Minor League Baseball Players

[Cusick]

Photo is from The Salisbury (MD) Daily Times of June 8, 1969. The accompanying article introduces him as Ed Fisher of Federalsburg (MD), recently drafted by the Montreal Expos. The article also mentions that he "distinguished himself with the Valdosta (Ga.) College team where he was tops in the NAIA with an unbeaten 11-0 record, and a spanking ERA of 0.91."

Edwin Fisher Register Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com

[rico43]

A photo is a photo, and here is one of Edwin "Eddie" Fisher from 2012 when he was inducted into the Valdosta State University Hall of Fame. Photo from Valdosta News.

[Cusick]

Here are a couple of additional photos of him from the Valdosta State Sports History book ((Volume 1 -- Baseball).

[kungfupandacam]

Thank you so much guys all of you.

[FatJack]

Since his glove says so, I'm gonna say this is Robert John Burrows who played in the K.C. Royals system from 1969-1973. Not drafted, as far as I can tell, I'm guessing he was one of those signings that expansion clubs do to fill out their minor league system (the Mets had a ton of those guys). Even in the minors he was a back up and he never rose higher than AA. But you always have extra catchers in spring camp. And, if you were in spring camp in those days, Topps probably took a picture of you. As K.C. only sported the "Kansas City" script in 1969 and 1970, I'm thinking this is from the spring of 1970 or possibly '71. In later years, Bob also played first and outfield.

[Cusick]

Pitcher Mike Nozinski was an eyewitness to history as he was a teammate of Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe on the 1946 Nashua Dodgers, which was the first affiliated minor league team for this significant pair of Afro-Americans. Mike was also on the Jackie Robinson All-Stars, a team which played the Honus Wagner All-Stars in October of 1946. After Mike chalked up an eye-catching ERA of 2.92 at Nashua in 1946, the Brooklyn Dodgers rewarded him by placing him on their 1947 spring roster.

The attached photo is from the Nashua (NH) Telegraph of October 2, 1946, and shows Mike Nozinski in a Nashua Dodgers uniform.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/re...d=nozins001mic

[rico43]

Topps continues to stun me with the endless reserve of obscue Atlanta/Milwaukee Braves. After last year's pursuit of Donald Johnson, yet another No. 50 catcher lands in our laps.
But this is, in fact, one of the suspects from last year's search, 1967 spring camp invite Alberto Cambero. What makes his ID less of an ordeal is that he is pictured on a 1967 Topps Venezuelan card as well. As a Braves fan and collector since they arrived in Atlanta, this is the first time I've laid eyes on the boy. A white whale we didn't even know was out there!

[rico43]

Another first-time appearance in the Vault today was Orioles minor league pitcher Ruben Castillo. Small wonder he was photographed in spring training after going 15-4 for Miami in the FSL for the 1971 season and 11-6 the following year.

[Cusick]

How's this for a year in the minors for a guy no one ever heard of? First baseman Pat Wright hit above .400 with 52 homers and 32 stolen bases for the Class B Fort Wayne Chiefs in 1930. He never made it to the majors, and his 1930 performance didn't even get him onto a big league team's spring training roster. I don't think he was even a non-roster invitee in 1931. He had been on the Boston Braves' spring roster in 1928.

In case anyone wonders what earned him the promotion to the Braves in 1928, since Baseball-reference.com appears to have no record for him in 1927, he hit .340 for the Class B Macon Peaches that year. His record is mistakenly listed under Unknown-first-name Wright at:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/re...d=wright065--- Several articles in Macon newspapers confirm that this was Pat Wright. I have written to b-r.com to ask them to update their records.

There seems to be a question about his exact batting average in 1930. Baseball-reference.com lists it as .419. The attached brief bio of him from the April 21, 1931 issue of The Wilkes-Barre (PA) Record gives it as .423. Either way, it certainly was impressive.

The photo of him is from The Wilkes-Barre Record of July 4, 1931, and shows him as a Wilkes-Barre Baron.

Pat Wright Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com

[rico43]

Good luck trying to correct or amend things on Baseball Reference. It has been right around eight months that I forwarded a link to the death of Jay Roberts, former Braves No. 1 pick who was killed in a freeway accident in his hometown way back in 1998.

Roberts' bio today still lists him as alive and well. If someone has a magic path to being noticed aside from the prescribed method, I would like to know. I have found several things in the Lexibell files that would update individuals, but I'm about to decide what's the point.

FYI, the link to Roberts' death:

UW family mourns again - seattlepi.com

[Cusick]

Originally Posted by rico43

Good luck trying to correct or amend things on Baseball Reference. [/url]

Your comment spurred me to see if any of my previous suggestions to Baseball-reference had taken hold. I didn't do a full search, but at least one has gotten through. I submitted that one a year ago. I have no idea how long it took to get the change made. It was of the same nature as the situation with Pat Wright above, i.e. they had a season's record associated with the wrong player.

[rico43]

Before he was Dr. Strangeglove, Dick Stuart was already the stuff of legends with his 66-homer season for the Lincoln Chiefs of the Western League in 1956. There are numerous photos of that season around, but this would seem to be an original version of the image used on his Mutual Savings postcard from that year.
FYI: you won't find it in Baseball Reference, which still has yet to bestow us with many minor league RBI totals, but Stuart drove in 158 runs that season. And showing that he was a hitter ahead of his time, he also struck out 171 times in 141 games.

[rico43]

One of the Cardinals' near-miss pitching projects (career ERA, 3.17), all other photos I've seen of him, influding a pair of Topps Vault images, show him wearing the double knits that the Cardinals began wearing at the start of the 1971 season.
Not sure if they were still using the old button-up jerseys in spring training of that year, or if this dates back to 1970, but here is a team-issued photo of Stripling in the old-school jersey.
Thanks to the Lexibell files.

[Cusick]

One thing about the minor leagues -- you run into some interesting situations. Hal Stamey was involved in one.

On May 11, 1953, the Columbia Reds of the South Atlantic League lacked their first string catcher. Their backup catcher, Everett Johnson, didn't have a very good throwing arm, and the opponent teams had been running wild against the Columbia team. So in a game against Augusta, Columbia manager Ernie White brought strong-armed Hal Stamey in from right field and placed him in the catcher's box next to Everett Johnson when Augusta had been able to get a runner on first base. In other words, in that situation, Columbia had two catchers and only two outfielders. The shift worked, because Augusta made no attempt to steal in any of the three times the device was employed during that game.

Stamey was, of course, an outfielder during the normal course of his career. The pinnacle of his playing career was making the St. Louis Cardinals' spring roster in 1950. You won't find any mention of the Cardinals in baseball-reference.com, but that's because he didn't stick with the organization long enough to merit a citation. He was drafted by the Cardinals from the Phils on November 17, 1949, and went to the Reds from the Cards on waivers on April 3, 1950, so he never appeared in the Redbirds' minor league system.

The photo is from The Tennessean (Nashville) of March 12, 1955 and the headline pertains to the game when Stamey was one of the two catchers. I don't remember what newspaper I snipped it from.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/re...d=stamey001har

[Cusick]

Here's the other player involved in the two-catcher situation described above. Everett Johnson was on the Cincinnati Reds' spring roster in 1950.

This photo appeared on eBay in 2011.

Everett Johnson Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com

[Cusick]

Leslie "Les" McGarity was a catcher on the St. Louis Browns' 1946 spring roster. The photo of him is from the St. Louis Dispatch of February 24, 1946, and shows him in a Browns' uniform.

When Leslie was with the Brewton Millers in 1947, he was involved in a humorous incident. Attached below is an account of that incident from the Lewiston (ME) Evening Journal of August 14, 1947.

Someone must have been impressed with Leslie's ability to think on his feet, as he was hired as a minor league manager following the end of his playing career.

[rico43]

Love obscure stuff. Pitcher George Shoemaker One year in the Yankees' system (and, it seems, spring training invitee in 1964), played in three levels that year but appeared in only 16 total games.

[Cusick]

Pitcher Lawrence W. Donovan was on the Detroit Tigers' spring roster in 1957. He was granted that spring tryout after going 11-10 with a 3.67 ERA for the AAA Buffalo Bisons the prior season.

Larry died recently on April 3, 2016. The photo is from his on-line obit.

Lawrence Donovan Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com

[FatJack]

Ohio native Ted Toles passed away on Monday (April 4) at the age of 90. Ted played in the Negro Leagues in their waning years and went on to the minor leagues. A multi-sport standout in high school (he was a Golden Gloves champion for the Warren/Youngstown Ohio region), Ted was offered a contract with the Pittsburgh Crawfords in 1946. The southpaw had already had some arm trouble (he had had his teeth taken out at 18 because he'd been told that calcium deposits would damage his pitching arm), another player in the league recommended a hot liniment treatment and that seemed to do the trick. He went 18-7 for the Crawfords that year while batting .350. That was good enough to get Ted a spot on the Jackie Robinson All-Stars, a barnstorming team that played, among others, several major league teams.

Ted also played for the Newark Eagles and Cleveland Buckeyes but, following Jackie Robinson's major league debut, interest in Negro League baseball began to fall away. Players with little time in the league, such as Ted, couldn't get a contract in the league anymore. They were paid as "percentage players" (the baseball equivalent of day laborers). As Ted had a military deferment, that wasn't going to work for him.

Fortunately, he impressed the Cleveland Indians at an open tryout and was signed. Racism was at its worst in the south, so many of the black players being signed by major league franchises were assigned to minor league clubs on one side or the other of the Canadian border. That didn't mean there was no racism in those northern leagues and Ted saw his share. Of course, if you reacted to any of it, you'd soon be out of a job, so Ted took it in stride and played his game.

Ted had one of his favorite baseball memories with the New Castle Indians in July 1951. As the Indians swept a double header, Ted went 4 for 9 with a homerun and 6 RBIs. In 1952, Ted played for the Magic Valley Cowboys. At one point in the middle of the season, the switch-hitter was batting .400, though he finished the year batting .278. Twice during the season, Ted was called upon to race a horse as part of the ballpark festivities. He won both races (as it turns out, horses are notoriously bad at rounding the bases...just sayin'). Ted's final season of minor league ball was split between the St. Hyacinthe A's and the Trois-Rivieres Yankees. By that time, he'd been reduced to part-time play. Still just 27, Ted left the pros after the 1953 season to take a job in an Ohio steel mill. Then he was largely forgotten until more recent times when Negro League history gained interest. Since then, Ted has been honored across the country. In 2007, Topps included a card of Ted in their Allen & Ginter's product. Ted Toles Bobbleheads (showing him with the Crawfords) were produced and sold through quickly. And he's attended a number of Ted Toles nights in the minor league cities where he played and many where he didn't. "Never made a million dollars," Ted , "I had a million thrills."

Ted's biography, Living on Borrowed Time: The Life and Times of Negro League Player Ted Toles Jr., was published in 2014.

Cusick had earlier posted an image of Ted with the Eston Ramblers in the Negro League thread. This image shows Ted with the Magic Valley Cowboys in 1952 where the face is not as inflicted with shadows. I colorized the image for one of my tribute cards though, to be honest, I've got no clue what the team's color scheme was. For that, I relied upon what was posted among the minor league logos and such elsewhere on this site. Because I can, I'm also attaching an image (such as it is) of 3 African-Americans who played with Magic Valley in 1952--Ted Toles, Maurice "Pete" Peatros and Jimmy Sampson--from the May 8, 1952 edition of The Ogden Standard-Examiner. The heading above the picture reads "Colored Stars With The Cowboys".

[rico43]

Catcher Johnny Jones, a lefty hitting catcher from Florence, Ala., and Middle Tennessee State University, was the fifth overall pick in the 1967 draft, between Jon Matlack and John Mayberry. The Washington Senators the team pulling the trigger.
He spent two seasons in the low minors of the Senators' chain before the Astros traded for him before the 1969 season (shown here). But he failed to move past the Florida State League in two seasons before calling it quits. He hit exactly one home run in 157 career games with a career average of .150. In his final season, he had 24 passed balls in 58 games.
A Lexibell file photo.