The San Francisco Giants, a team that Craig led for eight seasons and led them to the National League pennant in 1989, announced his passing on their website on Sunday. His family said Craig had a short illness, a Giants spokesman said.

To some, Craig was a figure in baseball trivia: He was the starting pitcher for the Dodgers in their last game before moving from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, and five years later, in 1962, threw the first pitch in Mets history. He was the loser both times. He lost 24 games and then 22 to the terrible Mets in their first two seasons, including 18 straight in 1963. But he had his moments when he was backed by good hitting lineups.

A lanky 6-foot-4 right-hander who, it was often noted, bore a remarkable resemblance to President Lyndon B. Johnson, Craig pitched in three World Series for the Dodgers in the 1950s and another with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1964 In leading the Giants to the 1989 NL pennant, he begged his players to hurry with the “Humm baby” mantra and taught his pitchers to throw the fastball with split fingers.

Craig spread the gospel of the split, thrown with the same motion as a traditional fastball, but capable of confusing batters because the pitcher gripped the baseball with his index and middle fingers spread wide apart, and parallel to the seams instead of over it.

“The split finger is simply a fast ball that you put an extra spin on, so that it falls in front of the batter so fast that he doesn’t know where he’s going,” Craig explained in a 1988 interview with Playboy. “Any pitcher with brains who wants to stay, wants to learn.”

As a pitching coach for the Detroit Tigers, Craig taught right-hander Jack Morris, who helped lead the team to the 1984 World Series championship and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018..

After leaving the Tigers when his salary demands were not met, Craig taught the split-finger fastball to Houston Astros right-hander Mike Scott, who took his advice. Scott went to win the 1986 NL Cy Young Award. As Scott once put it, “God bless Roger Craig.”

“Everyone pitched that field,” Mike Scioscia, who played for the Dodgers in the 1980s and later managed the Angels, told The Associated Press in 2011. “It was the ’80s field, just like the ’60s field was a slider.”

Roger Lee Craig was born on February 17, 1930 in Durham, NC, one of 10 children of John and Mamie Craig. His father was a shoe salesman. He was spotted by a part-time scout for the Dodgers while pitching in high school, after which he was signed by the North Carolina State University team in 1950. After pitching in the Dodgers’ minor league system and serving in the military, Craig made his debut with Brooklyn in July 1955.

He had a 5–3 record over 21 games, 10 of them starts, and then defeated the Yankees in Game 5 of what became the only World Series a Brooklyn team would win. He again pitched for the Dodgers in the 1956 World Series, taking the loss in Game 3 of the seven-game series win for the Yankees.

A fastball pitcher early in his career, Craig developed arm problems that he attributed to pitching in cold and damp weather as a starter on September 29, 1957, at the Philadelphia Phillies’ Connie Mack Stadium, in the last game the Dodgers played before they moved. to Los Angeles.

Craig was back with the minors for much of 1958 and part of the 1959 season as he rehabbed from his injury. He never got the speed back on his fastball, but when he returned to the Dodgers for good in 1959, he focused on getting ahead of batters in the count. That year, he revived his career as a control pitcher and had his best season in the major league, hitting a 11-5 record as they led the NL in shutouts, with four, as the Dodgers won their first pennant in Los Angeles. He started twice in the World Series against the Chicago White Sox, with one loss and one no decision in a game won by the Dodgers, who won the Series in six games.

Craig pitched mostly in relief before being selected by the Mets as their No. 3 selection in the October 1961 expansion draft, behind catcher Hobie Landrith and infielder Elio Chacon. He was the sixth overall pick since the Mets alternated with Houston, the other new team, in the draft order.

The Mets traded Craig to the Cardinals before the 1964 season, and he won Game 4 of the World Series in relief as St. Louis defeated the Yankees in seven games. He later pitched for the Cincinnati Reds and the Phillies, finishing his career with a 74-98 record.

Craig began teaching the split-finger fastball, a variation of a slower speed called the forkball, when he led the San Diego Padres in 1978 and ’79. Future Hall of Fame reliever Bruce Sutter had been using the field with the Chicago Cubs for several years, having learned it from their roving instructor, Fred Martin, when he was in the minors. Although Craig did not “discover” the split finger, he proved to be extremely adept at teaching it.

After five years as Tigers coach, Craig became the Giants’ manager with 18 games left in the 1985 season and remained with the team for another seven years. The highlight of his tenure was 1989, when the Giants won an NL pennant for the first time since 1962, though they were swept by the Oakland Athletics in an earthquake-delayed World Series. He retired after the 1992 season and in his later years had spent time on his Southern California ranch in Borrego Springs.

The split-finger fastball remained a part of pitchers’ arsenal in the years following Craig’s retirement, but it gradually declined in popularity due to concerns that it may put undue stress on a pitcher’s arm.

“We have lost a legendary member of our Giants family,” Larry Baer, ​​CEO of the Giants, said in a statement. “Roger was loved by players, coaches, front office staff and fans. He was a father figure to many and his optimism and wisdom resulted in some of the most memorable seasons in our history.”

He is survived by his wife, Carolyn; three daughters, Sherri Paschelke, Teresa Hanvey and Vikki Dancan; a son, Roger Jr.; seven grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren, the Giants said.

Looking back on his career, Craig shared wry memories of pitching for Casey Stengel’s Mets.

When he told CBS Sports in 2013, Stengel would pretty much tell him the following: “Mr. Craig, I know you pitched nine innings today and won’t pitch again for four days, but don’t pitch between starts, in case we’re ahead. Maybe I need you to pitch an inning or two.