Player Profiles: George Shuba

George Thomas Shuba was born on December 13, 1924, in Youngstown Ohio. His story is that of a typical average ballplayer. In parts of seven seasons, he appeared in 355 games, hit .259, and never played more than 94 games in any of those years. Nearly a third of his at-bats were as a pinch hitter. He played just long enough to collect an MLB pension, he actually counted down the days until he knew he had service time. Then he quietly went home and worked for decades for the United States Postal Service, living an amiable but quiet life, more than willing to tell his baseball stories at speaking engagements throughout the area.

But he was at the right place at the right time to earn a sliver of immortality. He played his entire career for the Brooklyn Dodgers from 48-50, then from 52-55. He played with some of the greatest players of all time, Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, and of course, Campanella. Roger Kahn’s book of amber recollections a generation later included catching up with Shuba in Austintown, Ohio, a suburb of Youngstown. Forever after Shuba would be remembered as one of “The Boys of Summer“.

The area where he was born quadrupled in population between 1890 and 1930. It would become a huge producer of steel with several mills in the area including the big ones, Carnegie, and local Republic Steel, Youngstown Sheet and Tube, and Brier Hill. The mills required thousands of workers to keep things going and became a mecca for immigrants from eastern and southern Europe. Each group formed its own enclave within the city and had its own churches and funeral homes.

The Slovaks settled on the west side of the city and that was where George was born, the youngest of 10 children born to George and Katharina (Puskar) Shuba. The couple had met in the Slovakian city of Spis; married in 1899 when both were 18 and came to America in 1912. The elder Shuba’s father was already there working in coal mines in Eastern Pennsylvania.

As a boy, Shuba attended Holy Name School. He also served as an altar boy there. During the summer months, he would play baseball at Bort Field which was near his house. Shuba would also occasionally go to nearby major league games. He told the story that one time his brothers bought him a train ticket and a game ticket for a game in Cleveland that turned out to be the game that ended Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak.

While at Holy Name a nun boxed his ear and perforated his eardrum. The injury turned out to be a blessing in disguise as years later when he was 17 and the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor, he was ineligible for the draft. The injury kept him out of the service. Without it he said, “I might have been buried in Germany”.

Shuba did not wish to work in the mills, so with an eye on avoiding that, when he was 15 he hung a knotted string from a pipe in the basement, drilled a hole in one of his bats, and filled it with lead to make it heavier. Then he would swing up to 600 times a day as he related to Kahn, developing his bat speed.

He continued to play ball in the Youngstown area. And one day in August of 1943 he heard from a friend that the Dodgers were holding a tryout at Shady Run Field on the city’s south side. He went to the tryout and took a turn at bat before he had to leave for another game he had to play. He forgot about the tryout, but on February 11, 1944, he got a call from Harold Roettger, a Dodger scout. George initially thought it was a practical joke being played by one of his friends, but it was on the level. The Dodgers signed Shuba for 150.00 a month and an additional 150 if he was still in the organization on July 1. He later said, “I would have given them 150 out of my own pocket just to show them what I could do“.

His mother was less than enthused. She told him in Slovak that there were plenty of others who were better than he was. She wanted him to go to work in the mills. Shuba was invited to Bear Mountain, New York, where their top affiliate was holding spring training. He was then sent to New Orleans, the Class-A affiliate and hit .196 in 19 games. He was then sent to Olean where he hit .295 in 105 games.

He was invited back to Bear Mountain again in 1945. Durocher had high hopes for him as a second baseman. He was sent after spring to Mobile where he hit .320 in 137 games. That was also where he got his nickname. It was given to him by Bill Bingham, a sportswriter for the Mobile press because he sprayed hits to all parts of the field. Initially, he did not like the name but warmed to it when kids would ask for his autograph and ask him to sign with his nickname. He would sign, George Shotgun Shuba until the day he died. While in Mobile, he became one particular young boy’s favorite player. That boy would go on and have a pretty good career in the majors himself. The boy? Henry Aaron.

With WWII now over, the Dodgers went back to spring training in the south. It was there that Shuba met Jackie Robinson for the first time. Both were assigned to Montreal, the Dodgers AAA affiliate. On April 18, 1946, they opened the season at Roosevelt Stadium, home of the Jersey City Giants. Jackie was hitting second with Shuba right behind him. Jackie grounded out in his first at-bat, but in his second he hit a home run over the left-field fence, his first in the Dodger organization. Shuba was waiting for him at home plate, excited for Jackie and for himself.

“What were the odds,” he said, “of a kid like me playing sandlot ball in 1943 and 3 short years later shaking hands at home plate with the first black player in modern times to integrate baseball. I’d say a million to one“. George’s stay in Montreal was short. After 20 games he was sent back to Mobile where he posted a .290. The following year he hit .288 in 152 games. One of his teammates at Mobile that year was a skinny kid from Brooklyn who spent his winters playing pro basketball. But his career path would lead to acting, Chuck Connors.

Shuba was hitting .389 in 48 when he was called up to the Dodgers. He debuted on July 2nd. He and another player, Roy Campanella had a good day, Shuba singling twice and Campy with two singles and a double. George tore up his knee sliding into second in August, and it would become a problem that would eventually lead to surgery.

After Spring training in 1949, he was sent to Mobile again. He appeared in one game for the Dodgers and only 34 in 1950. The Dodgers were loaded with talent and it was difficult to break into the lineup. Fellow outfielder, Al Gionfriddo, called it a dog-eat-dog business. As long as Shuba had options, the Dodgers would keep using them.

In 51 his knee acted up and at one point, he was in a cast. One writer suggested that if Shuba had been able to be in the Dodgers lineup, they might have held off the Giant’s charge to the pennant. 1952 marked his first full season in the majors and his high watermark. He appeared in 94 games, as an eye injury limited the availability of Carl Furillo. Andy Pafko spelled Furillo in right, and Shuba played left field, hit .305, and had 9 homers. Both are career highs.

He finished 31st in the MVP vote and after the season, he had knee surgery. In 53, he appeared in 74 games and hit .254, but his most notable achievement came in the World Series. In game one, Brooklyn down 5-1 in the 6th, Hodges led off with a homer. Cox flied out and Furillo singled. With pitcher Jim Hughes due up, Dressen sent Shuba to the plate to face Allie Reynolds. The Super Chief threw Shuba a fastball high and away that he barely saw for ball one. He then took a curve for a called strike. “Hey Shuba, it’s tough seeing up here isn’t it” Yogi Berra told him. “ You don’t bother me Yogi, I gotta get a base hit”. He swung at an inside fastball for strike two. On the next pitch, he swung at what he thought was a backdoor curve and hit a ball, and hit a line drive to right. Hank Bauer could not get a glove on it and it went over the fence for a home run. It was only the second pinch-hit homer in series history and the first by a National Leaguer.

In 54 George had an abysmal year. Limited to 54 games he hit .154. He was diagnosed with Hyperthyroidism after the season. He was with the team in 1955, trying to hang on so he could be vested in the pension plan. At one point he was placed on waivers and nearly traded to Kansas City at the deadline. But at the last minute, Bavasi pulled him back. He hit .275 with a homer and 8 RBIs for the 1955 team. He made the series roster. His only at-bat was in game 7 when he was sent up to pinch-hit for 2nd baseman Don Zimmer. He made an out, but Alston replaced Zim with Gilliam and sent Sandy Amoros out to left to replace Gilliam. It was a momentous decision since not long afterward, Amoros made the game-saving catch of Berra’s screamer to left. The Dodgers ended the year Champs, and Shuba was a member of that team.

He was sent back to the minors in 56. He hit .243 at Montreal where one of his teammates was Sparky Anderson. After the season Montreal sold his contract to Memphis. He said he was quitting and going back to Youngstown. But he changed his mind and reported. He played in 74 games, but when he was sent to Ft. Worth in July, he called it a career.

Shuba got married in 1958, he and his wife, Kathryn raised three children, Michael, Mary Kay, and Marlene. He opened a sporting goods store with a friend when he first retired, but the timing was bad coinciding with a steel strike in 1959. He also worked for a local insurance firm before going to work for the postal service. In 1970, Kahn came to town to catch up with Shuba for his “Boys of Summer” book.

Kahn tried to bathe the stories in as much pathos as he could. And he had a lot to work within this regard, Snider’s investments had failed, Campanella was paralyzed and his marriage was failing when his first wife died. Robinson was battling diabetes and Hodges had a heart attack. Both would be dead within months of the release of the book.

Shuba’s story was different. He was living a quiet suburban life and was more than happy to raise his family. “This is the real part of my life,” he told Kahn. Then he took him down to his basement and showed him his secret. The string and the leaded bat. I swung a 44-ounce bat 600 times a night, 4,200 times a week, and 42,000 times a winter. That is a dedication to your craft. Some have suggested that Shuba was born too early. He would have been an excellent DH.

He kept active as a retiree, regularly attending Dodger reunions. He went to Los Angeles in 2005 when they celebrated the 1955 team. He went to Vero Beach in 2008 the last time the Dodgers trained there before the move to Arizona. A large collection of his memorabilia went up for auction in 2006. He was not particularly sentimental, and he wore his World Series ring rarely. There was one piece he kept though, the photo of him and Robbie shaking hands at home plate. It hung by his chair for 40 years.

George died in September of 2014 at the age of 89. He is buried not far from the field he played ball on as a youth. The field was renamed for him in 2007. His wife passed in 2016. In 2019 plans were announced for a statue of George shaking Jackie’s hand to be placed on Front Street in downtown Youngstown. The statue was unveiled on April 18, 2021. 75 years after it happened.