Rudy May dies at 80, hours after 1981 World Series rival Fernando Valenzuela passes away
After Fernando Valenzuela died on Tuesday, news broke on Thursday that his former World Series rival Rudy May had also passed away. The two pitchers dueled in the 1981 World Series. At the time of their deaths, Valenzuela was 63 years old and May was 80.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees are set to meet in Game 1 of the World Series tomorrow. There was expected to be some honoring of Valenzuela before the game and baseball now has another icon to mourn.
These two teams used to meet frequently in the Fall Classic, but 1981, the year starred by May and Valenzuela, was the last time until 2024. May was a former ERA leader and a 16-year MLB veteran of the Baltimore Orioles and Montreal Expos aside from the Yankees.
Rudy May battled segregation in baseball
Rudy May grew up during segregation, and that didn't end when he joined Major League Baseball. He first reported to Spring Training with the Minnesota Twins in 1962, and separate clubhouse entrances, separate hotels, and separate drinking fountains were enforced.
May was playing for the Chicago White Sox organization two years later when the Civil Rights Act was passed. He told author Jeff Pearlman in a 2014 interview via Newsweek:
"We were in Kinston, North Carolina, and 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!"
May would eventually break through in April 1965 with the then-California Angels. They'd acquired him in a trade from the Philadelphia Phillies. He spent parts of the next 10 seasons in the Angels system before moving to the Yankees in June 1974. He would bounce around after that, but he returned to the Yankees and they would be his last team.
He would pitch three of the six games in the 1981 World Series. He pitched his last game in the MLB in September of 1983, retiring and moving into the corporate world until he retired and eventually passed away in 2024.