Obituary: Bob Priddy (1939-2023)

RIP to Bob Priddy, a relief pitcher over 8 seasons in the 1960s and early ’70s. He died at his home in Corapolis, PA, on September 28. He was 84 years old. Priddy played for the Pittsburgh Pirates (1962, 1964), San Francisco Giants (1965-66), Washington Senators (1967), Chicago White Sox (1968-69), California Angels (1969) and Atlanta Braves (1970-71).

Robert Simpson Priddy was born in Pittsburgh on December 10, 1939. Pittsburgh had a pretty thriving amateur baseball program then, and Priddy became the captain of the Sto-Ken-Rox Rams. He was a good hitter and spent much of his time there and on the McKees Rocks High School team as an infielder. He was also a multi-talented back on the school football team, running, catching and throwing touchdown passes in his time. Add in his play on the basketball team, and Priddy received about 10 letters in high school. In January of 1958, the Pittsburgh Pirates signed Priddy to a contract and assigned him to Salem of the Appalachian League.

Priddy played third base, shortstop and the outfield for Salem in 1958, and he hit .222 with 6 home runs. Starting in 1959, the Pirates decided to move Priddy to the mound, and he never played in the field again. He spent a few years struggling to adjust to his new role. He had a 3-11 record and 7.01 ERA while pitching for San Angelo/Roswell of the Sophomore League in ’59 with 118 strikeouts and 144 walks in 131 innings. He won 9 games for Burlington in 1960 but still walked (and struck out) more than 9 batters per 9 innings. He finally started to see real success on the mound in 1961 with Burlington. He was 7-2 with 6 complete games and cut his walk rate in half while maintaining a high strikeout rate. Don Osborne, a pitching consultant with the Pittsburgh Pirates, praised Priddy’s development. “Priddy is a brilliant prospect. He has all the pitches and is smart,” he said.

Priddy was moved up the organizational ladder quickly and spent 1962 at Triple-A Columbus of the International League. He was converted to a reliever and seemed to thrive in the role. He pitched in 53 games and won 10 of them, with a 3.13 ERA. He struck out 93 batters in 92 innings and kept his walks down to 56. Pittsburgh was pleased enough with his progress that the team brought him and Columbus teammate Willie Stargell to the majors on September 6, 1962. The Pirates game against Cincinnati on September 20 was a milestone day for both rookies. Stargell got his first major-league hit, a triple. Priddy made his major-league debut, pitched a scoreless ninth inning, and earned the win when the Pirates rallied with 3 runs in the bottom of the inning to win 4-3. Priddy threw 2 innings against the Milwaukee Braves the very next day and allowed an RBI double to Tommie Aaron, giving him a 3.00 ERA in 3 major-league innings.

Pittsburgh rushed Priddy to the majors when it looked like he had figured out how to harness his great fastball, but the team didn’t keep him around long. He spent all of 1963 and most of ’64 back in Columbus. He rejoined the Bucs on May 13, 1964, and didn’t allow a run in his first 8 innings pitched. He earned a 4-inning save — the first of his career — against the Dodgers on May 17. Priddy remained with Pittsburgh for a little over two months and pitched mostly as a mop-up reliever in 19 games. He had a 1-2 record, a 3.93 ERA and 23 strikeouts in 32-1/3 innings. Pittsburgh traded Priddy and first baseman Bob Burda to the San Francisco Giants on February 11, 1965, for catcher Del Crandall. Priddy came highly recommended by Giants hitters, but the team had a glut of talented pitchers. He threw two scoreless outings early in the season but was sent to the minors in May when the rosters were reduced. He didn’t make it back to the Giants until September. He relieved in 6 more games and picked up a win against Houston, ending the year with a 1.74 ERA. By the end of 1965, Priddy had spent parts of 3 years in the majors, showed real success but had less than 50 innings pitched to show for it.

Things changed for the better in 1966. Priddy made the Giants out of spring training and won 3 games in relief in May. He helped the Giants outlast the New York Mets on May 13, pitching the final 3 innings of a 17-inning marathon before Jim Davenport hit the go-ahead home run in the top of the final inning. Priddy routinely pitched multiple innings in relief, but his top outing came on August 1 against the Mets. Joe Gibbon had allowed 2 runs in the second inning, and Priddy relieved him with the bases loaded and nobody out. He struck out Mets pitcher Bob Friend and got Ron Hunt to ground into an inning-ending double play. Priddy then pitched the next 7 innings without allowing a run, allowing only two runners to reach base on singles. The Giants batters touched Friend for 4 runs to win 4-2, and Priddy earned his win with 8 stellar innings in relief. He finished the year with a 3.96 ERA over 91 innings in 38 appearances, with all but 3 coming out of the pen. He had a 6-3 record, and those 3 losses just happened to be in his 3 starts.

After having a successful season in his first full year in the major leagues, Priddy was immediately traded to the Washington Senators in December 1966. The Giants shipped Priddy and outfielder Cap Peterson to Washington in exchange for pitcher Mike McCormick. McCormick won 22 games and the NL Cy Young Award for the Giants in 1967, giving San Francisco the edge in that deal. Peterson batted .240 as Washington’s right fielder, and Priddy became a pretty valuable swingman. He made 8 starts in his 46 appearances, and while his 3-7 record doesn’t look great, his 110 innings pitched was one of the best among the Senators relievers. Furthermore, his 3.44 ERA was one of the better marks in the pen. Priddy made a few starts toward the end of the season, and he threw his first career complete game on August 23 when he shut down Boston, 3-2, on 5 hits and 3 walks. The Senators were a sixth-place team, but the relievers, including the recently deceased Casey Cox, liked manager Gil Hodges. Priddy, interviewed by the Tracy (CA) Press, was happier with his situation than he was with San Francisco.

“There were times when the Giants wouldn’t use a pitcher for as many as eight to 10 days, then they would put you in a game in a tight situation and expect you to do an effective job,” Priddy said. “Now here at Washington, Gil Hodges takes full advantage of all his pitchers. Check the stats and you’ll see that everyone has done his share of pitching this season… For handling pitchers, Gil is the finest manager in the majors.”

Priddy found himself on the move to his third team in three seasons. He was traded to the Chicago White Sox, along with infielder Tim Cullen and pitcher Buster Narum, to the Chicago White Sox for shortstop Ron Hansen and pitchers Dennis Higgins and Steve Jones. He started the 1969 season in the Sox bullpen but pitched well enough in April and May to work into the starting rotation. He held his own for a couple of months and threw a complete game win over his former Senators teammates on August 3. Then, Priddy lost 6 straight starts, including four games in which he pitched 5 innings or less, and his record fell to 3-11. The Sox sent Priddy back to the pen in September, and he tossed 10 scoreless innings to lower his ERA to 3.63. Even with the rough stretch of starts, he still reached career highs with 114 innings pitched and 66 strikeouts.

The well-traveled pitcher was on the move again in 1969 — early and often. Priddy began the year in Chicago and allowed 4 runs in 8 innings over 5 appearances. On May 14, he and infielder Sandy Alomar Sr. were traded to the California Angels for second baseman Bobby Knoop. Priddy pitched well for his new team and sported a 2.51 ERA over his first 9 games. Then came June 10 against Baltimore. Starter Rudy May was rocked by the Orioles, and Priddy didn’t fare much better. He gave up a 3-run homer to Boog Powell but retired Brooks Robinson in a fly ball to escape the second, with a 7-0 deficit. Then he was sent back out in the third inning and gave up 4 more runs, for a total of 7 in an inning’s worth of work, before he was taken out of the game. That one game raised his ERA by more than 3 runs. The Angels manager at the time was Lefty Phillips, who had just replaced Bill Rigney. Phillips did not get along with Priddy; I’m not sure if that one awful outing had anything to do with it, but hostilities between the two boiled over in the lobby of Chicago’s Knickerbocker hotel on July 5. Priddy got into an argument with his manager, and whatever he said, it was serious enough that he was demoted to Triple-A Hawaii the next day.

“I could no longer play for Lefty Phillips,” Priddy said. “I’ve played for many managers, but he’s the worst.” He questioned Phillips’ ability to run a pitching staff and feared he would ruin the arms of young pitchers like May and Ken Tatum. “He has them warming up in the second inning. He has them warming up when the pitcher throws two consecutive balls.”

Phillips, for his part, accused Priddy of sabotage. “Priddy was little by little poisoning the minds of our younger pitchers. He did his job as a pitcher, but he wasn’t satisfied with that. He wanted to be the pitching coach. I think he wanted to be the manager.” One other Angel, who was not identified, firmly came down on the anti-Phillips side, saying the manager was conducting a “reign of terror.” “Suppose you go to dinner after a night game. Suppose the service is slow. Hell, you better get up and go back to the hotel. It’s a constant fear that if you’re late, if you make a mistake, you’ll be fined.”

Priddy’s stay with the Angels lasted 15 games. He was 0-1 with a 4.78 ERA, but half of the 14 earned runs he gave up in 26-1/3 innings came in that one Orioles game. It was widely reported that Priddy would retire rather than report to Hawaii, but he made it to Honolulu and played without complaint for Islanders manager Chuck Tanner. Late in the season, the Angels dealt Priddy and veteran pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm to the Atlanta Braves for outfielder Mickey Rivers and pitcher Clint Compton. He made one appearance for the Braves, throwing 2 scoreless innings in a loss to Cincinnati on October 2. The 47-year-old Wilhelm and 30-year-old Priddy became the core of the 1970 Braves bullpen, accounting for 21 of the team’s 24 saves (Wilhelm had 13 and Priddy 8). Priddy also had a 5-5 record and 5.42 ERA. He lost 9 games in 1971 but improved his ERA by more than a run, lowering it to 4.22. Even so, he was outrighted to Triple-A Richmond at the end of the season. The nature of the transaction meant that the Braves could not promote him to the majors for all of 1972, but another team could pick him up in the offseason Rule V Draft. No team did, and rather than spend a season in the minors, Priddy retired from the game.

In 9 seasons in the majors, Priddy appeared in 249 games, including 29 starts. He had a 24-38 record and a 4.00 ERA. He threw 3 complete games and recorded 18 saves. In 536 innings pitched, he struck out 294 batters. His career ERA+ was 89 and his WHIP was 1.336. Priddy, the former outfielder, got 95 at-bats in the majors and hit .137. He had one career home run. It came on June 19, 1968, against Cleveland’s Luis Tiant, and it broke a 0-0 tie. Priddy gave up a run in 5-2/3 innings and didn’t get a decision in the 3-1 White Sox loss.

Priddy worked as a jeweler in San Mateo, CA, following his playing career. In his retirement, he enjoyed golfing and coin collecting. He is survived by daughters Vera and Danielle and their families.

During his pitching career, Priddy was known for his fastball, and he used a slider and a curveball off and on. However, he also had a couple of special pitches, and he may be the only person in baseball history to have thrown them.

“The goo-goo ball is a pretty mean pitch. There aren’t but two or three guys in baseball who can hit it,” Priddy told the Atlanta Journal in 1971. “But the real mean one is the entie-wabbler– that’s spelled e-n-t-i-e w-a-b-b-l-e-r with a dash or whatever you call it in between. The trouble with that pitch, though, is that it takes so much out of your arm that you have to make it the last pitch of the game. Throw that thing and you’re through for a few days. You have to have two strikes on the last batter in the game to use it. Nobody can hit it — well nobody could hit it until Stargell got so hot against us. Maybe he could hit it.”

Lest you think that Priddy was serious, he also discussed in that interview his method for hunting deer. He didn’t use a gun or a bow; he just chased them until they dropped from sheer exhaustion. “That’s one thing I can do, run. I ran 800 miles this spring and I’ve pitched two innings. I just kept telling myself that they know what I can do, and I just kept running. It makes a difference when you go deer hunting with a penknife.”

For more information: Young Funeral Home

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