Kendal Sifford. Brian Wilhite photo.

By Mike London

mike.london@salisburypost.com

CHINA GROVE — Before the 1968 MLB season, Detroit Tigers pitching coach Johnny Sain, a remarkable figure in baseball history who is credited with throwing the last pitch to Babe Ruth and the first one to Jackie Robinson, taught right-hander Denny McLain the slider.

McLain had been a pretty fair pitcher in 1967 with a 17-16 record and 3.78 ERA. But in 1968, McLain surprised hitters with a slider that he could throw for a strike in any count. McLain basically cut his ERA in half and went 31-6. McLain was the first to win 30 games in the big leagues in 34 years. It’s extremely unlikely anyone ever will throw enough innings and enough pitches to do that again.

The slider can look different depending on who’s wielding it. Atlanta lefty Chris Sale’s slider looks a whole lot different than the one Bob Gibson used to fire toward hitters in the 1960s. Most sliders break horizontally, but McLain’s veered downward almost 5 inches as it got to the plate. He threw it hard. It looked like a fastball until it broke late and broke sharp. Hitters were helpless.

A three-time All-Star, runner-up for National League MVP in 1948, one of the best-hitting pitchers of all-time and the greatest pitching coach of all-time, Sain died in 2006, but the slider lives on.

Carson pitching coach Jesse Park taught a hard-working, junior right-hander named Kendal Sifford the slider prior to the 2025 season. Sifford didn’t go out and win 31 games, but he made a McLain-like transformation from being a pretty fair pitcher to being an outstanding one.

Sifford started this season 0-2 with losses to tough customers Lake Norman Charter and West Rowan, but he finished it 9-3. He struck out 68 in 64 innings with a 1.20 ERA. Maybe his most impressive stat in an era when the 105-pitch limit frequently forces starters to exit games, was that he was efficient enough with his pitches to throw six complete games.

“I was always the Tuesday starter,” Sifford said. “So it was always a goal for me to keep my pitch count low and finish, so we could save our bullpen in case we needed it on Friday. Every complete game was important to me and to the team.”

Sifford is the 2025 Patrick Snider Memorial Award winner as Rowan County Pitcher of the Year. He also was the South Piedmont Conference Pitcher of the Year.

“Kendal had one of those special years, and he earned those awards with the work he put in during the off-season,” Carson head coach JC Alexander said. “We’ve only had one other Carson player sweep the county and conference pitching awards. That was Owen White in 2017.”

White you probably have heard about. He was a Gatorade Player of the Year for the state of North Carolina, a second-round draft pick and a pro.

“This award means a lot,” Sifford said. “I’ve played baseball all my life, but I’ve never gotten the kind of recognition that I’ve gotten this year.”

Sifford was 2-2 with a 3.74 ERA as a varsity sophomore. His role in 2024 was as the third starter behind senior ace Daxton Savage and classmate Maverick Walters, a talented lefty.

Heading into this season, Alexander warned everyone to watch out for Sifford, who had matured physically and had added some velocity.

“I lifted a lot from the start of the school year,” Sifford said. “I showed up for all the workouts. I got quite a bit stronger. I gained more confidence in myself. And Coach Park taught me the slider.”

The addition of the slider made Sifford a four-pitch hurler, joining his fastball-curveball-changeup arsenal, and he could throw all four for strikes most of the time. The extra strength made a difference in his fastball. He had thrown low 80s the summer between his sophomore and junior seasons. Now he was throwing 86s.

The season started turning around for Sifford with his first victory — a 3-1 decision against Robinson during the second week of March. The Cougars went into that game with a 1-4 record, so they needed it badly.

Then Sifford got on a roll. He would win eight straight decisions, all of them in the SPC, a deep and competitive league.

“It was awesome watching Kendal’s confidence grow with each start to the point that our team knew it was going to win when he walked out to the mound,” Alexander said. “We won 11 of our last 14 games to finish 15-10, and he was very instrumental in that. Just a huge contributor to our team’s success.”

Beginning in mid-March there was a stretch in which Carson played 12 times and Sifford logged six wins.

His biggest triumph had to be the 3-1 victory at Staton Field against East Rowan.

“I had better statistical games with a lot more strikeouts, but that was probably my best effort because of the strength of the opponent and how big that game was for us,” Sifford said.

The win at East was one of Sifford’s half-dozen complete games. The Mustangs had a tough lineup that competed on every pitch, but Sifford weaved his way through it, allowing six hits and three walks. He only struck out three, but he attacked the strike zone and let his defense help him out.

“Kendal has been a dawg all year,” Alexander said following that game. “He started getting wins when we started fielding cleaner and started giving him more offensive support.”

Sifford’s last victory of the season was another impressive one — on the road in the first round of the 3A state playoffs at perennial power South Point. Sifford allowed one earned run in five innings, and Walters and Carson Kirk were able to get the last six outs.

Sifford, who makes a lot of A’s in the classroom, has signed up to play for Rowan County American Legion this summer. He’s humbled to join the distinguished list of Patrick Snider Memorial Award winners.

The award is given in memory of Snider, a North Rowan and Rowan County American Legion pitcher who died of cancer when he was 17 in the summer of 2010. Gary Ritchie has sponsored the award since 2011.