Huge Early Baltimore Orioles Transaction Uncovered!

Sometimes in doing random research for the blog I run across something fairly major, and I consider this find one of those instances.

The St. Louis Browns, as we know, moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles. Baltimore had a minor league team there, the Orioles, for decades.

The Orioles purged many of the old Brownies very quickly, but a part of their history was unknown to me until I stumbled across this article from the St. Petersburg Times of Jan. 19, 1954:

“The Baltimore Orioles of the American League announced yesterday they have sold 14 players to Richmond of the International League for $50,000, including nine of the active list and 5 on the restricted list.”

“The Orioles inherited the players from the old International League Orioles.”

“The nine of the active list are pitchers Dick Starr, Ken Heintzelman, Joe Ares, and Wimpy Nardella; catcher Marty Tabacheck; infielders Russ Kerns and Eddie Kasco [sp Kasko]; outfielders Marv Rackley and Roy Weatherly. Ares and Kasco are on the national defense service list as returning serviceman.”

“The five on the restricted list are Blix Donnelly, Ray Poat, Gordon Mueller, George Byam and Butch Woit [sp Woyt]. All were out of baseball last year but were owned by the Orioles. Their contracts go to Richmond.”

The Baseball-Reference major league pages of Starr, Rackley, Kerns, Heintzelman, Weatherly, Donnelly and Poat make no mention of this deal. None of these players made it back to the majors after this, and the players on the restricted list didn't play in organized ball at all after this transaction.

However, Eddie Kasko [misspelled Kasco in the article] has this mention on his page:

Before 1954 Season: Sent from the Philadelphia Phillies to Richmond (International) in an unknown transaction. 

Baltimore was a Phillies AAA team before the Orioles moved in, so this sale explains that move. Richmond, by the way, was an expansion International League team that year, and independent that season.

A major bit of baseball history, with a minor league twist!

Kasko from comc.com

Leroy Jarvis Added to Bill Werle Deal

Leroy (or Roy) Jarvis came up to the majors at the age of 17 in 1944 as a catcher for Brooklyn. Believe it or not, he was just the TENTH youngest player in the majors at the time.

Jarvis lasted just one at-bat with Brooklyn, was farmed back out, and according to his Baseball Reference page, he was drafted by the Pirates. He played minimally over two years there and his major league career was over at age 22.

He continued on in the minors, however, for quite awhile. It was tough finding a lot about that time in Jarvis' life, but we do know how he went from the Pirates system to San Francisco (PCL Independent) in 1949: it involves a trade for pitcher Bill Werle.

Werle's Baseball Reference page has the following for a deal sending him to the Pirates from San Francisco:

September 21, 1948: Traded by San Francisco (PCL) to the Pittsburgh Pirates for a player to be named later and cash. The Pittsburgh Pirates sent Steve Nagy (September 27, 1948) to San Francisco (PCL) to complete the trade.

We found this to be incomplete, though in this story from the St. Petersburg Times of Jan. 29 1949:

“The Pittsburgh Pirates yesterday released 22-year-old Catcher Leroy Jarvis outright to San Francisco of the Pacific Coast League as part payment for Pitcher Bill Werle”

“The deal for Werle was three players and an unannounced sum of cash. One of the players, Pitcher Steve Nagy, went previously.”

Many other articles of the day mention Jarvis as a part of this deal. I could not find the third player involved, however.

Jarvis bounced around the minors, AAA and AA until 1955. The only transaction I could find during that time was this from the Montreal Gazette of Feb. 25, 1954:

“Conditional sale of catcher Leroy Jarvis to Richmond of the International League was announced today by the Atlanta club of the Southern Association. No price was disclosed.”

Jarvis would only play 15 games for Richmond, and his career was done after a stop in Nashville.

Always interesting to find additions to known transactions.

Jarvis from amazon and Dean's Cards

Werle from www.vintagecardprices.com

Nagy from www.baseball-birthdays.com