Scott Sanderson, Dearborn native and longtime major-league pitcher, dies at 62

Chicago — Scott Sanderson, the right-hander who helped the Chicago Cubs make two playoff appearances and was a member of four postseason teams during a 19-year career, died Thursday. He was 62.

An official with Conway Farms Golf Club in Lake Forest, Ill., where Sanderson was a member, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the family confirmed the death.

The cause of death wasn’t provided.

A Chicago-area product, Sanderson was 163-143 with a 3.84 ERA for Montreal (1978-83), the Cubs (1984-89), Oakland (1990), New York Yankees (1991-92), Los Angeles Angels (1993, 1995-96), San Francisco (1993) and the Chicago White Sox (1994). He made the playoffs with Montreal (1981), the Cubs (1984, 1989) and Athletics (1990), and was an All-Star with the Yankees (1991).

Sanderson, who was born in Dearborn, was later an agent, with clients like Josh Beckett, Todd Helton and Josh Hamilton.

“What today’s players owe to Scott is both incalculable and largely unknown to them,” former players’ association chief operating officer Gene Orza said. “It was Scott, more than any other player, whose message to his contemporaries both captured what was at stake in the great strike of 1994 and alerted them to their responsibility: ‘Who among us wants to leave to the players who come after him less than what he received from the players who have come before him?’ Those of us who worked closely with Scott will never forget him. The players he leaves behind never can.”