Bill Hands, Rutherford native, former MLB pitcher, dies

Bill Hands, a Rutherford native who won more than 100 games across 11 Major League Baseball seasons, died Thursday in Florida. He was 76.

Hands pitched at Rutherford High School, Fairleigh Dickinson University and Ohio Wesleyan University before signing with the San Francisco Giants.

He made his major league debut in 1965 and pitched in four games for the Giants that season. The right-hander would go on to spend seven seasons with the Chicago Cubs, two with the Minnesota Twins and two with the Texas Rangers.

Hands, who was inducted into the Rutherford Hall of Fame, finished his major league career with a record of 111-110 and a 3.35 ERA.

His best season came in 1969 while pitching for Chicago, as he went 20-14 with a 2.49 ERA. He threw 18 complete games and pitched 300 innings, while pitching in a rotation along with Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins.

That was the same season in which the Leo Durocher-led Cubs blew a late-season nine-game lead in the National League East. The Mets ultimately won the division on the way to winning a World Series championship.

“The way I look at it is, it’s the best team that didn’t win,” Hands said in an interview with The Record in 2010.

After retiring from baseball, Hands was a salesman for an oil company on Long Island. He later opened up a service station in Orient, N.Y.