THE NEW YORK TIMES – Roger Craig, who pitched or managed in five World Series and changed the face of pitching in the 1980s as the guru of the split-fingered fastball, died on Sunday. He was 93.
His family said the death came after a short illness, according to a spokesman for The San Francisco Giants, a team Craig managed for eight seasons, leading them to the National League pennant in 1989.
A family member said Craig died in San Diego, a team spokesman told The Associated Press.
For some, Craig was a figure in baseball trivia: He was the starting pitcher for the Dodgers in their final game before moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, and five years later, in 1962, he threw the first pitch in the Mets’ history. He was the loser both times.
He lost 24 games and then 22 for the dreadful Mets in their first two seasons, including 18 in a row in 1963. But he had his moments when backed by good-hitting lineups.
A lanky 6-foot-4 right-hander who, it was often noted, bore a remarkable resemblance to President Lyndon B. Johnson, Craig pitched in three World Series for the Dodgers in the 1950s and another with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1964.
In managing the Giants to the 1989 N.L. pennant, he implored his players to hustle with the mantra “Humm baby” and taught his pitchers to throw the split-fingered fastball.
Craig spread the gospel of the split, thrown with the same motion as a traditional fastball but able to confound batters because the pitcher gripped the baseball with his index and middle finger spread widely apart, and parallel to the seams instead of across them.
“The split finger is, simply, a fastball that you put an extra spin on so that it drops down in front of the batter so fast that he don’t know where it’s goin’,” Craig explained in a 1988 interview with Playboy. “Every pitcher with brains who wants to stick around wants to learn it … ”
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