[dennis_keith]

Elroy Roy Face is now ranked at #100 - the youngest person on Wikipedia's 100 oldest currently living major leaguers list. He is 88 years, 11 months old (birthdate Feb. 20, 1928).
Face starred as a Pittsburgh Pirates reliever from 1953 to 1968. In his final season, 1969 he was an original Montreal Expo, during that team's inaugural year.
Face pitched in 803 games with the Pirates, 27 starts and the rest (776) in relief. He made only 4 starts after 1955, when he became established as a relief specialist.. Face went 104-96, .520 winning percentage, with a 3.48 earned run average and he Saved 193 games, 188 games with the Pirates. He hurled 6 Complete Games in his brief time as a starter.
He had three consecutive National League all-star team years
(1959-1961) and was a key force in the Pirates 1960 World's Championship team.
What most fans don't realize is that he signed originally with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1949 and was a Phillies farmhand in 1949 & 1950 for Bradford of the Class D PONY League (Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York Lg.). Then he was drafted by GM Branch Rickey twice - for the Brooklyn Dodgers after the 1950 season and then again by Rickey for the Pirates after the 1952 season. Face would make the opening day roster of the Pirates in 1953, and would make his major leagues debut in the Pirates' third game of the season on April 16.
Phillies fans have to wonder what he might have contributed to that team if they had held on to him and the team's front office hadn't misjudged Face's potential. Just as Jim Konstanty's relief skills seemed to wane around 1954 Face could have been there to pick up the slack and the Phillies likely would have fared better than their .500-ish team finishes of 1953-1957. Face would break Jim Konstanty's record of 16 relief wins (1950) when he went 18-1 for the Pirates in 1959, in a truly remarkable season. He won 22 decisions in a row - his last 5 of 1958 and his first 17 of 1959. His winning percentage of .947 in 1959 is the season record for pitchers with at least 15 decisions in a season and is unlikely to be broken as is Face's 18 RELIEF WINS, CONSIDSERING HOW SPECIALIZED THE GAME HAS BECOME. Although he was the prototype of today's Closers he could go multiple innings and in fact Face's average outing was about 1 2/3 innings. At just 5'8", 155 pounds, his trademark pitch was his deceptive Forkball. Face led the NL in Saves three times and he was runner-up in Saves three other years.
In 2002 Topps released a series of cards of selected all-star players from the second half of the 20th Century, reprinting some of their more attractive cards. Roy Face is pictured here in a reprint of his Topps 1959 card - (#339).