Sam McDowell, the Cleveland Indians’ All-Star left-handed pitcher of the 1960s and early ‘70s who battled addiction to alcohol while gaining attention for unleashing fastballs, curves and sliders that whizzed past hapless batters, has died. He was 84.
Major League Baseball announced the death on social media but provided no further details.
McDowell was known as Sudden Sam, a nickname he said was given to him by Bob Dolgan, a sportswriter for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland, who had watched him throw at the Indians’ 1961 spring training camp. (The Minnesota Twins’ slugger Harmon Killebrew had also remarked that his fastball arrived “all of a sudden,” he recalled.)
Pitching in all or part of 15 major league seasons, 11 with the Indians, McDowell led the American League in strikeouts five times and posted a single-season high of 325 in 1965. Throwing out of a 6-foot-5-inch, 190-pound frame, he struck out 2,453 batters in 2,492 innings.
He was named to the A.L. All-Star team six times and finished third in balloting for the Cy Young Award as the American League’s most outstanding pitcher in 1970. He went 20-12 that season and struck out 304 batters in 305 innings pitched.
Sports Illustrated portrayed McDowell on a May 1966 cover alongside the caption “Faster Than Koufax?” While Sandy Koufax went on to a Hall of Fame career, McDowell, for all his strikeout statistics, struggled with his control, topping A.L. pitchers in walks five times and in wild pitches three times.
He faced a far more consequential struggle off the field.
By his account, McDowell had been addicted to alcohol since 1963, when he began drinking with teammates.
“I had cemented my standing as the worst drunk in baseball as the mid-1970s approached,” he wrote in his 2022 memoir, “The Saga of Sudden Sam: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of Sam McDowell” (with Martin Gitlin).
He continued to drink heavily after his baseball career ended. His wife, Carol Ann Beisgen, divorced him and gained custody of their two children. He was living with his parents in the Pittsburgh area when he passed out one day in April 1980. As he recalled, “All I remember of that dark moment was repeating both to myself and my demon addiction, ‘You beat me, you beat me.’ I felt that I was going insane.”
McDowell was persuaded by his family and his employer at an insurance company to enter therapy at the Gateway Rehabilitation Center in Pittsburgh. The sessions proved successful, and he went on to obtain an associate degree from the University of Pittsburgh in sports psychology and addictions. He was certified as a counselor by the state of Pennsylvania in 1982.
In the years that followed, he counseled addicted baseball players in coordination with the Baseball Assistance Team, which aids former players in distress, and helped athletes in other sports, as well as people in all walks of life.
Samuel Edward Thomas McDowell was born in Pittsburgh on Sept. 21, 1942, one of six children of Thomas and MaryIrene (Donald) McDowell. His father, a former quarterback for the University of Pittsburgh, inspected equipment in steel mills. Both parents, he wrote in his memoir, were alcoholics.
He was a star pitcher and also competed in basketball, football and track at Central Catholic High School, then signed with the Indians’ organization for a $75,000 bonus.
After pitching in the low minors, McDowell was promoted to the Indians’ top farm club, in Salt Lake City, for the 1961 season, then made his debut with the Indians in September. He shuttled between the Indians and the minors during the next two seasons, then became part of their rotation in late May 1964. In his first start, facing the Chicago White Sox, he struck out 14 batters and went 6-0 for the season.
McDowell compiled a 17-11 record in 1965 along with a league-leading 2.18 earned run average to go with his 325 strikeouts. He threw two consecutive one-hit shutouts in 1966, continued to blow pitches past batters in the next three seasons, then posted his only 20-victory season in 1970, when he was selected to his third consecutive All-Star Game.
He engaged in a contract dispute with the Indians in 1971, and they dealt him to the San Francisco Giants before the 1972 season. He missed several weeks with a sore shoulder and a circulatory issue and finished with a 10-8 record.
The Giants sent McDowell to the Yankees in early June 1973. He went 5-8, then was hampered by a slipped disk in 1974. The Yankees released him after that season. He pitched sparingly in relief for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1975, then was released in June, ending his major league career with 141 wins, 134 losses with a 3.17 earned run average.
A complete list of survivors was not immediately available.
In his later years, McDowell moved to the Florida city of Clermont, where he founded City of Legends, a community for retired athletes.
“I don’t think about the past very much,” McDowell was quoted as saying in a 2015 profile by the Society for American Baseball Research. “Today is all I care about.”
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