Saturday. He was 84.

For a stretch in the early 1970s, Wood was the most relentlessly available pitcher in the American League — a knuckleballer who showed up, took the ball, and kept taking it, again and again.

His 376.2 innings pitched in 1972 read like a misprint. Yet Wood followed up that season by pitching 359.1 innings in 1973, a workload that will never be replicated in the modern game.

A left-handed pitcher, Wood was 19 years old when he debuted with the Boston Red Sox in 1961. The pitch that would come to define his career — the knuckleball — was still years out of reach. Without the pitch, Wood struggled in parts of four seasons with the Red Sox (1961-64) and Pittsburgh Pirates (1964-65), going 1-8 with a 4.17 ERA in 73 games.

A fateful trade in October 1966 from Pittsburgh to Chicago set Wood on a path to stardom. With the White Sox, Wood learned an important lesson about the knuckleball from veteran pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm.

"His big point was if you’re gonna throw a knuckleball, you have to throw it as your main pitch; it has to be thrown 60, 70, 80 percent or more – in other words not mixing in curveballs or fastballs, with knuckleballs being an extra pitch,” Wood said in a 2022 interview.

Wood pitched primarily out of the White Sox bullpen from 1967-70, posting a 2.49 ERA and 56 saves over 292 games. That led pitching coach Johnny Sain and manager Chuck Tanner to promote Wood to their rotation in 1971.

From 1971-75, Wood won 106 games, working an average of 336.1 innings a year. Nearly 30 percent of Wood’s starts during that five-year period (66 of 224) came while working on two days’ rest or fewer.

The knuckleball, thrown on a pitcher's fingertips in order to induce as little spin as possible, exerts less force on the arm than any other pitch. As a result, Wood's arm held up amid his rigorous workload.

Wood’s career wound down in the late 1970s when his arm finally registered the cumulative weight of all those innings. He retired with 164 wins and a 3.46 ERA, numbers that undersell the outlier he was in his prime.

Raised in Belmont, Massachusetts, Wood played several sports in high school and was signed by his hometown Boston Red Sox in 1960. He pitched sparingly for them over parts of four seasons before being traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1964. Seldom-used by the team in 1965, he spent all of 1966 in the minor leagues before being traded to the White Sox.

The White Sox tried to trade Wood before the 1971 season, but an injury to starting pitcher Joe Horlen caused them to put him in the starting rotation. That season, pitching coach Johnny Sain suggested that Wood pitch with only two days' rest between starts, since knuckleball specialists do not put as much stress on their arms as other pitchers. Wood proceeded to lead the AL in games started from 1972 through 1975, starting a career-high 49 games in 1972. That season, he also recorded a career-high 376+2⁄3 innings pitched (IP), breaking the live-ball era record of 376 IP set by Mickey Lolich of the Detroit Tigers just one season prior. He won 20 or more games for four consecutive seasons, leading the AL in 1972 and 1973 with 24 wins. In 1973, Wood also matched the 1916 record of Walter Johnson of a pitcher to win and lose 20 or more games in a season. Wood was an All-Star in 1971, 1972, and 1974.

After making 43 starts in 1975, Wood made only seven in 1976. A line drive off the bat of Ron LeFlore fractured Wood's kneecap in a game against the Detroit Tigers. Despite months of rehabilitation, Wood was "gun-shy" upon his return in 1977 and posted the worst earned run average among qualifying AL pitchers in 1978 (5.20). He retired after the season. Wood's 90 wins from 1971–74 were the most by a major league pitcher during that span. A lifelong New England resident, Wood held a number of jobs in the Boston area after his retirement from baseball.

Teams

Boston Red Sox (1961–1964)

Pittsburgh Pirates (1964–1965)

Chicago White Sox (1967–1978)

Career highlights and awards

3× All-Star (1971, 1972, 1974)

2× AL wins leader (1972, 1973)