Minor League Baseball Players

[Amazin69]

Peltier was the Pirates' 1st pick in the 1972 draft, 16 picks after the Reds took Larry Payne. The infielder from Servite H.S. in Anaheim was taken over early 2nd-round picks like Tom Underwood, Ellis Valentine and Bruce Bochte.

Peltier did not play professionally in the summer of 1972, but attended Spring Training in 1973, anyway. (The first two pictures below; notice the Roberto Clemente memorial black armband on the uniform in the second picture.) It took him three years to get out of A-Ball, but a .781 OPS with Salem in 1975 led to his getting bumped up to Shreveport (AA) the next season…where he bombed miserably and was released, at age 22.

He did, however, make at least one other Spring Training Roster. I'm guessing the latter two pics are from 1974, but that's just because those sideburns had a short shelf-life, I'm thinking.

Peltier is not the father of 1990s outfielder Dan Peltier (he was 14 when Dan was born), but they might be related in some way. I don't know for sure.

[Amazin69]

Shields was the Senators' 15th-round pick in the June, 1969 draft, out of Northwestern State (LA). Although he did not pitch professionally in 1969, he apparently attended some kind of workout/extended spring training after signing and was photographed in a 1968 Senators uniform. (We know that the Senators wore the red 1969 uniforms during Spring Training 1970, not the older blue ones. [See John Roseboro's Senators picture, for example])

After two indistinguished seasons in the Senator/Ranger chain, Shields went 8-9, 3.39 at Pittsfield (AA) in 1972 and won an invite to 1973's training camp. Despite arming himself with Funky Frames™, sideburns, and a deep tan (all perfect to go with Ranger doubleknits), Shields was sent out to AAA Spokane, where he bombed (1-9, 5.89) and was cut.




Note: the first picture is misidentified as "John Shaw, 1968" in a current eBay auction. However, the only contemporaneous "John Shaw" was a 2nd baseman in the Yankee chain from 1970-1972. (And besides, you can see part of the name "Shields" in the 3rd picture.)

[Amazin69]

Handley had two mediocre season for various Mets farms in 1963-64, and then somehow got an invite to St. Petersburg for Spring Training in 1965. He didn't impress the Ol' Perfesser enough to stick, getting farmed to AAA Buffalo, where he hit a resounding .144 and was cut. (But he did get two more years in the Tiger chain, somehow.)

Here we have the original press photo, my sharpened/darkened custom image, a cut-down of that, and a sepia version. (Just because.)

[keonleafs]

Note: the first picture is misidentified as "John Shaw, 1968" in a current eBay auction. However, the only contemporaneous "John Shaw" was a 2nd baseman in the Yankee chain from 1970-1972. (And besides, you can see part of the name "Shields" in the 3rd picture.)[/QUOTE]

When the guys at Topps Vault misidentified the first 2 pics for John Shaw, I made a search for a name that would sound a bit like Shaw and found John Shew, a righthanded pitcher who played for the Sens minors from 1965 to 1967. Then went to my Sens photos folder, and found this one that I had picked up on the Gambo post. So, my vote goes for John Shew for the first 2 pics, the Senators pics.

[Amazin69]

"Birdy" Burdick was the Reds' 2nd-Round pick in the June, 1969 draft, out of Parker H.S. in Janesville, WI. (The back half of the 2nd round was pretty much a disaster, although the Cubs did tab Larry Gura two spots later.) An outfielder, he muddled along until he managed a .289/.346/.368 line at Tampa (A) and Trois-Rivieres (AA) in 1971. Thus earning an invite to training camp in 1972 with the big team.

Clearly, Burdick's plan was to intimidate with his massive eyebrows, but big league pitchers were not easily cowed. And the Big Red Machine wanted outfielders who could slug better than .368. So, after two more mediocre seasons without ever reaching AAA-ball, it was "Bye, Bye, Burdick!"

[Amazin69]

Dang it! I went all through the Senators chain in 1968 AND 1969 (blah blah, Sens wearing '68 unis in 1969 Spring Training, blah blah…) but I never checked 1967. Ah, Shew-t.

Shew and Shields do look quite a bit alike, though, both in the mouth and around the ear. But I guess that Shields' darker complexion is more than just the good tan I thought it was. Shews how much I know.

And the file jumps all the way from Jim Shellenback to Ron Swoboda at this point, leaving plenty of room for both Shew and Shields, in that order. Ah, well, Shew for the price of one, that's a good thing right?

So I guess those could in fact be 1968-vintage photos of dear John. And when he didn't impress in training camp, the Senators released him, going "Shoo, Shew! Don't bother me…"

[Amazin69]

Ratliff, an outfielder, was drafted out of high school in the 19th round of the 1966 June draft by the Cardinals, but chose instead to go to Bacone Junior College, which was originally an "Indian School" founded by John D. Rockefeller in 1880. (Ratliff is of Cherokee descent.)

Despite having an almost infinitismally-small budget and no facilities to speak of, Bacone won the 1967 Junior College NCAA championship, and seven players on the team were taken in the secondary phase of the 1967 June draft, including Ratliff, who went 7th overall to the Senators. (One of the seven draftees did reach the majors: pitcher Jim Dunegan.)

Ratliff struggled right away as a pro, because he simply could not hit a curve ball. Yet, despite managing only a wretched .194 average at AA Pittsfield in 1970, he somehow snagged an invite to the Last Senators Camp Ever in '71, and got his picture taken a couple of times:



Ratliff was, to no surprise, returned to Pittsfield, where he continued to struggle. This story, of a game where Ratliff homered to beat Reading in the 8th inniing after having struck out in his first three ABs, castigates R-Phils pitcher Mike Wallace for his pitch selection, thusly:

Gary Ratliff loves those fastballs, high, low, inside, outside. What Gary Ratliff doesn't like is the breaking stuff, and the whole Eastern League knows it.

********

It's reasonable to assume that Wallace was getting the breaking stuff past Ratliff [in the 3 Ks]. But something went wrong in the eighth inning. The breaking stuff did not get past Ratliff. Or maybe Wallace tried to throw the fastball past him.

Whatever, the ball did not go past Ratliff this time. He hit it over the centerfield fence and the smash gave the Senators a 4-2 win.

Despite Ratliff's continued struggles, the Senators moved him up to AAA Denver midway through 1971. Perhaps they thought that breaking pitches don't break so well at high altitude, and success might build confidence.

It didn't work, and after another year and a half of struggle, the Rangers let Ratliff go after 1972. He then signed with the Indians organization and *finally* came through with two good years (.819, .820 OPS) for San Antonio of the Texas League. But Ratliff was 26 by then, and the Indians also released him after 1974. And that was that.

[Amazin69]

Remington was a large RHP (6'3", 225) out of LaPorte, Iowa. He attended Parsons College in Iowa, briefly an athletic powerhouse of the time.

For most of its history Parsons had been a quiet, liberal arts college. But, with the flamboyant Rev. Millard G. Roberts installed as President in 1955, things changed.

Roberts had a mission to grow the school (which had nearly shut down during World War II, and lost its accreditation for two years in the late 1940s) and he set to do just that. In 10 years, enrollment soared from 357 students to over 10,000. Parsons liberalized its transfer policy (and lowered its academic standards) and led the nation in enrollment increases (as a percentage) for 10 straight years.

New dorms and stadiums were built, and the athletic program flourished. The football team got two (minor) bowl game bids, the basketball team was a consistent winner, and future major leaguers like Rich Folkers, Don Mason and Dick Mills made the baseball team a national powerhouse by the mid-1960s.

And then…the bottom fell out. Roberts's administration had been under attack on several fronts, from professors who had filed a formal complaint (resulting in the school spending 1963 on probation) and from rival schools who didn't like Roberts "raiding" their faculties by paying top dollar for professors. (In 1966, Parsons had the highest-paid faculty in the country.) And, despite the expansion, the school was taking on debt steadily, as all that building came with a price.

1966, Life magazine ran a critical profile of Roberts, calling him "The Wizard of Flunk-Out U". The phrase was both an attack on Parsons enrolling so many transfer students (although Parsons had always dedicated one-third of its enrollment to the "academically challenged") and a critique of the school's poor retention rate, as most enrollees didn't even complete two years at Parsons, much less four.

The negative publicity from the Life article had a snowballing effect; the NCA (the regional accrediting authority) revoked the accreditation again, citing "administrative weakness" and the spiraling debt. Enrollment crashed from over 10,000 to 2,500 in just one year.

(The wiki article doesn't mention this, but I would bet that this had something to do with the Viet Nam war, as you probably needed to be at an accredited school to get those oh-so-precious student deferments. Parsons had probably done a nice job of keeping the not-too-studious away from Uncle Sam's reach, but that was on hold when the accreditation was pulled.)

Despite all this, the baseball team was better than ever. In 1967, they went 31-2, and finished ranked #2 in the country. But they were not given an invitation to the NCAA tournament, because of the non-accredited status. This 1968 article wondered if that year's squad (led by Remington, Charlie Williams, and Tom Heintzelman) would suffer the same fate, despite starting 13-0 and reaching #1 in the poll. As it turned out, the 1968 Warriors slumped to 33-5, so the second straight snub was not a surprise, after all.

Roberts had been ousted by the Board of Trustees and accreditation was regained in 1969, but it was too late. Enrollment continued to drop, the athletic programs folded after the 1970 season (Jim Todd was the final future major leaguer to play for Parsons) and the school went bankrupt and closed (with the property sold to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) in 1973.

By then, of course, Remington had moved on. He was the 19th-Round pick of the Twins in the 1969 June draft, and had a decent half season (6-5, 3.40; 2/1 K/W ratio) at Wisconsin Rapids in the Midwest League. The Twins generously gave him an invite to Spring Training for 1970, and a wandering Topps photog snapped a couple of pictures:

(I know, I know, I made you wait for them. Sorry.)



Remington was assigned to Lynchburg (Carolina League) the next year, but posted a disappointing mark of 4-7, 4.10. In addition, he pitched barely more than he did the previous year in his half-season at Wisconsin Rapids, so he may have suffered an injury. (Although I found no mention of that; just a guess.)

In 1971, the Twins tried to make Remington a reliever (because of the [hypothetical] injury?) and promoted him to AA Charlotte. But he bombed in 12 outings (9.00 ERA, more walks than strikeouts) and was released. Only 23, but he was out of business two years before Parsons College was. (Albeit, I would hope, not quite so deeply in debt.)

[Amazin69]

McPhee, a second baseman, was the Twins' 5th Round pick out of Northeastern University in the June, 1965 draft. (The next player taken was Amos Otis, by the Red Sox.) He had a poor half-season for St. Cloud in the Northern League (A) in 1965, but in 1966, he starred with Wisconsin Rapids in the Midwest League, hitting .305, slugging .524 on 20 HR and (according to this biography of McPhee; Baseball Reference's stats are incomplete) leading the league in RBI and being named the MVP.

That brought him to Twins camp in 1967, and if the Topps photographer wasn't too sure of McPhee's future with the Twins (who had this rookie 2B named Rod Carew who was breaking in that year, after all), he at least thought McPhee worthy of a "BHNH" picture, possibly for some later "Rookie" card:
(Edit: Okay, so he took a regular pic, too. It just took me a while to find it.)



(Image "clean-up" courtesy of John [Baseball-Birthdays]. [Edit: on the first picture. The second one is all me, for better or worse.])

The Twins sent McPhee to play for the Wilson Tobs of the Carolina League. Probably confused as to what a "Tob" was, McPhee struggled, putting up a mediocre .619 OPS, and was released.

But while this was the end of McPhee's pro career, it was not the end of his baseball career. He went back to Northeastern, got his degree in 1968, his Masters in 1977, and, since 1986, McPhee has been the Huskies' head coach, guiding the college careers of such players as Carlos Pena and Adam Ottavino.

[Amazin69]

Ritter was a long, lean lefty (6'3", 186 lbs) who signed with the Senators out of high school. He struggled his first year (6.62 ERA, splitting time between starting and relief), but stabilized in the starting rotation for Pensacola of the Class D Alabama-Florida League in 1962, going 6-4 4.34 in 14 starts. (He did, however, throw 18 wild pitches.)

Bumped up to Wisconsin Rapids (then a Senators' farm, not in the Twins chain as it would be for Remington and McPhee, later in the decade) for 1963, Ritter came undone, seeing his ERA soar back up to 6.46, and a brief stint with Peninsula in the Carolina League boosted his overall ERA for 1963 to an aeronautical 7.07. Perhaps Ritter was pitching hurt, as he then missed the entire 1964 season. Or maybe he missed 1964 on military duty, with South Viet Nam looking pretty good compared to Wisconsin Rapids, at that point.

Whatever the case, Ritter returned in 1965 better than ever before. He went 10-12, 3.56 for Burlington (N.C.) in the Carolina League and the Senators rewarded him with his first AA ball gig in 1966. He excelled for the York White Roses, smacking Tudors around with an 8-4, 2.62 record, but he got a little sidetracked when the Senators promoted him to AAA Hawaii (too many mai tais?) and got knocked all over the Islands, with a 1-7 5.89 record in 9 starts and a relief appearance.

Still, it was good enough to punch Ritter's ticket to Pompano Beach for the Senators 1967 training camp, and some nice man from the Topps company took his picture:



(Edit: Or, rather, pictures. I just found the second one.)

He didn't last too long, being among the first cuts on March 22nd, as this blurb reports. Note that among the other cuts is our old friend John Shew, so I now believe that those pictures of Shew upthread are from '67, rather than '68.

So Ritter went back to York, but 1967 was Bosworth Field for the White Roses. Apparently, some changes had turned Bob Hoffman Stadium into a crippling pitchers' park, as the team OPS, which had been .674 and .656 the previous two years, dropped to a mere .578. So the fact that the staff ERA dropped to 2.60 (having been 3.74/3.69 in '65-'66) was probably less about good pitching and more about park effects.

The team did not adjust well to the run-poor environment, dropping from 62-77 in 1966 to 43-95. Ritter posted a 4-11, 2.85 ERA, but 4-11 wasn't so bad for that team, considering that Ritter's ERA was the WORST of the York starting rotation:

Jan Dukes, 5-7, 1.63
Robert Parchem, 7-5, 1.75
Dick Nold, 6-10, 2.22
Dick Such, 0-16, 2.81 (ouch!)
Ritter, 4-11, 2.85

(Rupe Toppin went 7-7, 1.94, splitting his time between the rotation and the pen; Joe Coleman made four starts, going 0-3, 2.25. John Shew made two scoreless relief appearances and retired/was released.)

In 1968, the Seanators moved their AA affiliation to Savannah of the Southern League, and Ritter went with them. He continued to post low ERAs with poor W-L marks (5-8, 3.15 in 1968; 2-6, 2.45 in 1969, primarily in relief) but as Savannah was in a normal run environment (Team ERAs of 3.33, 3.71) this meant that Ritter was actually doing good work, and the Senators decided it was time to see what Ritter could do for AAA Denver in 1970. After all, Ritter was 28, and time was running out…

Ritter rang up a 2-3, 6.14 mark at Denver in 34 games (1 start) and it was "Rocky Mountain, bye!" for his career.

[Amazin69]

(There were three "Robert Flynn" players around this time; this is Robert Joseph Flynn, born in 1942.)

Flynn signed with the Kansas City Athletics out of high school and spent his first season with Visalia in the California League. He was an unexceptional 4-7, 4.84 but was still one of 50 teenagers in Major League camps in the spring of 1961, as profiled by this article, which notes that Flynn struck out 102 batters in 106 innings.



Flynn was also considered a prospect as an outfielder (hence some of the poses) but he never played there professionally, save for 10 games as a defensive replacement with the 1965 Birmingham Barons.

Ironically, although Flynn was profiled in the March 26, 1961 "teen prospects" article above, he had already been sent out, as noted in this blurb from the day before.

(Off-topic, but if you click that link, you will find, right next to "Athletics Send Nine to Minors" an AP article called "Young Pitching is Hope of Cincinnati Ball Club", the not-very-enthusiastic preview of the Reds' hope for improving on their 6th-place finish of the year before. The 1961 Reds are one of the true overlooked "miracle" teams, as Bill James has noted, and for anyone who has read Pennant Race [Jim Brosnan's diary of the season], the palpably perfunctory preview is perfectly pleasurable. [/annoying alliteration])

Flynn continued to pitch in the A's chain, never really achieving much because he just gave up too many hits. I get the impression that he had a fastball, and not much more. Best year was probably 1963, when Flynn went 9-5, 4.14 for AAA Portland, but still with a 1.57 WHiP. Just too many baserunners. He ended up back in the California League and was cut after posting a 1-2, 8.00 mark in six relief appearances for the 1966 Bakersfield Bears.

[Amazin69]

The same images as before, but in sepia. Just because I like sepia, no other reason.

[Amazin69]

Meyer, a LHP from Downey, California, was the Phillies 1st Round pick (#14 overall) in the June 1967 draft. He is often cited as one of the Phils' many draft busts (the Phillies do not draft well) but this isn't as bad as taking Jeff Jackson over Frank Thomas or anything like that…Jon Matlack, John Mayberry and Ted Simmons were already off the board by the time the Phillies picked, and the only player of value taken in the next dozen picks was Bobby Grich by the Orioles at #19.

(Of course, after *that*, three of the next four picks [#27-30 overall] were Vida Blue, Dave Kingman and Jerry Reuss, but clearly they were considered lesser prospects, as everyone [except the Cardinals who went Simmons-Reuss in rounds 1-2] had already passed on them.)

I don't know if Meyer had chronic injuries or if he had military commitments, but he hardly pitched his first four professional seasons, tallying only 45 games from 1967-1970 and no more than 73 IP in any season, despite working almost exclusively as a starter. He was on the Phillies' 1969 spring roster, but I don't have any pictures of him in camp, just this one once he was sent down to Spartanburg (A-ball, Western Carolinas League):



In 1971, the Phils finally got a decent amount of work out of Meyer, as he started 21 times for AAA Eugene in the PCL. But he still only threw 85 innings, as he was bombed early and often. (3-10, 6.67 ERA; it was his first work above A-ball.) Perhaps hoping the experience had toughened him up, the Phils invited him to Spring Training, 1972:



Despite the fact that the '72 Phils definitely needed pitching (Steve Carlton, 27-10; rest of team, 32-87), Meyer was sent down to AA Reading, and he stunk up the joint, going 1-3, 7.12 in 13 games (4 starts) and was (I think) released. He signed on with Burlington in the Carolina League (Rangers affiliate) and was 3-2, 2.68 in 11 games (also 4 starts) for them, but that was the end of the line for Meyer.

[davidsb]

Hello! Awesome site. Long time lurker, first time posting. I am looking for a minor league photo of 1969-73 Detroit Tiger farmhand Joe McIlvaine. Same Joe McIlvaine as GM/asst for Mets, Padres, Twins and now Mariners. Can anyone help? Thanks!

[Amazin69]

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…

[Dto7]

Baseball Stats

Willis Morgan 1914 Salt Lake Skyscrapers

[Dto7]

Baseball Stats

Richmond Colts and Portsmouth Truckers

[Dto7]

Baseball Stats

Art McClain 1914 Venice Tigers

[Dto7]

Baseball Stats

Herb Hester player/manager 1914 Salt Lake City Skyscrapers

[CONN CHRIS]

Has anyone stumbled across a photo of Ed Breckinridge?

Edward Breckenridge Minor League Statistics & History - Baseball-Reference.com