Remembering Sparky Lyle

By Sal Maiorana

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Sal Maiorana, a friend of the site, shares some of his thoughts on the Yankees.

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Sparky Lyle Was at The Forefront of the Closer Revolution

Only one reliever saved more games in the 1970s than the Yankees lefty

Some habits die harder than others, and for Sparky Lyle, busting hitters on the inner half of the plate - which was such an integral part of his success as a major leaguer - certainly qualified.

Lyle told a funny story to Sports Illustrated back in 2002 when he was early in what became a 15-year tenure as manager of the Somerset Patriots.

The Patriots were an independent league pro team, meaning they were not part of an affiliation agreement with any major league team, so coaching staffs were pretty sparse. Thus, there were many days when Lyle would throw batting practice - his first season as manager was 1998 when he was 54 years old - and his players hated it because he couldn’t break his habit of throwing inside.

“I was always running the damn ball in on them, moving it around,” Lyle told SI. “I wasn’t trying to. It’s just that I still can’t throw a straight ball to save my life.”

Of course, his ability to do that against major league hitters is why he enjoyed a 16-year career which began in 1967 with the Red Sox but peaked during his seven seasons as a Yankee between 1972-78 when he appeared in 420 games, pitched 745 innings, saved 141 games, and compiled a sparkling ERA of 2.41.

Baseball was just beginning to experiment with closers when Lyle debuted in Boston, and when the save became an official statistic in 1969, more emphasis began to be put on locking down the end of games. Back then, of course, starting pitchers prided themselves on complete games, but with pitchers like Lyle enjoying relief success, teams began to understand the value of bringing in a fresh pitcher for the last inning or two, and Lyle became one of the original benefactors of that strategy.

In the 1970s, the only man who had more saves than Lyle’s 190 was Rollie Fingers who had 209 for the A’s and Padres, and Lyle was comfortably ahead of No. 3 Mike Marshall (177) and No. 4 Dave Giusti (140). It prompted Lyle to say one time, “Why pitch nine innings when you can get just as famous pitching two?”

Lyle came to the Yankees in spring training 1972 in a trade with Boston that sent first baseman Danny Cater to the Red Sox. It became one of the most lopsided transactions in the history of both teams as Cater never really did anything in three injury-plagued seasons and was out of baseball by 1975.

Meanwhile, Lyle became a star who earned three All-Star berths; finished third in the AL MVP balloting in 1972 when he led the league with 35 saves which then was a record for a left-hander; and then he became the first reliever in history to win a Cy Young Award in 1977 when he led the league in games pitched (72), games finished (60), saves (26), had an ERA of 2.17, and helped lead the Yankees to their first World Series title since 1962.

Lyle was at the forefront of the closer revolution, and though not by his choice he was also part of the ballpark music revolution as one of the first players to have introductory music played when he entered the game, something that is ubiquitous today in baseball at every level.

Pinpointing the origin of individual player music is tricky, but it is believed to have started with Lyle and Lou Brock of the Cardinals. In the early 70s, the story goes that Brock asked the organist in St. Louis to play the theme song from the movie Shaft starring Richard Roundtree whenever he came to the plate.

As for Lyle, Marty Appel, then the team’s public relations chief, loved the confidence Lyle brought to the mound when he entered a game. He would jump into the bullpen car - yes, the Yankees drove their relievers from the bullpen to the mound in a pinstripe-painted mini-car - and when he got out after the short ride, the Yankees’ fireman usually had fire in his eyes.

Appel decided that Lyle needed a theme song and Pomp and Circumstance, traditionally played at graduations, was the choice because it was grandiose and theatrical. The fans loved it, but Lyle didn’t, and following the 1973 season he told the Yankees to knock it off because he felt it put undue pressure on him to perform.

But you couldn’t put that toothpaste back into the tube and by the mid- to late-80s, music was becoming more and more a part of the game-day ambience. And when the movie Major League came out in 1989, and Charlie Sheen’s Ricky Vaughn relief pitcher character nicknamed “Wild Thing” would enter games as the song of the same name by The Troggs rocked the stadium, there was no stopping the train. Soon, everybody in the real major leagues had their own song.

One of the most famous, of course, is Metallica’s Enter Sandman which the Yankees played for Mariano Rivera. Rivera didn’t even know who Metallica was, but he played along and it became part of his lore. Now, that would never happen because players are in control of their preferred music.

Lyle was at the pinnacle of his career in 1977, and then all of the sudden, he wasn’t even the closer on the World Series champs. Only a few weeks after Lyle celebrated his Cy Young award, George Steinbrenner signed Goose Gossage to share the closer role with Lyle. It was classic Steinbrenner who made it his mission to collect as many stars as he could and then let whoever the manager was figure out how to use them all.

“I was driving cross-country and heard the news on the radio,” Lyle told the New York Times in 2017. “When you have two relievers who are used to being in 70-plus games every year, one of them’s not going to get innings.”

Quite obviously, the signing of Gossage - who was undeniably a great pitcher in his own right - angered Lyle to no end. He considered it a big-time insult, especially when Steinbrenner gave Gossage a six-year, $3.6 million contract and Lyle - who made just $140,000 in 1977 - received a mere $35,000 raise to $175,000.

In part, that convinced Lyle to hook up with esteemed author Peter Golenbock to write The Bronx Zoo, one of the greatest baseball books ever published. Lyle peeled the curtain back on the Yankees volatile clubhouse in day-by-day diary form, quite similarly to what Jim Bouton did in Ball Four nearly a decade earlier.

In 1978, Lyle saved only nine games and had a 3.47 ERA which was his worst since 1970, while Gossage led the AL with 27 saves and had a dazzling 2.01 ERA. And then in the postseason, Lyle pitched in just one game while Gossage pitched in five and helped secure the Yankees’ second straight championship.

As soon as the champagne dried, Lyle knew he had worn pinstripes for the final time and he was part of a big trade with Texas in which Lyle, Mike Heath, Larry McCall, Dave Rajsich, Domingo Ramos and cash went to the Rangers for Dave Righetti, Juan Beníquez, Mike Griffin, Paul Mirabella and Greg Jemison. Graig Nettles aptly summed up Lyle’s departure when he said, “Cy Young to Sayonara.”

Lyle would later bounce from the Rangers to the Phillies to the White Sox and in his last four MLB seasons he saved only 28 games and he retired after 1982.

He spent “the best five years of my life” working alongside Mickey Mantle as a greeter at an Atlantic City casino, then made a living making personal appearances, mostly at trading card and memorabilia shows. He had no thoughts of returning to baseball until a chance meeting with a car dealer in 1998.

Lyle was in the market for a new truck and his old Phillies teammate, John Vukovich, told him to see a guy in New Jersey named Steven Kalafer who was also running the Patriots. When Lyle showed up at the dealership, Kalafer sold him an F-150 and offered him the job as manager of his team and Lyle figured why not?

He managed the team through 2012, won five league championships, and the team - which is now the Yankees’ Double-A affiliate - retired his number 28.