Former Royals pitcher Mark Littell died on Monday due to complications of heart surgery. He was 69 years old:

His best season as a pro came in 1976, when he went 8-4 with a sparkling 2.08 ERA. He made 60 appearances that summer, throwing 104 innings while leading the Royals with 16 saves. He entered games to the John Denver song, Thank God I’m a Country Boy, while tens of thousands of fans sang along.

He only gave up two home runs that 1976 season. The first came on July 10th to Pedro Garcia, a light-hitting second baseman for the Detroit Tigers. The second home run was one of the more infamous home runs in Royals history, the Chris Chambliss 9th inning ALCS walk-off.

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It should be noted that in 1977, Littell came into game five with the score tied once again, and allowed a sacrifice fly to Willie Randolph, which proved to be the winning run. Not as dramatic as the Chambliss home run, but just as damaging.

My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

Littell struck out batters at a high rate before that became the norm, finishing his career with a 7.9 K per nine. Unfortunatley, he also walked 5.1 batters per nine innings. This was actually fairly common at the time. Many high K pitchers (Nolan Ryan, Bobby Witt) did not have great control, and the walks undermined their ability to limit hits with Ks.