Former All-Star Eddie Fisher passed away on Monday at 88. His obituary was provided by an Oklahoma funeral home.
Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Fisher moved to Oklahoma as a child. He attended OU before signing with the Giants in 1958. A knuckleballer, Fisher reached the majors within a year of signing his pro contract. He pitched sparingly over three seasons with San Francisco. The Giants included the 6’2″ righty in a trade package to the White Sox for veteran pitchers Billy Pierce and Don Larsen during the 1961-62 offseason.
Fisher spent parts of five seasons in Chicago. Working primarily as a long reliever, he rattled off four straight years with at least 120 innings and a sub-4.00 earned run average. Fisher had his best season in 1965, when he turned in a 2.40 ERA while leading the American League in appearances (82) and WHIP (0.974). He made his lone All-Star appearance, where he tossed two scoreless innings. Fisher finished fourth in AL MVP balloting behind Zoilo Versalles and future Hall of Famers Tony Oliva and Brooks Robinson.
It was more of the same in ’66. Fisher carried a 2.29 ERA over 35 1/3 innings for the White Sox, who swapped him to the Orioles for middle infielder Jerry Adair that June. Fisher tossed 71 2/3 frames with a 2.64 mark down the stretch for Baltimore. The O’s went on to win the World Series, getting Fisher the only ring of his career. He didn’t make an appearance in the Fall Classic. Baltimore’s sweep of the Dodgers included complete game shutouts from Jim Palmer, Wally Bunker and Dave McNally, so they had little need to use their bullpen.
Fisher continued to soak up innings out of the ’pen for multiple teams into the 1970s. He pitched one more season with Baltimore and spent four years with the California Angels, for whom he turned in a 3.22 ERA. He had a brief second stint with the White Sox and wrapped his career with the Cardinals in ’73.
He concluded a 15-year big league run with a 3.41 earned run average in more than 1500 innings. Fisher won 85 games and recorded 812 strikeouts. He finished 344 contests and was credited with 82 saves (most of them retroactively because the stat wasn’t officially tracked by MLB until 1969). MLBTR sends condolences to Fisher’s family, friends and loved ones.
Finished 4th in MVP voting in 1965 while pitching in more than 1/2 the season’s game as a reliever. That’s bad ass. RIP Eddie.
Interesting that he was 4th in MVP but didn’t rank at all in CY. That shows how respect for relievers has grown. 165 innings as a reliever is insane.
Back then, it was one vote (no 2nd place votes) per writer for entire MLB. Koufax was the easy unanimous choice.
165 innings out of the bullpen! A beastly season.
He should have been the first every day Eddie. They used to work the heck out of him.
Baseball Reference shows that he started 0 games that year. Is that a mistake?
He owned a baseball camp in Oklahoma that I attended in the summer of 1971. One of the AL’s best relievers in the days before firemen became a thing. RIP
Meh, he was no Tom Emanski
RIP
He was pretty good with the White Sox. Remember him and his knuckle ball. RIP Eddie.
In 1965 and 1966, Eddie Fisher shared White Sox bullpen duties with two other knuckleball pitchers, Bob Locker and HOF’er Hoyt Wilhelm. I pitied the catchers, trying to corral all those flutterballs with oversized mitts while keeping their opponents running game in check.
I didn’t know Bob locker was a knuckler. He was a sidearmed sinkerball pitcher unless I remember wrong.
Still, these long relievers were under appreciated by us fans in those days. The teams that realized they needed a strong pen were the teams that won consistently.
Technically you are correct. However, the sinker he threw was akin to a knuckleball in it’s unpredictable downward movement as Bob Locker explained in this article:sabr.org/bioproj/person/bob-locker/
“There are two kinds of sinker,” Locker explained. “One is a roll-over sinker — Tommy John had one of those — a predictable pitch. I had a smothered sinker, which is a lot like a knuckleball. It’s hard to predict. I had to fight it every day, every pitch. But when everything was right the ball had some pretty wicked downward movement. It offset my liabilities. You know that if you throw it and the guys get a couple of singles off it, you keep throwing it and they’ll eventually hit it at someone and you’ll get a double play.”
RIP
BOOMER
And somewhere, Reinsdorf smokes a cigar.
May the force be with you, Eddie.
Thought Darth Vader croaked earlier. My vad. RIP
A long, long time ago ..
RIP. He did what so many of us dream of, actually play on a World Series winning team and a ring to show for it. 15 seasons of playing the game we all love. Condolences to his friends and family.
RIP Eddie…..
From an era when baseball was baseball. He was one of the best.
Out of respect, there will be no name related puns based on his name.
From Me.
He was a bit before my time, but I had some of his old baseball cards. I heard he was a good one though. RIP Eddie.
Wrong Eddie Fisher, of course. But THIS Eddie was one of the top three knucklers of the 60s, along with Hoyt and Phil Niekro.
I remember listening to White Sox games on the radio with Bob Elson calling them. The mid 1960s Sox teams had excellent pitching and Eddie Fisher was one of the best. Thanks for the memories, Eddie, RIP.
He almost got another ring in 1965. RIP
I had his autograph when I was a kid.
Another Giant pitcher tossed in a trade who turns out to be one of the best relievers in the game. Great career.
At least he out lived Elizabeth Taylor.
RIP Eddie Fisher.
He and Hoyt Wilhelm were quite a bullpen duo for the White Sox back then. His knuckler had a tendency to kind of dive as it approached the plate, kind of like a split-finger pitch.
Pretty good with the Angels as well.
I believe there were three knuckle ball pitchers in the AL in 1969. Fisher, Wilbur Wood and Jim Bouton.