San Francisco: Stu Miller, the former Giants pitcher who committed perhaps the most famous balk in MLB All-Star game history, has died. He was 87.

The Giants said on Monday that Miller died at his home in Cameron Park, California, on Sunday after a brief illness.

Miller played 16 years in the majors for the Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, Baltimore and Atlanta. He led the National League in ERA in 1958, had the most saves in the NL in 1961 and the American League in 1963 and won a World Series title with Baltimore in 1966.

But he is most remembered for his All-Star game performance at San Francisco’s windy Candlestick Park in 1961. He was called for a balk in the ninth inning that helped the AL score the tying run. Miller got the win in extra innings but the headlines the next day proclaimed “Miller Blown off Mound.”

“The next day in the paper there was a banner headline: ‘Miller Blown off Mound’,” he recalled in a 2007 interview with The Associated Press. “They couldn’t have made it any bigger. They made it out to be like I was pinned against the centre-field fence.”

Miller entered the game for the NL trying to protect a 3-2 lead with runners on first and second and one out in the ninth. With Rocky Colavito at the plate, Miller relieved Sandy Koufax.

“Just as I was ready to pitch, an extra gust of wind came along and I waved like a tree,” he said. “My whole body went back and forth about 2 or 3 inches. The AL bench all hollered balk. I knew it was a balk, but the umpires didn’t call it at first. I went ahead and threw the pitch and Colavito swung and missed. The umpire then took off his mask and motioned the runners to second and third.”

An error by third baseman Ken Boyer allowed the tying run to score.

Miller allowed an unearned run in the 10th inning, but he also struck out the side that inning.

Miller earned the win when Willie Mays hit an RBI double and scored on Roberto Clemente’s single in the bottom of the 10th. But it was the balk that became the defining moment in his career.

“I guess that’s better than ‘Stu Who?’,” he said. “I’d rather be remembered for something.”