Minor League Baseball Players

[jwisenberg]

1. Eric Hillman
2. Kevin Baez
3. ?
4. Mike Witt (Maybe)
5. ?

[Cusick]

Player #5 might be 5-game major league outfielder William "Bill" Ortega.

[Penale52]

Eurie Proffitt shown in the March 25, 1925 edition of the Buffalo Morning Express

[Penale52]

Alwood Gordy shown in the March 25, 1925 edition of the Buffalo Morning Express

[Cusick]

Manny McIntyre was the first Canadian black player to break the color barrier in professional baseball. He played for the Sherbrooke Canadians in 1946. An injury shortened his career. This photo comes from the Montreal Gazette of May 3, 2016. Credit to SABR for the tip which led me to the Montreal Gazette article.

Manny McIntyre Minor Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com

[jwisenberg]

I can confirm #5 definitely is Bill Ortega.

[Cusick]

I'm thinking that unidentified Player #3 from the previous page is Andy Morales. As a former star of the Cuban National Team, he signed with the Yankees and went to spring training with them. This image is from the back of his 2001 Topps Traded baseball card.

Andy Morales Cuban, Minor & Independent Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com

[FatJack]

Dain Syverson was the Indians 20th round pick in the 1984 draft. Originally a third baseman, he switched to catcher and got to spend a couple of springs with the big league club before hanging up his cleats after the 1987 season. He's currently a successful businessman living in Atlanta.

[Dto7]

Bernie Keating played minor league from 1941 -1949 minus 4 years for service in the military during the war. He died at the age of 95 in 2015.

[Cusick]

Pitcher Charles Steven "Chuck" Kuhn died recently on April 30, 2016. His minor league career was bookended by tryouts in the Detroit Tigers' spring camp as a non-roster invitee in 1965 and 1973. The photo is from his obituary.

Charles Kuhn Minor & Winter Leagues Statistics & History | Baseball-Reference.com

[FatJack]

When Harry Perkowski passed away recently, and I was doing my usual thing of gathering pictures, I came across an eBay listing for a 1956 L.A. Angels Yearbook. It was advertised as being in great shape and the price was....let's just say "reasonable". I was intrigued that it was a yearbook, in the first place. I realize the PCL was a bit unique--in essence the closest thing to major league baseball in the west until the Giants and Dodgers arrived in 1958 (1957 would be the Angels final season)--but still I wasn't aware that minor league clubs were making full yearbooks in those days. This one had 40 pages and promised pictures of all the players. And it didn't lie. It's a pretty slick publication for the time. Complete stats, pictures (all head and shoulders), history of the team and the ballpark. It compares favorably to the previous oldest yearbook I own--that of the '62 Mets. The write-ups are terrific (an advantage of being near Hollywood, I'd guess), but I won't be posting those or the stats (get yer own yearbook, geez).

If nobody has any objection, I plan to post some of the player images here. I'd post them all, but there's like 56 of them--all of which scan huge. I figure I'll post the ones that interest me most and put the whole batch into a zip file for anyone interested in the complete "set" (which'll save bandwidth if nothing else). Grab a beer; it'll only cost you 25 or 35 cents (highway robbery).

The one that intrigued me the most, I think, was Sam "First Down" Brown (so named because, in high school, he averaged over 10 yards per carry). Sam was a pretty well-known halfback for the UCLA Bruins in the fifties and I had no idea he'd ever played pro baseball. Well, in fact, he didn't.

After rushing for 892 yards in 1955 and leading UCLA to a 9-2 record and a Rose Bowl berth, Sam was drafted by the Cleveland Browns (in the 22nd round). But Sam preferred baseball. The yearbook notes that there were four other major and minor league baseball teams competing for Brown, but the Angels got him because, growing up in Oakland, the Angels were his favorite team (the California papers at the time referred to African-American athletes as "tan"; just a factoid I found interesting).

Pro outlooks for Sam were mixed. He had hit well at UCLA and had a good power stroke, but others said he couldn't hit good pitching. The Angels considered him a plus defender in the outfield, but detractors said he had no arm. Overall, the Angels thought Brown had great potential but also thought he was still too raw. Near the end of spring training, they cut Brown and assigned him to Twin Falls of the Pioneer League.

But, a few weeks after he was cut, Brown was selected in another draft--this one conducted by Uncle Sam. Though the chronology isn't entirely clear, it was around the same time that he signed with the Cleveland Browns. Sam served two years in the military stationed at Fort Ord, where he continued playing football and baseball. Following his hitch, Sam was in camp with the Browns in the summer of '58, but didn't make the cut. He offered that he was thinking about the CFL, but I can find no evidence that he ever played or tried out in Canada. Instead, he finished up at UCLA, got his Masters at Pepperdine, and began a 30 year career as an elementary school teacher. Sam, sadly, passed away last year.

[FatJack]

John Hricinak was originally signed by the Phillies in 1949. A local kid from rural PA who was schooled in Philly (thus the nickname "Hick"), John had excelled in baseball, basketball and track in high school. Assigned to Carbondale (Class D), he struggled a bit that first year. But he righted the ship in 1950. Still with Carbondale, the right-hander went 16-4 with a 2.82 ERA and 148 strikeouts in 149 innings, making the league's All-Star squad. That will get you noticed, even in Class D. And, that September, in the minor league phase of the Rule V draft, John was selected by the unaffiliated Greensboro Patriots.

After 7 games with Greensboro in 1951, John's record was 0-2. He was then sold to Visalia. For them, he went 13-10 with a 3.21 ERA and 177 strikeouts in 202 innings pitched. Once again, Johnny was a league All-Star.

Hick spent the next four years in the Air Force, stationed in England for at least two. He pitched two seasons for the West Drayton (England) team, going 29-1. In the second of those seasons, John hurled 158 innings, striking out 255 while walking just 17. His ERA was an astounding 0.68. Oh yeah, he also managed the team, leading them to a 32-9 record and the Southern England Air Force championship.

The Angels had had success with pitchers from the military before (notably George Piktuzis who went on to pitch ever so briefly for the Cubs), so they signed John and he opened the season with L.A. Although the Angels were on their way to a 107 win season and a league championship in 1956, their pitching was shaky early on. That included John, who, through 10 innings, gave up 9 hits, 9 walks and 6 runs. So the Angels farmed John out to Des Moines, where he went 9-5 to finish out his pro career.

From 1957 to 1959, John coached the baseball team at LaSalle College High School, a Catholic high school in Philadelphia. After that, he's pretty much a ghost as far as the interwebs go. It does appear that he's still living. But, other than that...I got nuthin'.

I am going to include the stats here, though, because they seem more complete than those at Baseball-Reference (e.g. B-R doesn't include Greensboro; those stats had to come from somewhere, right?).

[Dto7]

Lynn Bell 1911 Springfield Senators/Decatur Nomads

[Cusick]

Picked up a newspaper article (Doylestown, PA) dated 3/14/1975 which indicated that John Hricinak at that point was associated with the Mount Airy Children's House in Philadelphia. The article was reporting that he would be giving a speech on "Children of Learning Disabilities and the Montessori Method."

[FatJack]

Originally Posted by Cusick

Picked up a newspaper article (Doylestown, PA) dated 3/14/1975 which indicated that John Hricinak at that point was associated with the Mount Airy Children's House in Philadelphia. The article was reporting that he would be giving a speech on "Children of Learning Disabilities and the Montessori Method."

I did see that but, as it turns out, Hricinak is not an uncommon name. Even his full name--John Robert Hricinak--is not particularly uncommon. And I came across simultaneous appearances of that name in PA, WI, FL, and NC. Now, sure, he was originally from Pennsylvania, but without some additional way of corroborating that it was the same John Hricinak, I didn't feel comfortable saying that that was, indeed, him (even though it seemed to fit his character). I felt comfortable identifying him as the coach at LaSalle high school because there were pictures and its clearly the same man (middle row, right hand side in the team photo below).

[rico43]

Trying to ID the color images in the Lexibell files. These are accompanied by a number of ID'd photos from the 1998-2001 seasons. Several may have been used in a Fleer set. There has been no real order to the images.

No. 1


No. 2


No. 3


No. 4


No. 5


We will make all ID's available when they are nearly complete.

[Penale52]

Ernest Hooker pictured with the 1903 Buffalo Bisons.

[Pinetarpress]

[delete post....)

[Cusick]

Originally Posted by rico43

Trying to ID the color images in the Lexibell files. These are accompanied by a number of ID'd photos from the 1998-2001 seasons. Several may have been used in a Fleer set. There has been no real order to the images.

Player #2 is Eddie Rogers. Player #4 is Kelly Dransfeldt.

[FatJack]

Originally Posted by Pinetarpress

3 looks like Manny Delcarmen...5 is Timo Perez

#5 is not Timo. It's Nick Maness. Image previously identified via Baseball-Birthdays. But, if you have any doubt, google him. You'll not only see that the eyebrows are a match, you'll see him wearing #61 on a Donruss Rated Rookies card.