When Bruce Sutter began experimenting with the split-fingered fastball, he wasn’t looking for a path to Cooperstown. He was just hoping to save his career.

“I wouldn’t be here without that pitch,” Sutter said shortly before his Hall of Fame induction in 2006. “My other stuff was A ball, Double-A at best. The split-finger made it equal.”

Sutter, the full-bearded closer who paid for his own elbow surgery as a low minor leaguer and later pioneered the sharp-dropping pitch that came to dominate big league hitters for decades, died Thursday. He was 69.

Sutter was recently diagnosed with cancer and in hospice surrounded by his family, one of Sutter’s three sons, Chad, told The Associated Press. The Baseball Hall of Fame said Bruce Sutter died in Cartersville, Georgia.

A six-time All-Star, Sutter led the National League in saves for five years and won the 1979 Cy Young Award. He posted 300 saves in a 12-year career with the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves.

Sutter played in a era when closers routinely got more than three outs. He threw more than one inning for 188 of his saves and five times pitched more than 100 innings in a season.

At his bedeviling best, he tossed two perfect innings — retiring future fellow Hall of Famers Paul Molitor, Robin Yount and Ted Simmons — to finish off the Cardinals’ Game 7 win over Milwaukee in the 1982 World Series.

17 and too young to sign.

Sutter was 68-71 with a 2.83 ERA overall. In 661 games, he pitched 1,042 innings and struck out 861.