By AP/KWMU
St. Louis, MO – Former Cardinals reliever Bruce Sutter was the only player elected to baseball's Hall of Fame Tuesday. He needed 75% of the votes by baseball writers to get in, and got 76.9%.
He'll be the first pitcher in the Hall of Fame who never started a game. And he actually had a losing record during his 12-year pitching career. It was those 300 saves and pioneering of the split-fingered fastball that helped him get in.
He started with the Chicago Cubs, where he made four All-Star teams and won a Cy Young Award.
He was later traded to the St. Louis, where he played in two more All-Star games and helped the Cardinals to a championship in 1982.
He got two saves in the World Series that year against the Brewers and threw the last pitch of the series. That was the only time the Cardinals clinched a World Series win at the now-demolished Busch Stadium.
Sutter joins Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers, and Dennis Eckersley as the only relief pitchers in the Hall.
Boston slugger Jim Rice missed getting into this year's class by 53 votes, and another reliever - Goose Gossage - was one vote behind Rice. Former Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson was fourth in voting.