Roy Gleason A 1.000 BA, a Purple Heart, Two WS Rings

It seems most Dodger fans, and those of other playoff-bound teams, are trying to pre-determine which players will make up the roster for the first playoff round. I must admit it does interest me but mostly because I have favorite players that I would like to see on “the list”.  I do not attempt to make any rational judgment as to whom will make the cut. In the meantime I reminisce a bit as reminiscence becomes

more important, it seems, the older I get.  The older I get, I also have to spell check,“reminisce”. Huh!

I must apologize for momentarily taking the site away from the play-off conversation with this post. However, as part of my looking back, I came across a name I had all but forgotten. It is an amazing story and does have a connection to the 1963 World Series many of us remember so well as our Dodgers swept the Yankees.

Oh, before I forget I will reaffirm an assertion by 2D2, MT and AC. Corey Seager is a good player and finally healthy is the Corey Seager we had seen and will see for quite some time. As mentioned he was the most recent NL Player of the Week.

Batted .500 (10-for-20) with five runs scored, two doubles, a triple, two home runs, seven RBI and a 1.000 slugging percentage over five games played.

Logged a hit in each game during his award-winning week and enters play today in the midst of an eight-game hitting streak, dating back to September 13th.

Has recorded two hits and a run scored in each of his previous five games, tied for the 10th-longest such streak in franchise history, and the longest since Dee Gordon’s five-game streak in 2014.

Clubbed his 18th home run of the season in the contest against the Colorado Rockies, leading the Dodgers to their 100th win of the season.

As you can see I have very high DQ – distraction quotient, so back to the topic at hand.  Back to Roy Gleason and his story of firsts.

He was born on April 9, 1943, in Melrose Park, Illinois which is a suburb of Chicago. His family moved to Garden Grove in the fifties when he was 11 and he attended high school there starring on the baseball team. Garden Grove is located 34 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

His high school play attracted scouts and especially caught the attention of Dodger scout Kenny Myers. By this time his father had left the family and Myers became a father figure to the teenager. Imagine this.  For three seasons, he threw batting practice to the Dodgers before games at the Coliseum during the team’s early years in Los Angeles but the best was yet to come. Following his graduation from high school, the Dodgers offered him a contract which had a stipulation with it.

“I was a pitcher until the day I signed,” Gleason recalled. “That’s when the Dodgers said, ‘You’re not a pitcher anymore; you’re going to be an outfielder.’ If I had signed with any other team I’d have been a pitcher, and I think my heart was with pitching because I really knew I could pitch. But I wanted to play every day, and the Dodgers had taken me under their wing when I was 15 years old.”

He played the 1962 season with the Reno Silver Fox, a Dodger Class C affiliation. The young switch hitter responded with 22 home runs and 76 runs batted in. The following season with Class A Salem Dodgers he got off to a terrible start. After an adjustment in his swing by lowering his hands he went on a tear hitting near .400 until the end of the season and hitting 12 home runs in two and one-half weeks.

“From that day on,” he said, “it was like the Fourth of July. The ball looked like a beach ball coming in. It was just one of those things: I was in a groove.”

The 20-year-old Gleason who would later fill out to a 6’5”/220-pound outfielder got a call up to the Dodgers on September 3, 1963. He was there for 8 games, scored three runs, got into a rhubarb and had to wait until the second last game of the season to get an at-bat. His three runs were scored as a pinch-runner.

Gleason could not understand why he didn’t play or at least get to the plate. Then it happened. Dodger manager Walter Alston put him in as a pinch hitter for pitcher Phil Ortega. That is the Phil Ortega that went to the Washington Senators with Frank Howard and brought pitcher Claude Osteen to the Dodgers.

Gleason describes his at-bat.

“There was an adrenaline rush, and to me, it looked like he was throwing change-ups,” Gleason continued of the opposing pitcher, Phillies lefty Dennis Bennett. “He only threw me two pitches. The first was a fastball that missed down and in. I looked at the catcher and said, ‘He’s throwing a changeup to a pinch hitter on the first pitch?’ He said, ‘That was his fastball, rook,’ and I expected the next pitch to be behind my ear because that’s how we played in those days.

“Then the next pitch was a little more up and in, I think it was a strike, and I lined it into left field for a double. I was on top of the world.”

That was the end of his MLB career in which he hit 1.000. His time with the Dodgers earned him a World Series ring. He played in the minors from 1964 through 1966.

On April 1, as spring training was about to close up in 1967, Roy Gleason got another call. The Selective Service System had reclassified him, formerly 3-A because he supported his mother, to 1-A and notified he would be called to duty in Viet Nam. He ventured off carrying his WS ring with him.

Gleason served with distinction, more concerned about his mother and who would look after her than his baseball career. On July 24, 1968, his military career came to an end. His unit was ambushed and a blast instantly killed the unit’s machine gunner and sent shrapnel slicing through Gleason’s left wrist and left calf. As the point man, he blamed himself for not spotting the IED up in a tree.

Roy Gleason was awarded the Purple Heart, the only one awarded to an MLB player serving in Viet Nam. In fact, he was the only MLB player wounded in Viet Nam and the only player who was called to serve in that war. That makes him the only MLB player to bat 1.000, earn a WS ring and be awarded a Purple Heart. However, his WS ring did not come home with him when his belongings were returned to him. It had gone missing from his locker where he kept it.

He played one more season in 1969 in the minors and then his professional baseball career was over. Nerve damage made it difficult for the switch-hitting Gleason to hold onto the bat when he swung right-handed, and the shrapnel in his calf sapped some of his speed. He was gone but thankfully not forgotten.

In September 2003, Roy Gleason got another call from the Dodgers (thanks to team historian Mark Langill) that the Dodgers wanted him to throw out the first pitch on September 20, 40 years almost to the day of his 1963 double.  Gleason recounts the event.

“They just told me they wanted me out there to throw out the first pitch, and that’s all I thought I was going to do,” Gleason said. “They shocked me. I threw the ball and one-hopped it to the catcher, which was really irritating to me, and I got halfway off the mound when I hear Vin Scully say, ‘Hold up, Roy. Hold it right there, we’ve got something for you.’”

“Then the whole Dodger team came out on the field with Jim Tracy, at the time the manager, and presented me with my 1963 World Series ring. I was biting my tongue and everything else to keep from crying. I was literally probably in shock for a little bit. I couldn’t believe it was happening. It was like a dream.”

Prior to the game, Roy Gleason was amazed that so many individuals greeted him, including Tommy Lasorda, umpire Bruce Froemming, and aging scouts.  He didn’t really count himself as an MLB player but all of those he met did.

His tour ended up behind the Dodger Dugout where there is a tunnel and a wall bearing the names of the Dodgers all-time roster. The rest of this story is told by Bill Plaschke in an LA Times article, “At Ease, at Last”.

Gleason scanned the montage and said, “I’m sure I’m not up here.”

Mark Langill stood behind him thinking, “Please be up there. Please be up there.”

After a few minutes, they found it, above Roy Campanella, below Delino DeShields  – Roy Gleason.

“I didn’t really feel like I played enough to warrant being called a major leaguer,” he said.

He touched the wall gently, with a finger that has been numb since he took shrapnel in Vietnam. His eyes glazed. The truth hit.

Once a Dodger, always a Dodger, even if only momentarily a Dodger.

He had never left second base after all.

Sgt. Gleason looked at Langill and shook his head.

“I’m glad I’m on this wall, instead of the other wall,” he said.

Arizona Fall League – Game 6

The Dodgers were out in force as the Glendale Desert Dogs played Aguilas de Mexicali. Gerardo Carillo started and went 4 innings while striking out 3 and walking 1. Omar Estevez (.278 BA) again led off and played SS and was 1-5 with an RBI. Devin Mann (.091 BA) was 0-2, but Jeren Kendall (.333) was the DH (batting last) was 2-3 with 3 RBI. He has 5 on the season. He also stole a base.