Jim Perry Photo Gallery |
Jim Perry Day (Mar. 31, 2023) Photo Gallery
Campbell Magazine: Dreaming Big |
Jim Perry Stadium
Former major league baseball Cy Young Award winner Jim Perry was inducted into the Campbell Athletics Hall of Fame on Apr. 26, 1984. Perry and his brother, Gaylord, were the first Camels enshrined in the school’s Hall.
Born in Williamston, N.C., Perry was a standout high school athlete. After he pitched Williamston to a state baseball championship in 1955, he continued his high school playing days at Campbell, where he also attended junior college from 1957-59.
He signed with the Cleveland Indians organization and arrived in the major leagues in 1959. Perry became a mainstay in the starting rotation, as he compiled a 2.65 earned run average in his rookie year and tied for the league lead with 18 victories in his second campaign.
Perry later joined the Minnesota Twins and was a member of that organization’s first American League Championship team that played in the 1965 World Series. He enjoyed back-to-back 20-win seasons in 1969 and 1970, compiling a 44-18 record in the process, and helped the Twins win two divisional titles. He earned the 1970 American League Cy Young Award after posting a 24-12 won-lost mark with a 3.03 ERA.
Upon retirement following the 1975 season, Perry’s career stats included a 215-174 record, 3.44 ERA, 630 pitching appearances, 3,287 innings pitched and 1,576 strikeouts. In addition to pitching in the 1965 World Series (against the likes of Sandy Koufax) and two American League Championship series, he was chosen for three American League All-Star Teams.
Perry was presented the 1969 and 1970 Will Wynne Award by the Raleigh Hot Stove League as the North Carolinian who contributed the most to baseball in a calendar year. He was also inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame in 1974 and the
Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame in 2011.
The Perry brothers finished their major league careers with a total of 529 victories, the most ever by two siblings in MLB history at the time. In 1970, they became the first brothers in MLB history to win 20 games each in the same year, and during that same season became the first brothers to pitch against each other in the MLB All-Star Game. They are also the only two brothers in major league history to win the Cy Young Award.
In 1974, while teammates on the Cleveland Indians, Jim and Gaylord, combined to win 38 games and were named co-winners of the franchise’s Man of the Year Award by the Cleveland chapter of the Baseball Writers Association.
Jim and his wife, the former Daphne Snell, who they met while at Campbell, are longtime supporters of the University. Campbell’s baseball stadium, which was dedicated in April 2013, bears Jim’s name, while the Jim and Daphne Snell pavilion houses the program’s clubhouse, athletic training facility, offices and meeting spaces.
On Mar. 31, 2023, Perry’s jersey No. 31 was the first in Campbell’s program history to be retired during pregame ceremonies on Jim Perry Day in Buies Creek.
