Scott Wartman

swartman@nky.com

Northern Kentucky’s pugnacious major league pitcher and former U.S. Senator Jim Bunning died on Friday at the age of 85.

The wave of condolences from the political and sports realm showed that in spite of his gruff demeanor - or perhaps because of it - the Southgate resident commanded respect.

“Jim hit 187 batters in his career,” his friend and former legislative director Rick Robinson said. “He took that pitcher’s mentality to politics.

Bunning had suffered a stroke at his home in October. His family declined to talk Saturday after Bunning’s death. But Bunning’s son, David, a U.S. District Court judge in Covington, said in a tweet: “Heaven got its No 1 starter today. Our lives & the nation are better off because of your love & dedication to family.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell didn’t always get along with Bunning. But, in a statement on Saturday, he honored his fellow Kentucky Republican.

“This Hall-of-Famer will long be remembered for many things, including a perfect game, a larger-than-life personality, a passion for Kentucky and a loving family,” McConnell said.

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin in a series of five tweets praised Bunning's sense of humor and tenacity.

“Kentucky lost a true gem today,” Bevin wrote in a tweet. “Sen. Jim Bunning, baseball Hall-of-Famer-turned public servant, was a champion of conservatism. And the embodiment of Kentucky’s tenacious spirit.”

Major League Baseball and his former team, the Philadelphia Phillies, also tweeted their condolences.

Bunning never forgot his roots. He lived in Southgate, the town he grew up in, and raised his family of nine with his wife, Mary.

“He never forgot where he was from,” said Southgate Mayor Jim Hamberg, whose mother grew up next door to Bunning. “He was always happy and proud to be from Southgate.”

Bunning went to Jesuit-run St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati, where he was a standout in basketball, football and baseball.

He went to Xavier University on a basketball scholarship but continued playing other sports. After his freshman year, the Detroit Tigers signed him to a $150-a-month contract but with a clause allowing him to miss spring training until he finished college – which he did in three-and-a-half years.

More:Jim Bunning, ex-senator and baseball Hall of Famer, suffers stroke

Also while in college, he married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Catherine Theis.

Bunning had to supplement his minor league salary with various jobs, but he made it big in 1957, his first full season with the Tigers. That year he won 20 games, pitched three perfect innings in the All-Star Game and was second in American League strikeouts.

He never again won 20 games in a season, but he won 19 in 1962 and, after being traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1964, Bunning reached 19 three years straight. His career total was 224 wins.

He was best known for pitching a no-hitter in each of the two leagues — for Detroit in 1958 against Boston in the American and for Philadelphia in 1964 against the New York Mets in the National. The latter was a perfect game.

Bunning retired as a player in 1971 and managed minor-league teams for five years. In 1996, after just barely missing election in earlier years by the nation’s sportswriters, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee.

“It’s been a long waiting process. Thank God it happened while I was still on my feet,” he said on the House floor after a standing ovation by his fellow lawmakers.

In his baseball years, Bunning was a stockbroker and player agent during the off-season. He was also a Republican, and credited the Jesuits with instilling in him a strong belief in the free-enterprise system.

In the 1968 presidential race, he headed Athletes for Nixon. But it was not until he gave up managing and returned to Northern Kentucky as a full-time resident that he became heavily involved in politics.

At 6 foot-3, Bunning was physically imposing, and on both the baseball diamond and Capitol Hill he was known for a toughness that could be intimidating.

“He was a hard man, but you’d want him on your side because you knew he would be ready to play and he would give you everything at his command,” a Detroit News sportswriter, Joe Falls, wrote years ago.

He was referring to Jim Bunning the pitcher but he could just as well have been talking about the politician.

In his second career, instead of baseballs, Bunning went after opponents and issues with strong rhetoric and an intense certainty in the correctness of his own views.

It was in adjacent Fort Thomas where Bunning started his second career in politics. He won a seat on Fort Thomas City Council in 1977, where he served for two years before moving on to the state Senate. He won four consecutive two-year terms to the U.S. House before being elected to the Senate in 1998.

Principled – that’s how admirers described Bunning. To critics rigid was a more appropriate adjective. Unafraid of confrontation and unencumbered by an active sense of humor, Bunning could come across as pugnacious.

Bunning liked the word consistent to describe his record. When an interviewer once suggested his House votes were easy to predict, he replied, “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

But those that knew him said he had a soft side in private. He’d console staffers going through tough times and even shed a tear or two, Robinson said.

He also retained an encyclopedic memory of baseball. Baseball greats, such as Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Hank Aaron, would often stop by his Washington, D.C. office.

“Those guys never forgot a baseball game,” Robinson said. “Aaron came into the office one day, and they talked about a game they played against each other in the minor leagues. They remembered every pitch.”

Bunning, a devout Catholic, could be seen most weekends at St. Therese Parish. “I would look over at that pew every Saturday and Sunday and see him and Mary there,” Hamberg said. “I’ll be looking over there now and see where he was, and probably still is.”

Funeral arrangements are pending Muehlenkamp Erschell Funeral Home in Fort Thomas.

The (Louisville) Courier-Journal contributed.