The Perry Brothers Both Win

Exactly 60 years ago today, each of the Perry brothers - Jim and Gaylord - collected their first victory of the 1963 season. And they went about it in entirely different ways.

At that point in their careers, older brother Jim was the more accomplished pitcher. He’d nearly won the Rookie of the Year award for the Indians in 1959, had led the American League in victories and shutouts in 1960, and had made the all-star team in 1961. Despite that all-star selection, he hadn’t actually been very good that season, and continued his struggles in 1962, posting a 12-12 record and 4.15 ERA.

Moved to the bullpen for the 1963 season, when Perry got off to a poor start it was enough to convince Cleveland that he needed to move on. They traded him to the Twins on May 2 in exchange for Jack Kralick. It was a good short-term deal for the Indians, as Kralick won 25 games over the next two seasons, with an ERA of 3.06.

The change of scenery, and return to a starting role, helped Perry immediately. In his first two appearance for the Twins, he pitched 8 innings and surrendered just 2 runs in each game. Unfortunately for him, Minnesota scored just 1 total run in the two games, so Perry lost them both.

That luck reversed for him on May 17 when he faced his old team in Cleveland. Perry had an ugly second inning, surrendering three runs on three hits, a walk, and a wild pitch, and entered the 5th inning trailing 3-1. The way the Twins offense had been going, Perry likely thought he was facing another loss, but he was in for a surprise.

The Twins scored 6 runs in the 5th, three times more than they’d scored for him in his first 22 combined innings with the team. Perry helped himself in the process, drawing a walk and scoring on a 3-run home run by Bob Allison, the player who had beaten him out for the 1959 Rookie of the Year award.

Perry didn’t look back. He was pulled in the 7th inning after giving up another run, but was never in danger of giving up the lead because the Twins scored in five consecutive innings. Allison, the best baseball player in the history of the University of Kansas, hit three home runs in the game, the only 3-homer game of his career, and Minnesota cruised to a 11-4 victory.

It was the first of 128 wins tallied by Perry in 10 very good seasons for the Twins. In 1970, he won the Cy Young Award, making it clear that the Indians had lost that trade for Jack Kralick after all.

On the same day Jim was winning his first game for the Twins, his younger brother Gaylord was struggling to find a role for himself on the defending National League champion Giants. He’s been a rookie during the pennant-winning campaign in 1962, splitting his time between the rotation and the bullpen and posting some pretty poor numbers (5.23 ERA, 1.58 WHIP).

Assigned strictly to the bullpen in 1963, Perry started the season well. In his first six appearances he had earned a save and posted a 1.26 ERA. The Giants had a three-game league over the rest of the league.

They faced the Mets, the team that replaced them in New York, for a three-game series in mid-May. Mired in last place again, the Mets lost the first game, 6-5, with Perry earning the first save of his long career. On May 17, Galen Cisco took the mound for New York to try to even the series, while Billy Pierce started for the Giants.

Back-to-back solo home runs by Willie Mays and Willie McCovey in the bottom of the first inning gave Pierce a lead that he never relinquished. He was pulled in the 6th inning, still nursing a 3-2 lead, which held until the 8th. With reliever Bobby Bolin on the mound for the Giants, Ron Hunt hit a solo homer for the Mets to tie the game and cost Pierce the victory.

The score remained tied at 3 into extra innings. Perry entered the game to start the 10th inning, and surrendered a pair of base runners on a single and an error, but didn’t allow the Mets to score. The same happened in the 11th, when Jim Hickman reached on another error to lewd off the inning, but Perry worked around him.

He was still the pitcher of record in the bottom of that inning, when the Giants walked off with the victory. Light-hitting Joey Amalfitano, who had entered the game with a .154 batting average, hit a solo home run in the bottom of the inning, his third hit of the day, to give the Giants a 4-3 win.

It proved to be Gaylord Perry’s only victory of the season. His excellent start to the year vanished, and he finished the year with a 1-6 record and 4.03 ERA as the Giants couldn’t defend their league title and slid to third place.

Still, all turned out pretty well for Gaylord. He finally earned a starting job with the Giants beginning in 1964, and would ultimately win 134 games for them. And the Indians got a Cy Young season from a Perry after all, when Gaylord was traded to Cleveland before the 1972 season and promptly won the award with a 24-16 record and 1.92 ERA.

His win made the Perry brothers the only siblings, then or now, to each win a Cy Young. Gaylord, of course, ultimately had the better career, being elected to the Hall of Fame in 1991. He passed away in December, 2022, but his older brother Jim is still alive. Campbell University had a ceremony to retire his number earlier this year.