On a Big Red Machine team of Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Pete Rose and Tony Perez, the player who consistently confounded the Cardinals was Don Gullett.
A left-handed pitcher, Gullett was 14-3 versus the Cardinals, including 7-0 at Busch Memorial Stadium. He also liked to hit in St. Louis. His batting average there was .281.
Gullett played for six pennant winners in nine seasons in the majors and pitched in five World Series with the Reds and Yankees. His career record was 109-50. He was 73 when he died on Feb. 14, 2024.
Teen talent
In high school at South Shore, Ky., on the south bank of the Ohio River, Gullett excelled in football (scoring 11 touchdowns and kicking six extra points in one game) and basketball (scoring 47 points in one game) but turned down college scholarship offers because he wanted to become a professional baseball player.
He dazzled scouts when he pitched a seven-inning perfect game in high school, striking out 20 and retiring one batter who bunted.
The Reds selected him in the first round of the June 1969 amateur draft. (The Cardinals also chose a left-handed high school pitcher in that first round, but Charles Minott never advanced above the Class A level of the minors.)
Sent to the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Packers of the Northern League, Gullett, 18, struck out 87 in 78 innings and was 7-2 with a 1.96 ERA.
Invited to Reds spring training in 1970 as a non-roster player, Gullett, 19, impressed first-year manager Sparky Anderson. “For a kid his age, Gullett’s poise is amazing,” Anderson said to The Sporting News. “He just doesn’t scare.”
After striking out against Gullett in spring training, Pirates slugger Willie Stargell told The Sporting News, “Man, that kid throws nothing but wall to wall heat.”
Gullett got a spot on the 1970 Reds Opening Day roster as a reliever.
Rookie sensation
A year after pitching against high schoolers, Gullett made his big-league debut with 1.1 scoreless innings in relief of Ray Washburn versus the Giants. Boxscore
In his first win, against the Dodgers, Gullett pitched five scoreless innings in relief of Jim Maloney. “The kid showed them smoke,” catcher Johnny Bench told The Cincinnati Post. “I mean it was real heat.” Gullett also walked, stole a base, tripled and scored twice. Boxscore
A week later, facing the Cardinals for the first time, Gullett got his first save. With the Reds ahead, 3-2, in the ninth, the Cardinals had a runner on first, two outs, and Jim Campbell at the plate when Gullett replaced closer Wayne Granger.
Asked why he brought in the rookie, Sparky Anderson replied to the Dayton Daily News, “If you’ve got a guy with a lot of stuff like Gullett on your staff and you’re afraid to use him just because he’s 19, then you shouldn’t have him on the team.”
Gullett got Campbell to hit a fly to short center. Center fielder Bobby Tolan couldn’t get to the ball _ “It looked like an in-betweener base hit to me,” Gullett said to the Dayton newspaper _ but shortstop Dave Concepcion made a twisting catch on the run to end the game. Boxscore
Near the end of Gullett’s rookie season, Dodgers manager Walter Alston told The Sporting News, “Gullett comes as close to matching Sandy Koufax’s fastball as anyone I’ve seen.”
(Gullett said he met Koufax at Cincinnati’s Crosley Field early in the 1970 season. “He showed me how he threw his curveball, how he put his fingers on the seams, and all that,” Gullett said to Dick Kaegel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The next year, Sparky Anderson arranged a meeting of Gullett and Koufax in Chicago. Anderson told the Post-Dispatch, “Sandy told him to think not up and down with his pitches. He told him to think in and out.”)
In 44 games for the 1970 Reds, Gullett was 5-2 with six saves and a 2.43 ERA. He also earned two saves and yielded no runs in the National League Championship Series versus the Pirates and one earned run in three World Series games against the Orioles. Video
Hot stuff
Gullett, 20, moved into the Reds’ starting rotation in 1971 and responded with a 16-6 record. He was 3-0 against the Cardinals, shutting them out twice, and would have had a fourth win if he’d protected a ninth-inning lead.
On June 16, 1971, Gullett pitched a four-hitter in a 1-0 Reds victory. The Cardinals threatened in the eighth, getting a runner to third with two outs, but Matty Alou struck out looking. (Alou, a National League batting champion, had one hit in 19 career at-bats versus Gullett.)
“He threw a fastball right on the black part of the plate,” catcher Pat Corrales told the Dayton Daily News. “As hard as he can throw, and with the location of that pitch, there wasn’t anything else for Alou to do but look at it and go sit down.”
Gullett said to the Cincinnati Enquirer, “I had my best fastball of the year” and an effective slider. Corrales told the newspaper that with Gullett’s slider, “You can’t tell when it’s coming. The rotation is just like on his fastball. A right-hander goes to swing at it, and all of a sudden it hits him on the fists.” Boxscore
Two months later, Gullett was matched against Bob Gibson. In their previous starts, Gibson pitched a no-hitter against the Pirates and Gullett limited the Cubs to one hit in eight innings.
The showdown turned out to be no contest. Gullett and the Reds won, 5-0. Joe Torre (the league batting champion that year) and Ted Simmons were a combined 0-for-8.
“Gullett’s got a fastball that rides away from you, plus a slider that comes in on you,” Torre told the Post-Dispatch. “You can’t tell which one’s coming.”
(Torre adjusted impressively. He had 20 career hits versus Gullett, batting .370.)
Asked whether Gullett was equal to American League left-hander Vida Blue, Sparky Anderson said to the Cincinnati Enquirer, “I wouldn’t trade him even up for Blue.” Boxscore
The Cardinals got some satisfaction against Gullett 11 days later. Gullett and the Reds led, 3-2, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, but Lou Brock tied the score with a home run. The Cardinals went on to win in the 11th when Clay Carroll walked Ted Sizemore with the bases loaded. Boxscore
(Like Torre, Brock had success against Gullett, totaling 19 hits and batting .322.)
Bat man
Gullett also caused trouble for the Cardinals with his bat.
On July 16, 1974, Gullett, who batted right-handed, had three hits, three RBI and was the winning pitcher in a 12-7 Reds triumph against the Cardinals.
Gullett had a two-run double that knocked Bob Forsch from the game in the first inning, and drove in another run with a single versus John Curtis in the second. He added a single against Rich Folkers in the sixth. Boxscore
In 1975, Gullett, 24, was 4-0 with an 0.28 ERA versus the Cardinals. He allowed one run (a Ted Simmons home run) in 32 innings against them. One of those wins beat Gibson, who was trying for his 250th career victory. Boxscore
Gullett experienced an array of health problems and injuries, including hepatitis (1972), chronic back spasms (1974), a fractured left thumb (1975) and a dislocated ankle tendon (1976).
After the Reds repeated as World Series champions in 1976, Gullett became a free agent and signed a six-year contract with the Yankees. “We feel Gullett is a modern Whitey Ford,” Yankees president Gabe Paul told the New York Times.
Late in September 1978, Gullett underwent surgery for a double tear of the rotator cuff in his left shoulder and was done pitching at age 27. “Sometimes, I dream that I come back as a right-handed pitcher,” Gullett said years later to Bill Peterson of The Cincinnati Post.
In 1986, Gullett, 35, had a heart attack. Four years later, he had triple bypass surgery. Gullett recovered and coached for the Reds for 13 seasons (1993-2005).