324 Wins Mean No Ribbing Here

At the World Series, a friend of mine, a baseball writer from Houston, told me a Don Sutton story. It wasn’t particularly flattering. I think I’ll tell it.

During the October playoffs, to be hospitable, a team will often throw a postgame party of some kind. The Atlanta Braves are good at this. They spare no expense. I have been to wedding receptions with less food and drink than the Braves lay out.

One night, my guy from Houston picked up a plate. He took a rib, found a table and began to eat. What he hadn’t noticed was that this one section of the party had been reserved for Ted Turner’s television people from TBS.

One such person, Sutton, came over to my guy’s table.

“At least you could have asked,” Sutton said.

“Excuse me?”

Sutton, the team’s color announcer, pointed out that this was a private spread and that it was pretty rude for somebody to simply help himself.

According to my friend, “He didn’t say, ‘Excuse me, but do you realize that you’ve accidentally wandered into the wrong place?’ No, he appoints himself personal guardian of Mr. Turner’s food. What’s it to Don Sutton if somebody is eating a TBS rib?

“And he wonders why he’s not in the Hall of Fame.”

As I said, the story isn’t particularly flattering . . . to my friend. The punch line is a cheap shot, disguised as a joke. I did laugh at it, yes. I love the image of Don Sutton, Supper Detective. But I don’t enjoy even a hint that a Hall of Fame election is affected by the way a player acts.

Sutton made it Monday. It took him a few years, but he finally got the necessary votes. He got mine, each year that his name has been on the ballot. The man won 324 games. You win 324 games, you go to the Hall.

Sandy Koufax won 165. He quit after a 27-9 season.

Sutton phoned him, the day Koufax retired. He couldn’t believe the news.

Koufax told him, “There are some things in life I might be jeopardizing, if I keep pitching with this elbow. You know, I might want to swing a golf club sometime during the rest of my life.”

The two pitchers were Dodgers together in 1966. Many years later, Sutton said after encountering Koufax, “It’s like he’s never been away. He’s absolutely unchanged. He’s the greatest, most sincere and humble . . . if anybody ever deserved to be at the top of the ladder, it’s him.”

Sincerity and humility have never been on the back of Sutton’s baseball card. But I do enjoy his frankness, his humor and his insight on Atlanta’s telecasts. He is an astute observer of the game.

As a player, Sutton worked his tail off. He trained like a distance runner.

“Luck,” Sutton once said, paraphrasing Branch Rickey, “is the by-product of busting your fanny.”

Phil Regan, a pitcher turned coach, said Sutton “was one of the first pitchers I can remember really running, and look what it did for his career.”

When he was a Dodger executive, Buzzie Bavasi would offer $25 to any Dodger pitcher who could run a mile. Few did.

In his 1987 autobiography, Bavasi projected a certain Cooperstown induction for Sutton. He did add: “The Hall of Fame is becoming a popularity contest. Players who were rude to the press or, like Steve Carlton, did not speak with the press likely will be left off some Hall of Fame ballots.”

I can’t cast everybody’s vote. All I can do is cast mine. If I am around, I will vote for that bleepity-bleepin’ Eddie Murray when his time comes, same way I voted for Carlton and for Rod Carew and for others who didn’t exactly hug me to their bosoms.

What I remember about Don Sutton is that he threw the first pitch of the first game of Tom Lasorda’s first season as manager. Gary Thomasson of the Giants hit it out of the park. Sutton won the game, though, 5-1.

I remember that Lasorda gave the Dodgers a pep talk when they were in first place by 9 1/2 games. Afterward, the manager received a handwritten note from Sutton that read: “Congratulations. You have just set the all-time record by using a certain four-letter word 124 times, by precise count, in 14 minutes.”

I remember the scrap with Steve Garvey inside the Shea Stadium clubhouse, partly due to Sutton’s having publicly ridiculed his teammate as “a total Madison Avenue hype” and later insulting Garvey’s wife. Sutton issued an apology.

OK, so he has never been Mr. Tact.

For a time in his prime, Sutton was overshadowed by J.R. Richard, a hot Houston pitcher. Sutton said he was sick of hearing about him. “We all know what he can do with his stuff. He’s tremendous. What I’d like to see is what he could do with my stuff.”

Yeah, I dare somebody to make the Hall of Fame with that.