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Sutter thrilled to visit Hall -- as a Hall of Famer



By JOHN KEKIS, AP Sports Writer
May 9, 2006


COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. (AP) -- Thirty years to the day after he made his major league debut, Bruce Sutter walked into the Baseball Hall of Fame to take a closer look at his new digs.

And the man known for his unflappable demeanor on the mound was in awe as he stared at the gallery wall where his plaque will hang, just to the right of the first class in 1936 -- Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, Honus Wagner and Walter Johnson.

"When you're a player you go back a few years, but this takes you back to the very beginning. It's just special, to feel all this stuff," Sutter, his signature beard now mostly gray, said Tuesday as he toured the Hall. "You play the game and you hope you get remembered. This makes sure I'll always be remembered."

Sutter was passed over a dozen times before receiving 400 votes (76.9 percent) of the record 520 cast in January by members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. He was the only candidate with the required 75 percent needed for election.

"This was my 13th time," he said. "When you don't get in, they don't call you. You just kind of watch ... and see who got in and say, 'Great,' and go on about your way.

"Most of the time I was on a hunting trip when it was coming out," he said. "Every year, I'd get more votes, but I didn't really get close until the 12th year."

A 17-person class was elected to the Hall of Fame in February by a special committee using new statistics from the Negro leagues and pre-Negro leagues. Those players and executives will be posthumously inducted with Sutter on July 30.

Sutter is just the fourth relief pitcher selected. He joins Rollie Fingers, Hoyt Wilhelm and Dennis Eckersley, and is the only player in the Hall who never appeared in a starting lineup.

He figures he won't be the last.

"Relief pitchers have changed the game," Sutter said. "Without a closer, you're not going to win. I don't think I'm setting the way for anybody. Relief pitchers are starting to get recognized. You've got to have them."

Sutter won the Cy Young Award in 1979 and led the National League in saves five times.

And those who saw him or batted against him likely will never forget his split-fingered fastball.

"It came to me easy," Sutter said. "I wouldn't be here without that pitch. My other stuff was A ball, AA at best. The split-finger made it equal."

In 1982, Sutter helped the St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series. In 1984, he came out of the bullpen to appear in a career-high 71 games and established an NL record with 45 saves. In one six-week stretch that season, he had more two-inning saves than current Yankee star reliever Mariano Rivera has in his career.

But that was more than two decades ago. On this day, Sutter just wanted to soak in the history. And he marveled at the artifacts he was shown -- among them a bat once used by former Negro leagues star Cool Papa Bell and Lou Gehrig's first baseman's mitt from his college days.

The tour ended in the Bullpen Theater with the showing of a video montage of Sutter's 12-year, 300-save career.

"It might change how people look at me, but I'm not going to change," said Sutter, who donated several artifacts to the Hall, including the only glove he ever used in stints with the Chicago Cubs, Cardinals, and Atlanta Braves. "I'm still the same person."