Page 12 - Bruce Sutter News Today

Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bruce Sutter has died at the age of 69.

Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bruce Sutter has died at the age of 69.

Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bruce Sutter has died at the age of 69.

Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bruce Sutter has died at the age of 69.

Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bruce Sutter has died at the age of 69.

1979 Cy Young Award winner and 1982 World Series champion Bruce Sutter died under hospice care Thursday night in Georgia, after he was recently diagnosed with cancer. Sutter pitched 13 years in Major League Baseball as a member of the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves. Sutter was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 2006.

Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bruce Sutter has died at the age of 69.

Sutter, the full-bearded closer who pioneered the split-fingered fastball that came to dominate big league hitters for decades, died Thursday. He was 69.

When Bruce Sutter began experimenting with the split-fingered fastball, he wasn’t looking for a path to Cooperstown. He was just hoping to save his career. “I wouldn’t be here without that pitch,” Sutter said shortly before his Hall of Fame induction in 2006. “My other stuff was A ball, Double-A at best. The split-finger made it equal.”

A six-time All-Star, Sutter won the Cy Young Award in 1979 and posted 300 saves in a 12-year career with the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves. He died Thursday in Cartersville, Ga.