How often does a player wind up in the all-time top 10 in a statistical category without once leading the league? Seems like it would be a rarity. Yet Don Sutton, who never led the league in innings pitched, is seventh all-time in that category—behind only Cy Young, Pud Galvin, Walter Johnson, Phil Niekro, Nolan Ryan, and Gaylord Perry.

He did this the way he played baseball—by being very good for a very long time. His first season was 1966, his last 1988, and from '66 to '85 (ignoring the lockout-shortened '81 season), he never threw fewer than 200 innnings nor more than 300 innings in a season. He won 15 or more games a dozen times, but 20+ only once. His ERA was never over 5.00, never under 2.00. His best bWAR was 6.6 and he was only negative once, his last season, and just barely: -0.1. No Cy Young Award, not even a second-place finish, and a so-so postseason career. But he led the league in ERA once, starts once, strikeout-to-walk ratio three times, and WHIP four times. He was Ol' Man River; he just kept rolling along. 

“I never wanted to be a superstar, or the highest paid player,” he told Baseball Digest in 1985. “All I wanted was to be appreciated for the fact that I was consistent, dependable, and you could count on me.”

He was and you could: Only two players in baseball history started more games: Nolan Ryan and Cy Young. Only 13 players won more games, only nine pitched more shutouts, only six struck out more. Strikeouts is another of those categories he never led the league in but finished in the top 10 all-time. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1998.

Sutton, born in Alabama, the son of a sharecropper, died Monday night in Rancho Mirage, Calif., age 75.