White Sox Legend Dead at 84

Former big league knuckleballer Wilbur Wood, a workhorse pitcher who rewrote durability standards during a long career anchored in Chicago, died Saturday at age 84.

Wood died at a hospital in Burlington, Massachusetts, The New York Times reported.

Across 17 major league seasons, Wood led the majors twice in games pitched and four times in games started. He spent parts of his career with the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates before carving out a defining 12-year run with the Chicago White Sox.

His most staggering season came in 1972, when Wood threw 376 2/3 innings for the White Sox, the most by a pitcher since 1917. He also made 49 starts that year, the highest total since 1908. Neither mark has been matched in the modern era.

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wood starred at Belmont High School before reaching the majors at just 19. He debuted in 1961 with the Red Sox.

“He was a real hot-shot pitcher,” Roland Hemond, a former White Sox executive, told the Chicago Tribune.

“I first met Wilbur in 1960 when our scout Jeff Jones sent him to Milwaukee for a tryout right after he had graduated from high school. He was a fuzzy-faced, chubby little guy who didn’t throw very hard. I watched him throw batting practice but I couldn’t get very excited about him.

Pitcher Wilbur Wood of the Chicago White Sox in 1973. Getty Images

“After his workout, I brought him up to the press room in County Stadium with my wife, and we fed him hot dogs. We did discover he had a good appetite. He was such a likable little guy, it was tough to tell him he didn’t throw hard enough and we weren’t interested.”

Wood eventually found his edge by leaning fully into the knuckleball, a pitch he had experimented with early in his career. The transformation came after he arrived in Chicago and worked alongside knuckleball legend Hoyt Wilhelm.

“I was lucky because when I came to the Sox, Hoyt Wilhelm was still with them, probably the greatest knuckleball pitcher of all,” Wood said, per the Tribune. “He told me if I was going to throw the knuckleball, I should junk the rest of my pitches. I wasn’t doing any good with them anyway, so I took his advice. I had nothing to lose.”

The move paid off. Wood became a three-time American League All-Star, recorded four 20-win seasons and finished his career with a 164-156 record from 1961 to 1978.

After retiring from baseball, Wood went on to work in the pharmaceutical industry, closing the book on one of the most durable pitching careers the game has ever seen.