The Death of Gaylord Perry

I woke up yesterday to the news that Gaylord Perry had died. "Gaylord who?" you are probably asking. For most of you the name will mean nothing. For me, who started following baseball as a kid in the mid-80s, his name his legend still loomed over the game, so much so that even as a kid I was sorry I never got to see him play. 

Gaylord Perry accomplished the astonishing feat -- growing more and more unthinkable with every new generation -- of compiling both 300 wins and 3,000 strikeouts in the major leagues, across something like 20 seasons. He was also known for "doctoring-up" baseballs with vaseline or other substances, as well as throwing spitballs. Although it will always remain a mystery how much of that was real and how much of it he encouraged just to keep batters on edge. Whatever he was doing or not doing, it worked.

Perry was one of those reliable veteran pitchers -- I guess you might liken him to Verlander or Scherzer in today's game -- who turned into kind of a journeyman, pitching well into his 40s. Although when I was a kid looking at him in pictures, I could have sworn he was older than my grandfathers...but when you're a kid, every adult seems ancient. But the funny thing is, he was around my age when he played his last season, in 1983. 

He wasn't my favorite player. He wasn't on any of the teams I followed. I never saw him play on T.V. or in person. And so Gaylord Perry's death serves only to remind me how much time has passed since I was a little kid, first getting into baseball, learning about the game and its legends, a lifetime ago, it seems.