The eccentric Kansas City A’s owner, Charlie Finley, decided Jim Hunter needed a nickname, so he concocted a fabrication about how “Catfish” Hunter used to fish for catfish as a boy growing up in North Carolina. The media swallowed the lie hook, line, and sinker, and Jim became Catfish Hunter forevermore, although back home he was always called Jim. He also became a Hall of Fame pitcher, as Catfish Hunter would anchor the pitching staff of the Oakland A’s dynasty of the early Seventies and then help the Yankees to three World Series in a row. Catfish Hunter had wonderful control, almost too good, as his propensity for throwing strikes resulted in allowing many home runs. “My brothers taught me to throw strikes, and thanks to that I gave up 400 homers in the big leagues”, Catfish Hunter would joke.
He grew up in Hertford, North Carolina, born there in 1946. When he arrived in Kansas City with the A’s in 1965 Catfish Hunter was but nineteen years old. The A’s were a wretched team, but owner Charlie Finley was finally able to stockpile some talent, starting with Catfish Hunter. The story goes that when Finley was about to tell the media of Catfish Hunter’s nickname origin, he first had to sit down with Hunter himself. “When you were six you ran away from home and went fishing. When they finally found you, you’d caught two big fish…ah…Catfish…and were reeling in the third. And that’s how you got your nickname. Okay? Now repeat it back to me.”
By any name, Catfish Hunter had talent. He went 8-8 his rookie year, and then 9-11, and 13-17 as the A’s really stunk and gave him no support. But he was learning to pitch, a far cry from just rearing back and throwing like he did when he went 26-2 in high school with five no-hitters. A hunting accident almost ended his athletic career before it began, as Catfish Hunter suffered a wound to his foot that made him miss the 1964 campaign. However he would recover fully, and as he suffered through his first few losing seasons, Finley slowly built a team around him.
The A’s moved to Oakland in 1968, and on May 8th, Catfish Hunter threw the first perfect game in the American League since 1922. He dominated the Minnesota Twins, a fine hitting squad, in a 4-0 blanking and Finley gave him a $5,000 raise after the game. Catfish Hunter finished 1968 at 13-13, but youngsters like Reggie Jackson and Sal Bando were now on the roster and things would soon turn around for Oakland. After coming in a distant second in the AL West in 1969 and 1970, with Catfish Hunter going 30-29 over that stretch, the A’s were ready to make a serious run in 1971. When rookie phenom Vida Blue won 24 games, and Catfish Hunter had a 21-11 campaign at the age of 25, the A’s blew the West away, winning the division by 16 games over the Royals. However, the savvy Orioles were able to beat them back for the pennant in the Championship Series, with Catfish Hunter losing the second game of the three game sweep by a 5-1 score.
In 1972, the A’s and Catfish Hunter began a run of three straight World Series winning seasons. Catfish Hunter would go 21-7 in 1972, and in the World Series against the Reds he won Game Two 2-1 and got a no-decision in Game Five. In the deciding seventh game, Catfish Hunter came on in relief with the score tied 1-1. Pitching on one day’s rest, Catfish Hunter recorded eight out, giving up one hit, and got the win when the A’s scored two runs in the sixth. Catfish Hunter then had a great 1973, posting a 21-5 record and going 3-0 in the playoffs over the Orioles and the Mets. In one of the most important games he ever pitched, Catfish Hunter won the deciding fifth game of the American League Championship Series, shutting out Baltimore on October 11th, 1973, with a five-hitter. Then, with Oakland down in the Series three games to two, he forced a seventh game with a 3-1 win over Tom Seaver and the Mets; the A’s won their second title the next day.
A Cy Young Award came Catfish Hunter’s way in 1974, as he won 25 games and lost 12, with a 2.59 earned run average. He gave up 25 homers that year; Catfish Hunter would serve up at least 25 gopher balls in a season eight different times and 374 in his fifteen seasons in baseball. But the long balls often came with the bases empty, and the damage was limited. Oakland met the Orioles once more in the ALCS, and Catfish Hunter lost Game One before rebounding to win the pennant clincher by a 2-1 count. In the Fall Classic against the Dodgers, Catfish Hunter came in to save Game One with a strikeout of Joe Ferguson, and then won Game Three 3-2 with some relief aid from Rollie Fingers. The A’s took out Los Angeles in five games for title number three.
By now Catfish Hunter and Charlie Finley had had a complete falling out, and when the A’s owner failed to pay half of Hunter’s salary to a life insurance fund like he was supposed to, Hunter was declared a free-agent. He went home to hunt and fish in North Carolina while teams showed up at his door to offer him millions to pitch for them. The Yankees were the highest bidder for his services, and Catfish Hunter rewarded their 3.75 million dollar contract, the largest in baseball up to that time, with a 23-14 campaign. Diabetes and arm problems limited his starts after a solid 1976, but the Yankees won three pennants in a row and a pair of titles. Catfish Hunter closed out the Dodgers by a 7-2 score in the 1978 series, the last of his nine post-season triumphs.
Arm problems caused Catfish Hunter to go 2-9 in 1979, and at the age of 33 he retired after the season was over. He went back to run his farm in Hertford, North Carolina, where he died in 1998 after falling and hitting his head on concrete steps. Catfish Hunter had been suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease, which had ravaged his body and made it almost impossible to even lift his arms. He was only 53 years old when he passed away.
Catfish Hunter lived long enough for the baseball writers to look at his 224-166 record and 42 shutouts and decide he merited a plaque in Cooperstown. Catfish Hunter was inducted in 1987, always a simple country boy at heart. When a reporter once asked him why he could never pitch another perfect game, Catfish Hunter answered the ridiculous question by smiling and declaring, “The sun don’t shine on the same dog’s ass all the time.
