Sam McDowell’s life was split between two unmistakable realities: the power arm that made him one of Cleveland’s great left-handers, and the private turmoil that shadowed him long after the cheers faded.
McDowell died Monday, KDKA in Pittsburgh reported. He was 84.
Known as “Sudden” Sam McDowell, he put together a 15-year major league career from 1961 to 1975, finishing with 141 wins and 134 losses. The bulk of that work came in Cleveland, where he won 122 games over 11 seasons with the Indians.
He made six All-Star teams, led the American League with a 2.18 ERA in 1965, and reached his lone 20-win season in 1970. After going 13-17 in 1971, he was traded to San Francisco for pitcher Gaylord Perry and shortstop Frank Duffy.
He went 10-8 in 1972, then picked up only nine more victories before ending his career with Pittsburgh in 1975.
The nickname that stuck came from longtime Plain Dealer writer Bob Dolgan, who is credited with giving it to him in 1961 during spring training. Dolgan, who had a contentious relationship with McDowell, wrote in the March 14 edition of the newspaper: “Sudden Sam, only 18, was making his first start against big leaguers, and demonstrated dazzling stuff and poor control.”
That description proved durable. McDowell led the Majors in walks allowed five times and strikeouts three times. In both 1968 and 1970, he topped the Majors in each category.
Some accounts, though, say the nickname came from Minnesota Twins slugger Harmon Killebrew. According to that version, the 6-foot-5 pitcher got the tag after Killebrew said: “Wow, his ball sure gets up there all of a sudden.”
Either way, the fastball arrived with force. McDowell pitched before pitch clocks and count-driven rhythms became part of the game, and he was often compared to Dodger lefty Sandy Koufax.
What fans did not see was the darkness he carried away from the mound. McDowell battled depression and alcoholism, had several DUI arrests, attempted suicide in 1963, surviving when he pulled the trigger on the lone dead shell among live rounds in the chamber, and saw his wife leave him. Low self-esteem and narcissism, the source article says, formed the base of those problems.
He addressed much of that in his autobiography, “The Saga of Sudden Sam: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of Sam McDowell.” Marty Gitlin worked with him on the book, which was published in 2022 by Rowman and Littlefield.
Even later in life, McDowell still drew attention from fans. At a sports-memorabilia show in Strongsville after the book’s release, he and Gitlin were rarely left alone as people came over to shake his hand and hear stories.
McDowell eventually turned a corner. In 1980, living with his parents and tired of a drinking life that had intensified after retirement, he sobered up.
He embraced sports psychology and began helping others, later becoming involved with the Baseball Assistance Team, which was formed in 1986 to assist former players dealing with financial, alcohol or other problems. He became a counselor.
His influence stretched beyond the game, too. McDowell helped many players in real life and inspired the fictional Sam “Mayday” Malone from “Cheers,” the former American League pitcher and alcoholic played by Ted Danson.
In retirement, McDowell could be reflective and gracious. During a 2019 ceremony tied to Major League Baseball community initiatives at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, he surprised Cleveland Indians officials who expected him to talk about baseball. Instead, he spoke about a life-changing 1970 trip visiting hospitalized soldiers in Vietnam.
“Some of us professional athletes, we get caught up in ourselves in our lifetime,” he said.
On the field, McDowell was fierce and rarely smiled. He also had a sharp edge that showed in moments like the one he recalled after Trevor Bauer famously threw a ball into centerfield in 2019 as Terry Francona was about to remove him from a game. McDowell said he had done something similar 50 years earlier in Baltimore, when he was angry about missed calls behind the plate and fired the ball high above home, landing just shy of the top row.
He was fined $295 because the throw reportedly traveled 295 feet. McDowell answered with the same dry humor that stayed with him for years: “I sent him back a check for $300 and said ‘As usual you umpires are wrong.
Here’s 300 dollars.’ ”
Samuel Edward McDowell was born Sept. 21, 1942, in Pittsburgh and grew up poor, by his own account. He starred in baseball, basketball, football and track at Central Catholic High School, the same school that later produced NFL Hall of Famer Dan Marino. The Indians signed him over 14 other teams with a $75,000 bonus.
McDowell and his first wife, Carol, had two children, Debbie and Tim. In 1998, he met a Slovakian woman named Eva, and they later married. He lived in Florida.
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