Wilbur Wood, 1941-2026

A 2020s baseball team would not know what to do with Wilbur Wood.

I could say the same thing about a lot of his contemporaries. In his case, it has nothing to do with attitude, and everything to do with his specific ability to pitch a long time, anytime.

Wilbur Forrester Wood Jr. was born on October 22, 1941, across the Charles River from Boston, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and grew up in neighboring Belmont. With that combination of name and place, you might guess that he was a lawyer, a politician, or a college professor. No, he was a baseball pitcher.

He started with his hometown Boston Red Sox in 1961, but came into his own with the Chicago White Sox, throwing the knuckleball. An American League All-Star in 1971, 1972 and 1974, he went 164-156 for mostly bad teams. He nearly won the Cy Young Award in 1972, and might have if the White Sox had beaten the Oakland Athletics out for the AL Western Division title. They finished 5 1/2 games back, and 1st baseman Dick Allen was named the AL's Most Valuable Player.

Wood was durable. In 1968, he pitched in 88 games, a record since broken. In 1971, he was moved into the starting rotation. On July 20, 1973 -- the day that martial arts legend Bruce Lee died -- he started both games of a doubleheader, and remains the last pitcher to do so, against the Yankees, at Yankee Stadium. It's not as durable as it sounds: In the opener, he got knocked out of the box in the 1st inning, as the Yankees scored 8 runs, going on to win, 12-2; and he only lasted 4 1/3 innings of the nightcap, which ended in the 6th inning due to rain, with the Yankees up, 7-0.

But earlier in the season, on May 28, against the Cleveland Indians, he finished up a restarted game that went 21 innings, and then won his regular start, winning 2 games in 1 day. That season, he won 24 games, but also lost 20 -- making him the last pitcher in the AL to both win and lose 20 in the same season. (The last in the majors? Another knuckleballer, Phil Niekro, 21-20 with the 1979 Atlanta Braves.)

In 1976, a line drive off the bat of Ron LeFlore of the Detroit Tigers broke Wood's kneecap, and he was never the same. "I was a little gun-shy," he admitted. In the 1978 Yankees' home opener, Wood started for the White Sox, and gave up a home run to Reggie Jackson, leading to the stadium giveaway, the new Reggie bar candy, being thrown onto the field, its orange wrappers clashing with the green of the Yankee Stadium grass, the royal blue of the seats, the white of the Yankees' Pinstriped uniforms, and the navy blue of the uniforms the White Sox were wearing at the time.

That would be Wood's last season. He won 164 games, losing 156, with a 3.24 ERA, a 114 ERA+, 24 shutouts, and a 1.232 WHIP. He started 70 games on 2 days' rest, more than any pitcher in the post-1920 Lively Ball Era. But he mostly pitched for underachieving teams, his only close calls with the postseason coming with the '72 and '77 White Sox.

On November 6, 1963, Wood married Sandra Malcolm, in whom he had been interested since high school. They kept their home in the Boston area, and had 3 children: Wendy, Derron, and Christen. After retiring as a player, he ran a seafood market, then worked as a pharmaceutical salesman. He passed away this past Saturday, January 17, 2026, at the age of 84.

Ernie Banks, on the North Side of Chicago: "It's a beautiful day for baseball. Let's play two!"

Wilbur Wood, on the South Side: "You're on. I'm getting on the El. I'll see you in half an hour. I'll start both."