Mike McCormick, the first San Francisco Giants pitcher to win the Cy Young Award, died peacefully on Saturday, the Giants announced on social media.
According to the Giants, McCormick, 81, died at his home in North Carolina after waging a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Mike McCormick, a true gentleman and forever Giant,” Giants president and CEO Larry Baer said. “Like many Giants fans, I have many fond childhood memories of watching Mike pitch at Candlestick Park and then was blessed to call him my friend these past 30 years. As a member of the inaugural San Francisco Giants team in 1958, Mike helped establish baseball on the West Coast and then went on to play a major role in the legendary Giants teams of the 1960s, becoming San Francisco’s first pitcher to win a Cy Young Award.”
Mike McCormick was born in Pasadena. His father Kenneth, a semi-pro pitcher, set about teaching his son the craft of pitching when Mike was 7. By the time the left-handed prodigy reached high school, he was a terror on the mound.
As a senior McCormick threw two no-hitters, and added three more in American Legion play — one in which he struck out 26 of the 27 hitters he faced. He was 17 when the New York Giants offered him a $50,000 bonus. McCormick, who had designs on attending USC, changed his mind in a hurry.
“I realized that $50,000 will buy me a lot of education,” he told Mike Mandel, author of “S.F. Giants: An Oral History.”
Baseball rules at that time mandated that bonus players had to remain on the major league roster for two years. McCormick was used sparingly during the Giants’ final two seasons in New York. He was 19 when the Giants arrived in San Francisco. Inserted into the starting rotation, he won in double figures for four consecutive seasons.
After he stumbled to 5-5 in the Giants’ pennant-winning season of 1962, San Francisco traded him to the American League. He pitched two seasons each for Baltimore and Washington before being shipped back to the Giants. He returned with improved control, the ability to change speeds and a screwball.
He won 22 games in 1967, becoming the Giants’ first Cy Young Award winner. It was noteworthy given that he pitched on a staff that included future Hall of Famers Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry. It would be 41 years before Tim Lincecum became the second Giants pitcher to earn the Cy Young. McCormick congratulated Lincecum enthusiastically.
McCormick’s stay at the pinnacle was brief. He fell to 12 wins in 1968. On July 14 that year he served up Hank Aaron’s 500th career home run, commemorating the event with personalized license plates that read, “Mr. 500”. In 1969, McCormick fell to 11 wins. During the 1970 season, with a 3-4 record and a 6.20 ERA, McCormick was dealt to the New York Yankees.
A brief stint with the Kansas City Royals in 1971 proved his major league swan song. But he had trouble giving up the game. He went to spring training with the Giants in 1972. He didn’t make the team, but he hooked on with three minor league teams.
By the time he retired his left arm was crooked “like Carl Hubbell’s was,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I loved the competing. I’d play every day if I could, and that’s probably part of the reason I hurt my arm. I’d never say no. I’d say, ‘Fine, give me the ball. I’ll go get ‘em.’ I loved it.”