RIP Ryne....

Associated Press story:

"Ryne Duren was an All-Star for the Yankees in 1958.

His death was announced by his stepson Mark Jackson, The Associated Press said.

Pitching for the Yankees from 1958 to 1961, the right-handed Duren would sometimes deliver at least one warm-up pitch high against the screen, presumably to intimidate the batter soon to face him.

Duren led the American League in saves with 20 in 1958 and was named an All-Star three times. He pitched for the Yankees in the 1958 World Series against the Milwaukee Braves, striking out 14 batters in nine and a third innings, and in the 1960 Series against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

He struck out 630 batters in just over 589 innings during his 10-season career. But he also walked 392 batters as he bounced among seven teams, his career and his marriage ruined by alcoholism.

Duren’s penchant for wild warm-up pitches came about by accident.

He relieved the Yankees’ Bob Turley one day, and, as he once told The Los Angeles Times: “I was feeling pretty good so I decided to really let the first warm-up pitch go. When I planted my foot, my knee hit me in the chin and the ball just took off.”

But for all the stories about Duren’s fastballs delivered from a 6-foot-2, 190-pound frame, there was a dark side to his life.

“Sportswriters wrote that I wore glasses that resembled the bottoms of Coke bottles,” Duren recalled in his 1978 memoir “The Comeback,” written with Robert Drury.

“Everyone agreed that it was a dangerous combination: a guy wearing glasses that thick and throwing a pitch that fast. But what everyone didn’t know was that there was another dimension that made me even more dangerous than they thought I was. I had a drinking problem.”

Duren was involved in an incident after the Yankees’ 1958 pennant-clinching when the team left Kansas City by train. He got into a scuffle with Ralph Houk, then a Yankee coach, whose ring cut Duren over his eye.

Duren remembered how in August 1965, pitching for the original Washington Senators, he was hit hard by the Yankees in relief while pitching with a hangover, had some drinks afterward, then left his car on the way home, climbed a bridge and started shouting. The police brought Manager Gil Hodges to the scene to talk him down. A week later, the Senators released Duren, and he was finished in baseball.

Rinold George Duren Jr. was born in Cazenovia, Wis., on Feb. 22, 1929. He made his major league debut with the Baltimore Orioles in 1954 and also pitched for the Kansas City Athletics before being traded to the Yankees. He had a career record of 27-44 with 57 saves.

After leaving baseball, he was hospitalized for addiction treatment, and he later worked as an addiction counselor in Stoughton, Wis.

“Ryne could throw the heck out of the ball,” Yogi Berra told Major League Baseball’s Web site. “He threw fear in some hitters. I remember he had several pair of glasses, but it didn’t seem like he saw good in any of them.”"