HAL TROSKY, Jr.
Harold Arthur
Trosky, Jr. was born on September 29, 1936, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Hal and
Lorraine Trosky. Between 1937 and 1940, the family spent the baseball
season at home in Shaker Heights, where Hal was a standout first baseman for
the Cleveland Indians, and then returned to Norway, Iowa and their farms
between October and May. Hal started first grade at age four in 1940 - at
St. Michael’s in Norway - immediately following the conclusion of the Indian’s
season. Because the school followed a ‘farming’ calendar, he was able to
finish the school year in time to return to Cleveland with the family the
following spring.
There were no organized youth baseball programs in the
town at the time, but almost every morning that snow didn’t cover the ground,
the younger boys would meet up and start playing, and the games would continue
until dark or dinner time, whichever came first. The rules for the daily
games might be adapted each day in order to accommodate the number of available
players, but it was always baseball.
That languid lifestyle continued until the autumn of
1945, when the Troskys moved Hal to St. Patrick’s school in Cedar Rapids.
During his last year of high school, in addition to academics, Hal worked part
time for the railroad as an unskilled laborer, but spent most of his time
excelling in baseball and basketball.
Trosky’s baseball career at St. Patricks was
prolific. Under head coach Joe Kenney, he never endured a losing
season. As Hal’s hitting skill became more widely known, the number of
scouts at his games grew. The Sporting News (June 9, 1954) reported that
twelve major league clubs were scouting Hal, attracted by his .667 batting
average as a high school senior and his corner-infield skills, along with his
performance as the top hitter on the Cedar Rapids American Legion team, a squad
that had recently won the Iowa state title.
Hal Sr., with his background as star player, former
White Sox scout, and devoted father, screened the various offers.
According to “The Sporting News”, Hal Jr. told the local papers that he planned
on attending Notre Dame in the fall unless there was an offer “too good to turn
down”.
With so many interested scouts, and given his father’s
baseball prominence, Trosky had been introduced to various team executives
during the recruiting process. Hal instantly liked Charlie Comiskey, Jr,
so in 1954 he signed a contract with Chicago White Sox scout Johnny Mostil
(who, as a White Sox player, is still the only centerfielder to ever catch a
foul ball in a major league game). Trosky was told when he signed that
the White Sox would send him to the Class ‘A’ Sky Sox in Colorado Springs to
permit manager Eddie Stewart to evaluate him for two weeks. After that,
the organization told him, he would be placed at an appropriate level.
Hal said of his June 22 debut, “I took hitting
practice my first night there, and my manager, Eddie Stewart, put me in the
starting lineup. Hit a homerun in my first at-bat in pro ball. In my
second game I was hit on my left hand by a 'bean ball' and it broke three
fingers. I was on the disabled list for about 3 weeks.”
After returning to the team, Trosky resumed his
torrid hitting, keeping his average at just over .300. The injury
bug bit again, later in the season, in Denver. “I was doing the splits,
fielding a throw. The runner, Rocky Ippolito, ran into my left hamstring
and tore it up pretty badly. The next day, after consulting with the Sox home
office, the general manager at Colorado Springs told me they wanted me to continue
to play. I did, and by the end of the season my batting average dropped about
60 points.” By the end of his first year in professional baseball, his
average had fallen to .252, but the fifty-nine games only whet Chicago’s
appetite.
During the offseason, on Valentine’s Day 1955, he married Ellen Mae Gibson at
St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids. As with his parents, the
Troskys eventually had four children: Daughter Dawn Marie, sons Michael
Lynn and Gregg Allan, and daughter Tracy. Trosky worked moving
sheet metal that first off-season but, on the recommendation of a friend from
Norway, he earned his insurance license the following year.
The new husband opened 1955 with the Class ‘C’
Duluth-Superior Blues of the Northern League, and almost immediately Hal was
injured while fielding a throw that was low and up the baseline. The
runner inexplicably came inside the line and ran into the forearm on his glove
hand. The result was a quarter-sized chip on his left elbow that made him
unable to flex his left arm. The team physician said, "…not to play at all
as it could cause permanent damage, and to get some physical therapy for a
couple of weeks and we'll evaluate after that time". Chicago said,
"Play him.”
After a mere forty games, his second season was over,
and he returned to Iowa to rehabilitate the arm. His orthopedic physician
advised Trosky that surgery might permanently restrict his arm movement, and
instead recommended that Hal spend the off- season exercising daily with a five-gallon
bucket of sand.
Trosky was disciplined in his therapy. By the
first day of spring training he had regained over 90% of his flexibility and
range of motion. He reported to spring training with the White Sox, and
was batting .345 with the ‘AA’ team, when a coach approached him one
morning. “Have you ever thought about pitching”, the coach asked?
He added, "We think that the little restriction that you have remaining in
your left arm will keep you from hitting big league pitching. But we've
noticed that everything you throw has natural movement on it and we want you to
try pitching." Trosky was 6’3” tall, and weighed 205 pounds, so size
was not an issue for the White Sox.
His father had advised him to try anything the big
league club suggested, within reason, so Hal worked on the position throughout
the rest of the spring. When he returned to Superior, it was as a sidearm
pitcher. After two games pitching coach Ray Berres told him that he’d
never get any big league hitters out throwing in that manner. Trosky
changed his arm slot to a “3/4” delivery, and used his fastball and ‘nickle
curve’ (today called a slider) to earn nine wins and post a 3.95 earned run
average (ERA) in his first season on the mound.
In 1957 Trosky was promoted to the Davenport (Iowa)
Davsox of the Class ‘B’ Three-I League, and lowered his ERA to 3.66 while
logging a 14-10 record. His progress was so dramatic that The Sporting
News, over the winter, speculated that Hal might crack the Chicago staff in
1958.
Trosky stayed with Chicago until the end of spring
training in 1958, but the team (one year away from winning the American League
pennant) had sufficient depth that Hal was assigned to “AAA” Indianapolis
(American Association) to start the year. After some organizational
maneuvering, Hal found himself again playing with Colorado Springs in
June. When the Sky Sox came to Des Moines for a series, Hal Sr. and
Lorraine drove out from Cedar Rapids to spend a few days with their son.
Hal Trosky Sr. had been a legitimate star during his
playing career, and had seen all types of pressure, both on and off the field,
but he was unable to watch his son play once the younger turned
professional. Hal Jr. (or “Hoot Junior”, as he was often called) had
pitched nine innings in the game before the team arrived in Des Moines, so the
elder Troskys felt safe that they could visit without their son being at risk
to pitch.
On Father’s Day 1958, Colorado Springs and Des Moines
were halfway through a double-header when Hal and Lorraine decided to head back
to Cedar Rapids in order to return home before dark. After their
‘goodbyes’, the Colorado Springs manager, Frank Scalzi, came over to Hal
Jr. The scheduled starter had injured himself
while warming up, so ‘could Hal pitch the nightcap’? Trosky took the ball
that afternoon and, while his parents were navigating State Route 30 back to
Cedar Rapids, threw the only no-hitter of his life. His parents were
thrilled when Hal called them later that night, but Hal Sr. was still glad that
he’d missed the stress of the game.
Hal posted a 13-9 record in the minors that year, and
in early September he was called up to the White Sox. Hal made his major
league debut on September 25, against the Detroit Tigers, and threw an inning
of shutout relief for Dick Donovan. Three days later, in the final game
of the season, he relieved Stover McIlwain in the fifth inning against Kansas
City at Comiskey Park. Trosky pitched only two innings, but picked up the
victory after a late White Sox rally and an 11-4 win. Three days later,
Trosky pitched one more inning in relief, and then the season ended.
Those three innings proved to be his entire major league career.
Norman Macht, recounted the
situation in the 1989 “Baseball Research Journal”:
“A 6-foot-3 inch right-hander who had started out as a first baseman, Trosky
again pitched a scoreless fifth this day. Chicago scored three in the last of
the fifth for a 6-1 lead. Taking the mound for the sixth, Trosky looked
around his infield and took comfort from the steadying presence of (Nellie)
Fox. Then a rare series of events occurred. Three ground balls were hit to Fox.
Two went through his legs and one bounced off his chest. All three were scored
as hits. Trosky walked a couple, and Suitcase Simpson, who had hit Trosky hard in
the minors, roped one into center field for the only
solid hit of the inning, and three runs were in.
In the last of the sixth Jim Rivera batted for Trosky and struck out. Bob Shaw
finished up. The win was credited to Trosky. He was twenty-two the next day. He
never pitched another big-league inning.”
The next year, 1959, Hal stayed with the Sox until the
final day of spring training, but was again sent to Indianapolis to start the
season. After a 3-2 start, and pitching in eight straight games, he was sent to
the Memphis Chickasaws of the ‘AA’ Southern Association, to play for his
father’s old White Sox teammate Luke Appling. Trosky had no idea why he
was sent down, but the move proved providential.
He had developed some calcification in his right (pitching)
shoulder, which may have prompted the transfer, and one night an opposing
coach, Mel Parnell, observed Trosky’s throwing motion and diagnosed him on the
spot. Parnell, an outstanding pitcher in his day, had suffered the same
malady, and recommended his treatment to Hal, a protocol that included visiting
a physician who happened to practice in Memphis. After a series of
radiation treatments, though, the shoulder responded.
Now healthy, Trosky was recalled to Indianapolis over
both his and manager Appling’s protests. The two had developed a healthy
working relationship, and both felt that Trosky’s development and
quality-of-life would be better in Memphis. Ellen was preparing to
deliver son Gregg, however, so Hal drove the family back to Iowa and then flew
out to join his new team. After an uneventful remainder of the season,
the Hal began looking forward to 1960.
In the fall of 1959, however, Ellen became
pregnant with daughter Tracy, and doctors discovered unexpected complications
during a pre-natal visit. There were blood compatibility issues between
Ellen and her unborn daughter, so Hal advised the White Sox that he would
remain home (without a contract) until he was certain that both mother and
child would be healthy. Unfortunately, that ‘clearance’ never came.
Tracy was born in late July, 1960, but by then Hal’s
chance to play professionally that season had passed. He had been playing with Iowa
Manufacturing in the local Manufacturers-&-Jobbers (M&J) league in
Cedar Rapids, while awaiting the birth, so he would be in shape for 1961, but
when several contracts arrived from the White Sox, he returned them unsigned.
A year earlier, former Yankee pitching coach Jim
Turner had told Trosky that he’d have been in the major leagues “two years ago”
with any other team. That morsel of awareness, coupled with his own
assessment and the fact that several other teams had been in contact with the
White Sox seeking to acquire the pitcher, had convinced Hal that he had no
future in Chicago.
The White Sox asked if his contracts were being
returned due to a salary issue. No, Hal assured them, all he wanted was his
release. The team stopped sending contracts, but did not comply with the
player’s request for over a decade, until 1972, after he had turned 36 years
old.
Trosky had earned his insurance license in October
1955, and he had developed his clientele over each off-season since. In
1961, Hal became a full-time insurance agent in Cedar Rapids, a job he still
holds in 2010. Even after the devastating floods of 2007, water that
erased over fifty years of business and client records, Trosky remained on the
job, working for, and with, his neighbors. His professional baseball
career was relatively brief, but his professional life has been lustrous.