{"id":19491,"date":"2022-10-14T10:31:40","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T16:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/?p=19491"},"modified":"2022-10-14T10:31:40","modified_gmt":"2022-10-14T16:31:40","slug":"rip-bruce-sutter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/2022\/10\/rip-bruce-sutter\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP Bruce Sutter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Former Cub closer Bruce Sutter died this morning at the age of 69.\u00a0 Sutter, elected to the Hall of Fame in 2006, spent five seasons with the Cubs from 1976 through 1980, earning four All Star nods, numerous MVP votes, and a Cy Young Award.\u00a0 He was traded to the Cardinals prior to the 1981 season, where he would become one of the most recognizable stars of the game and a World Series champion in 1982.\u00a0 He signed with the Braves as a free agent after the 1984 season, where injuries would bring his career to a premature end in 1988.\u00a0 His career total of 300 saves is currently tied for 30th in MLB history.<\/p>\n

Sutter began closing games for the Cubs late in the 1976 season, earning 10 saves before season’s end.\u00a0 When Herman Franks became Cubs manager in 1977, he had Sutter closing games from the get-go.\u00a0 Despite an August injury, he finished the year with a 1.34 ERA, 31 saves, and a 6.5 bWAR, finishing in sixth place for Cy Young voting and seventh place in MVP voting.\u00a0 In 1979, Sutter led all of MLB in saves, with 37, for the first of what would be four straight seasons, earning the Cy Young Award along the way.<\/p>\n

Following that year, Sutter became the first Cub to enter the new arbitration system.\u00a0 The Cubs offered Sutter $350,000, an increase of nearly 50 percent from his 1979 salary, while Sutter asked for $700,000.\u00a0 When the arbitrator awarded the higher figure to Sutter, the Wrigley family claimed they couldn’t afford it.\u00a0 While Sutter put up another great season in 1980, the Cubs lost 98 games and, after the season, he was traded to the Cardinals for Leon Durham, Ken Reitz and Ty Waller.<\/p>\n

Sutter still had one more important role to play in Cubs lore.\u00a0 In 1984, while still a member of the Cardinals, he was on the mound in the ninth inning of a nationally televised game trying to hold on to a 9-8 lead.\u00a0 Ryne Sandberg, at the time a young, unheralded second baseman not known for power, hit a home run to send the game to extra innings.\u00a0 After the Cardinals plated two in the top of the 10th, Sutter came back out to once again try to wrap up the victory.\u00a0 After two quick outs and a walk to Bob Dernier, Sandberg once again teed off, hitting his second game-tying home run in as many innings.\u00a0 The Cubs would eventually win what is now known as “The Sandberg Game” in the 11th and Ryne Sandberg was on his way to becoming a star.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Cub closer Bruce Sutter died this morning at the age of 69.\u00a0 Sutter, elected to the Hall of Fame in 2006, spent five seasons with the Cubs from 1976 through 1980, earning four All Star nods, numerous MVP votes, and a Cy Young Award.\u00a0 He was traded to the Cardinals prior to the 1981 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2062,125,9732,57,120,1672,9851,44,9734,9733,2244,79,900,9735],"class_list":["post-19491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","tag-bob-dernier","tag-braves","tag-bruce-sutter","tag-cardinals","tag-cubs","tag-cy-young-award","tag-herman-franks","tag-hof","tag-ken-reitz","tag-leon-durham","tag-mlb","tag-mvp","tag-ryne-sandberg","tag-ty-waller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19493,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19491\/revisions\/19493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}