Rudy May, ex-Yankees hurler and ERA champ, dead at 80

Former Yankees pitcher Rudy May died at the age of 80 on Saturday. 

May’s 16-year MLB career included seven with the Yankees over several stints in the 70s and 80s, as well as time spent with the California Angels, Montreal Expos and Baltimore Orioles

A cause of death was not given, though the southpaw reportedly dealt with diabetes.

May grew up in Oakland, Calif., and was a high school teammate of future Hall-of-Famer Joe Morgan. He was signed by the Twins as a free agent in 1962 — a time when baseball was on the brink of a turning point.

“I got into a little bit of trouble because I was the only black player from the West Coast,” he told Jeff Pearlman in 2014 of his beginnings with Minnesota at spring training in Florida. “I didn’t know that I was not conducting myself as I should have been. For instance, the clubhouse was segregated. The whites were on one side and the blacks were on the other … and I was there a whole week before I realized that. I didn’t know. One of my teammates told me, “Why are you going in the front door of the clubhouse? Why are you drinking out of the fountain—you’re not supposed to do that. There’s a bucket in the back for us to drink out of.”

Two years later, he was in the White Sox minor league system, playing in Kinston, North Carolina on the day the Civil Right Act was passed.

“We were checked out of the black hotel in the middle of the afternoon and walked through the town to the white hotel—we were scared to death!” he told Pearlman.

He debuted with the Angels in 1965, the first of his 536 games played.

During the course of his career, May went 152-156 with a 3.46 ERA and 1,760 strikeouts and was a member of Yankees squads that lost in the American League Championship Series in 1980 and the World Series in 1981. 

May began his first stint with the Bronx Bombers on June 15, 1974, when he was purchased from the Angels and remained a member of the club until he was traded to the Orioles two years to the day that he was acquired on June 15, 1976. 

The lefty eventually returned to the Yankees in the winter of 1979 when he signed with them as a free agent. 

In an interview with the New York Times just days before he inked a contract with the Yankees, May expressed plenty of excitement over the prospect of returning to the Bronx. 

“It sounds awful good to me,” he said. “I always did like playing in New York and I liked playing for the Yankees. It was unfortunate that I was traded to Baltimore. I know the Yankees are going to have a good ball club next year. George Steinbrenner seems to be making sure of that.”

May ended up being part of two Yankee teams that made deep runs in the postseason, even leading the American League in ERA during the 1980 regular season by posting a career-best 2.46 mark.

He went 54-46 across seven seasons with the Yankees with a 3.12 ERA.

May discovered he was unable to pitch anymore during spring training in 1984 and retired, briefly serving as pitching coach at Yosemite High School in California before quitting after one season and eventually taking a job as a manager at Circle K, the Fresno Bee reported in 1990. 

He worked his way up to a marketing consultancy position at Circle K and then with British Petroleum.

“My wife, my grandchildren, fishing and work in the yard: that’s my life now and what really enhances me,” May told Jeff Pearlman. “At this point, I take more pride in my fishing accomplishments than anything I did in baseball.”