Appearing in 267 games during an 11-year major league
career, pitcher Carl Scheib
had a solid yet unspectacular showing as a big leaguer. However, he would
likely have never gotten the change if not for a traveling salesman, who wrote
Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack
to recommend the high school phenom— resulting in a 16-year-old Scheib working
as the team’s batting practice pitcher in 1943 and making his debut before the
year was over.
Born in 1927, Scheib grew up in tiny Gratz, Pennsylvania, a
rural town outside of Harrisburg. A community known for farming and coal
mining, his father did both, leaving few options as to what the youngsters’
future held when he came of age.
Scheib’s parents encouraged him to play baseball and by the
time he was a teenager he had become an all-around player and right-handed pitcher
of some local renown. As
a 15-year-old, he was larger than most full-grown men and his success pitching
for an American Legion team often made him the topic of town chatter, as they
relived his exploits. This ended up changing the direction of the youngster’s
life forever.
In 1942, Gratz grocer Hannah Clark waited on traveling
salesman Al Grossman and started talking up the teen hurler. Although he didn’t
work in baseball, Grossman did have friends in the Athletics organization and
shortly after this encounter wrote a letter to legendary manager Connie Mack to
make him aware of the promising prospect residing within state limits. Before
the days of easy coast-to-coast travel and social media, baseball teams relied
on tips like these almost as much as their own scouting to get the inside dope
on such up-and-comers. Otherwise, tops rural athletes like Scheib had little
recourse to get noticed and pursue a professional career.
At the time of Grossman’s letter, the team was in the midst
of its eight consecutive year of residing in the second division. In
particular, the team struggled mightily to find consistent pitching. Known for
frequently gambling on young players, Mack couldn’t resist looking into this
tip further, despite the kid’s age. That
September, Scheib was driven by his brother to Philadelphia, where he nervously
went through his paces in front of Mack and a coach.
As Scheib later recalled,
“I had no glove or shoes or uniform, so they had to go around the clubhouse and
collect them for me. I went down to the bullpen and all the coaches and big
wheels were there. I threw to Earle
Brucker and Mr. Mack said, ‘You hurry back next year as fast as you can.’”
Next April, Scheib discussed his options with his family.
Knowing that a likely alternative was the farm, the coal mines or both, they
came to the consensus that it would be a good thing for him to leave school two
years early to pursue professional baseball. True to his word, Mack hired him as
a batting practice pitcher. Soon, his repertoire impressed enough people that
he started going out on road trips with the team and making appearances in
exhibition games.
Unfortunately, it was not an easy for the pitcher to
acclimate to being with a big league team. He later explained,
“In those days those teammates didn’t tell you much. Coaches? They didn’t work
with you. They just went out to third base and directed traffic. It was hard to
get used to. I was intimidated. I was a bashful, shy kid coming out of the
sticks. It was pretty hard.”
The combination of Scheib’s talent; the watering down of
major league talent because of World War II; and the putrid state of the
Athletics (they lost 105 games in 1943) all contributed to the youngster being
given a player’s contract in September. Mack offered him $300 for the remainder
of the season, gave him another $500 for signing and also provided a $1,000
check to his father (who had to co-sign the deal because his son was under the
legal age of consent at 16 years, nine months and seven days). The venerable
skipper then told
the young player, “Now you go down to the clubhouse and get a uniform so you
can be indentified.”
On September 6th, he pitched the final 2/3 of an inning in
an 11-4
loss to the New York Yankees in the second game of a doubleheader at Shibe
Park in Philadelphia, becoming the youngest player in the history of the
American League. He gave up two hits and a run but retired veteran stars Joe Gordon
and Frankie
Crosetti to close out the game.
Scheib made a total of six relief appearances before the
season ended, going 0-1 with a respectable 4.34 ERA. He struck out just three
in his 18.2 innings (including Bob Muncrief
for his first career punch out) but only walked three and generally acquitted
himself admirably for the basement dwellers.
Youth and a stint in the Army limited his opportunities over
the next few years. However, he became a regular on the Athletics’ pitching
staff in 1947 (his first
major league win was a seven-hit shutout of the Detroit Tigers on June 11th)
and went on to play with them midway through the 1954 season when he was sold
to the St. Louis Cardinals. He was later returned to the Athletics but never pitched
in the majors again, spending the next three years pitching in the minors
before retiring following the 1957 season at the age of 30 because of injuries.
In his parts of 11 years as a big leaguer, Scheib was a
combined 45-65 with a 4.88 ERA in 267 games (107 starts). He was not a
strikeout pitcher, as evidence by his 290 strikeouts (against 493 walks) in
1,070.2 innings. His best season came in 1947, when he was 14-8 with a 3.94 ERA
and 15 complete games for a team that won 84 games.
In later years, he expressed
frustration that he was shuffled between the bullpen and rotation so
indiscriminately throughout his career. “I just wished they used me as one or
another. I think it affected my arm. We had quite a few pitchers that had sore
arms.”
Schieb never became a full-fledged star but had a
professional baseball career that should make most envious. After throwing his
final pitch, he became successful operating a car wash and installing related
equipment. It’s amazing to think about how a chance encounter by two people engaged
in idle chatter changed the course of his life forever and allowed him to have
a life that at one time may have seemed impossible.
Statistics via BaseballReference.com
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