Roy Face, Pirates Legend and Frequent Mets Nemesis, Passes at 97

Even before analytics baseball has always been a numbers game. Not the kind that requires spreadsheets and algorithms, but the kind where a handful of digits become shorthand for a life’s work. Say 60 or 714 and the mind drifts automatically to immortality. Mention 56, .406, or 511 and you don’t even need to attach the names. Numbers in this sport have a way of sticking to players like pine tar.

Some careers are defined by one unforgettable line on a stat sheet. For Elroy “Roy” Face, that line reads 18 and 1.

That was his record in 1959, working out of the bullpen for Pittsburgh. Eighteen wins, one loss, not as a rotation workhorse but as a reliever, back when relief pitching was still viewed as something between an afterthought and a holding pattern for starters who didn’t quite fit anywhere else. His .947 winning percentage that season remains one of the most remarkable single-year accomplishments ever posted by a pitcher. It wasn’t just impressive. It was the kind of number that makes historians double-check the math and opposing hitters quietly shake their heads decades later.

Face’s passing just days shy of his 98th birthday closes the book on one of the true pioneers of bullpen history. Long before closers had entrance music and endorsement deals, he helped demonstrate that a dependable relief ace could be central to winning baseball games. He didn’t invent the role, but he helped define it in a way that influenced generations that followed.

For Mets fans, he existed less as an abstract historical figure and more as a recurring presence in the late innings. He faced New York 40 times over his career and put together a line that reads like a warning label: 6–8 record, 2.09 ERA, 42 strikeouts, and 13 saves. When he came into a game against the Mets, rallies tended to develop an unfortunate habit of ending early. He did allow five home runs against them, rare breaches in the armor in an era when the long ball itself was still relatively scarce. Those blasts came courtesy of Jim Marshall, Marv Throneberry, Jim Hickman, Joe Christopher, and Ron Swoboda — names that form a roll call of the franchise’s colorful early years. Five swings don’t rewrite the overall balance of power, but for fans watching those fledgling Mets clubs, each one felt like a small victory.

To understand Face’s impact, you have to picture the ballplayer himself. He didn’t look like the intimidating archetype that later closers would embody. At about five-foot-eight and listed around 160 pounds, he cut a modest silhouette on the mound. Since World War II, very few pitchers of that stature have handled the kind of workload he did, and fewer still have done so almost entirely in relief. Yet he thrived through durability and nerve. He pitched frequently and fearlessly, once appearing in nine consecutive games in September of 1956, and throughout a lengthy career he was sidelined by injury only once. Availability, in his case, wasn’t just ability’s cousin. It was a defining skill.

Consistency followed. For more than a decade he reliably posted double-digit save totals even before saves were officially tracked. He led the league in the category multiple times, paced the circuit in appearances, and earned several All-Star selections. He stood at the forefront of a strategic shift in baseball thinking, one where the bullpen specialist was no longer merely a contingency plan but an integral part of roster construction.

His path to that role was anything but smooth. Born in Stephentown, New York, he served in the Army after high school before beginning his professional career. Early success in the minors didn’t translate into quick promotion. He bounced through organizations and drafts before reaching the majors in the early 1950s. When he did arrive, he relied heavily on velocity and determination, which big-league hitters quickly demonstrated were not always sufficient by themselves. A trip back to the minors provided time to refine his craft, and there he developed the forkball that would become his calling card.

The pitch was an equal-opportunity confounder, tumbling toward the plate with little spin and unpredictable movement. Hitters swung over it, under it, and occasionally as though trying to negotiate terms with it. Face later joked that he didn’t always know what it would do. That uncertainty extended to the batter, which was precisely the point. Armed with that weapon and later supplementing it with additional pitches, he transitioned into full-time relief work and began the ascent that would define his career.

By the late 1950s and early 1960s he had become one of the most dependable bullpen arms in the game. His landmark 1959 season earned All-Star recognition and widespread admiration. The following year he played an essential role in Pittsburgh’s championship run, closing out three victories in the World Series and logging significant innings in high-pressure spots. Though often overshadowed in popular memory by a certain iconic Game Seven moment, his contributions were indispensable to the outcome.

He continued to excel into the early 1960s, leading the league in saves and posting some of the finest earned-run averages of his career. Even as his workload eventually tapered, his place in the record books remained secure. By the time he left Pittsburgh he ranked among the all-time leaders in appearances, relief wins, and saves. He accomplished much of that before the save even existed as an official statistic, a reminder that recognition sometimes trails accomplishment.

Late-career stops elsewhere followed, and fittingly his final major-league season coincided with the formal adoption of the save statistic. It was as though baseball finally created a column to acknowledge the kind of value he had provided for years. He retired having accumulated more than 800 appearances and nearly 200 saves, totals that reflected both longevity and trust — the trust of managers who handed him the ball when games tightened.

Statistics tell only part of the story. In retirement he remained a beloved presence around the game, generous with his time and approachable with fans. The measure of a career often lies in those human moments as much as in earned-run averages. Teammates and supporters remembered a man willing to show up, sign, talk, and share stories, embodying the connective tissue between generations of baseball followers.

Roy Face passed away on February 12, 2026, leaving behind a record that endures not just in numbers but in influence. Every time a bullpen gate opens and a reliever jogs toward the mound to protect a lead, there’s a trace of his legacy in that ritual. He may not have worn a Mets uniform, but he was part of the rhythm of their early history, an opponent who challenged them and, in doing so, helped shape the narrative of those formative seasons.

Baseball will always remember certain careers through a single number or two. In Face’s case, 18 and 1 will forever headline the conversation. But perhaps his true legacy isn’t numerical at all. It’s the evolution he helped spark, the role he helped legitimize, and the quiet professionalism he carried through more than a decade and a half on the mound.

That’s worth pausing to remember.