Messerly, a teammate of Phil Meyer with the 1971 Eugene Emeralds, was the son of Russell Messerly, a minor league pitcher of the 1930s and 1940s. (Russell pitched for the Kansas City Blues and Hollywood Stars in 1943 before going off to war.) He was a native of Des Moines, where, for some ungodly reason, the
Des Moines Register still has archived photos of local Little League/Pony League/Babe Ruth League players from the 1950s, Messerly included:
Signed out of Des Tech HS in August 1961, Messerly began his pro career with an unimpressive 7-7, 6.55 mark for the Magic Valley Cowboys of the Pioneer League in 1962. However, he did better with the Miami Marlins (FSL) in 1963, and not only on the mound (11-8, 2.92);
This article talks about the high averages being posted by Messerly and his mound mates, Dennis Wagner and Ferguson Jenkins, albeit early in the season. (Messerly ended up hitting .254, but slugging only .313; just 3 XBH in 103 ABs)
His success at Miami led the Phils to move him slightly upwards to Bakersfield of the California League, but he bombed there, going 0-3, 8.54 in seven late-season starts. Still, they sent him back to the Apple Valley in 1964 and Messerly sort of blossomed, managing a 10-10, 4.66 record for the Bears in '64, and earning another late-season bump, this time to Chattanooga of the AA Southern League…where he again bombed against superior competition (0-2, 7.11 in four starts).
After three years of mostly mediocre results starting, the Phils decided to try Messerly out of the bullpen in 1965, and he came through, posting a 5-5, 2.42 mark for Chattanooga in 49 games, and
earning a major league contract, a spot on the 40-man roster, and a Spring Training invite for 1966.
At Spring Training, an AP picture was taken:
And even the nice man from Topps grabbed a shot:
(Edit: er, two shots!)
But Messerly didn't make the club, and an attempt to try him as a starter again (17 of his 36 outings in '66 were starts) was a failure, as he went 5-9, 5.95 at Macon (AA) and San Diego (AAA). After that, it was four steady years of middle relief work in the PCL (with San Diego in '67-'68, and Eugene after that). He did ring up a 6-2, 2.95 in 1968, but there's no evidence it even earned him a Spring Training look the next year, much less a ticket to the Show.
The Phillies apparently still wanted Messerly to try starting (it's not as though they had a great staff in the bigs, after all) so in 1970 he went to play winter ball in Mexico. As these
translated pages note, on October 8th, Messerly started for the Culiacan Tomateros in the first game ever at the new stadium in Obregon (later known as Tomas Oroz Gaytan Stadium), where Culiacan beat the hometown Trigueros, 4-2 in 11 innings. Messerly had Ruben Amaro as his second baseman, while Obregon had John Lowenstein at short, Hal Breeden at 1B, and Francisco Estrada behind the plate. I don't have Messerly's Winter League stats, but it looks to have been somewhat successful, as Eugene put him in the rotation for 1971.
But Mexico is Mexico, and back up north, Messerly still had no success starting. For the 1971 Ems, he was as bad as Phil Meyer, as bad as Messerly generally was starting…6-12, 5.91. A few games with Spartanburg in the Western Carolinas League in 1972, and just like his father, Jerry Messerly called it quits, having gotten within sight of the big leagues, but never all the way there…