Tommy Byrne, the longtime Yankees left-hander who was named the American League's comeback player of the year in 1955 and often seemed on the verge of a brilliant career only to be plagued by wildness, died Thursday at his home in Wake Forest, N.C. He was 87.
The cause was congestive heart failure, said his daughter, Susan Gantt of Andalusia, Ala.
Mr. Byrne pitched on seven World Series-winning Yankee teams in a major league career that spanned 13 seasons, displaying an outstanding fastball and curve.
But he led the league in walks for three straight seasons and in hit batsmen for five consecutive years during the late 1940s and early 1950s. He won 15 games for the Yankees in 1949 and in 1950, but his control problems - he hit four batters in the first three innings of a game against the Philadelphia Athletics in 1950 - led the Yankees to trade him to the St. Louis Browns in June 1951.
On Aug. 22, 1951, in a game against the Boston Red Sox, Mr. Byrne walked 16, pitching 12 2/3 innings, before he was finally removed in a 3-1 loss.
Mr. Byrne later pitched for the Chicago White Sox and the Washington Senators, then went to the minor leagues. He returned to the Yankees late in the 1954 season and turned in his best performance in 1955 with a 16-5 record with a league-leading winning percentage of .762.
"I added a slider and, more important, I concentrated on changing speed on all pitches instead of firing away as hard as I could," Byrne told The
Mr. Byrne beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in Game 2 of the 1955 World Series, pitching a five-hitter. He was matched up against Johnny Podres in the decisive Game 7, at Yankee Stadium. Mr. Byrne pitched into the sixth inning of that game, a 2-0 Dodgers victory remembered for Podres's performance and a brilliant catch by Dodgers left fielder Sandy Amoros as Brooklyn won its only World Series championship.
Mr. Byrne was voted the American League comeback player of the season for 1955 in a poll of baseball writers conducted by the Associated Press.
In the 10th inning of Game 4 of the 1957 World Series, against the Milwaukee Braves, Mr. Byrne was involved in a long-remembered incident, a product of a momentary control lapse. He threw a low pitch to the Braves's Nippy Jones and the umpire called it a ball. But Jones contended that the baseball had struck his shoe, convincing the umpire by displaying a scuff mark from shoe polish on the ball, and he was awarded first base. The Braves went on to win the game in the 10th and eventually captured the Series.
Mr. Byrne, who made his major league debut with the Yankees in 1943, had a career record of 85-69.
