Gaylord Perry, Hall of Fame pitcher and two-time Cy Young winner, dies at 84

Hall of Famer and former San Francisco Giants pitcher Gaylord Perry played for eight MLB teams. (Photo by MediaNews Group/Bay Area News via Getty Images)

Baseball Hall of Famer and two-time Cy Young winner, Gaylord Perry, died Thursday. He was 84.

Perry died at his home in Gaffney, South Carolina at about 5 a.m. Thursday of natural causes, a Coroner told the AP.

He played Major League Baseball for 22 years and pitched 5,350 innings for eight different teams from 1962-1983.

Perry’s first team was the San Francisco Giants, where he played with four other future Hall of Famers: Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal and Orlando Cepeda.

A five-time All Star, he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1991. He won the Cy Young award with Cleveland in 1972 and with San Diego in 1978 just after turning 40, the first pitcher to do so in both leagues.

Perry’s brother Jim joined him in Cleveland in 1974. They played one full season together and recorded 38 of the team’s 77 wins. Their combined 539 total wins trail only the Niekro brothers’ 529.

Well known for his spitball, Perry also incorporated an exceptional fastball and curve. He titled his 1974 autobiography “Me and the Spitter.”

His Hall of Fame bio explains that despite his reputation for doctoring the ball, some speculated that it was not so much the spitball itself, but the threat of it that mystified batters.

Upon retirement, Perry was 11th on the all-time list with 314 wins and had the third most strikeouts (3,534), behind Steve Carlton and Nolan Ryan.

After his career, Perry founded the baseball program at Limestone College in Gaffney and was its coach for the first three years

In September 1987, Gaylord’s high school sweetheart and wife Blanche, was killed in a two-vehicle car accident at 46 years old. A few years later Gaylord married Carol Caggiano, a board member at Limestone College. He had four children.