#259 Jim Pisoni

Hometown boy Jim Pisoni made his big league debut with the St. Louis Browns by appearing in the final three games in the franchise's history as they prepped to move to Baltimore. He'd been in the Brownie's chain since he signed as an outfield prospect in 1949 sandwiching three fairly successful minor league seasons around a two year military stint.

He went 1 for 12 in those three '53 games (his one hit was the next-to-last homer in Browns' history) and found himself back in the minors from 1954 through mid-September of 1956 when the Orioles included him in a trade to the Kansas City Athletics. He got into 10 games with the A's and hit a pair of homers as he flashed the power that had marked his minor league days.

The following season Pisoni was a semi-regular in the Kansas City outfield before he was part of a (surprise!) trade package that sent him to the Yankees. After a season and a half as Yankee property (but never playing for the big club) he was drafted by the Braves for 1959 but after a handful of games in Milwaukee he was returned to the Yankees. This archived article on Google concerns the Braves hopes when they took him in the Rule 5 draft.

He got into nearly 40 games over the next two years for the Yanks but spent the bulk of his time in the minors. He played for the reds' AAA club in 1961 and then retired to become an electrical contractor. He passed away in 2007.

Two points of interest... the shot on his card was taken in Yankee Stadium and the "M' is airbrushed over his Athletics' logo and the card-back leaves off his 1958 minor league stat line despite the write-up mentioning his "solid performance".

#269 Jack Meyer

Jack Meyer was a hard throwing right-hander who was originally pursued by the Yankees but decided to attend Wake Forest University instead. I couldn't find his name among a list of letter winners on their baseball site but those type of things are often incomplete. In any case in 1951 Meyer was signed by the Phils and put together some impressive seasons as a starter as he rose through their system.

The Phils put him on their big league roster in 1955 and used him out of the bullpen for the most part. He rewarded them with a league high 16 saves and finished second to Bill Virdon of the Cardinals in the Rookie of the Year balloting.

Meyer would never again approach those first year numbers. He picked up only five more saves over the rest of his career as the Phils made him into a middle reliever. He was 24-34 over the course of six seasons in Philadelphia before back problems forced him out of baseball at the age of 29 after one 1961 appearance.

He died at the age of 34 of a heart ailment in 1967. His son, also called 'Jack' was well know in the sport of surfing and related industries in the Northwest. He too died of heart problems. He was only 53 when he passed away in 2007.

Meyer follows Seth Morehead as the second consecutive Phillies pitcher to be shown here on the '59 Topps Blog in a Connie Mack Stadium photo. Looking closely at the two cards shows that they were almost undoubtedly photographed on the same day. The banner on the upper deck railing to the right of each of them is identical.

#253 Seth Morehead

On the last day of the 1957 season lefty Seth Morehead became the answer to two trivia questions: "Who was the last pitcher to face the Brooklyn Dodgers?" and "Who was the last pitcher to face Roy Campanella?"

In that game on September 29th, Morehead's first career start and first win, he hurled a tidy four hitter as the Phils won, 2-1. Campy pinch hit for Dodger starter Roger Craig in the top of the eighth and flied to center. (Side note... Sandy Koufax pitched the bottom of the eighth to become the last man to throw a pitch in a Brooklyn uniform.)

Up until that point in his rookie season Morehead had pitched 33 times in relief with a loss and a save. He finished the year with an ERA of 3.68 which was down from well over 6 in mid-July. Prior to that season he had spent five seasons as a starter in the Phillies' system following his signing out of Shreveport, Louisiana in 1951.

Morehead made eleven starts for the Phillies in 1958 and was treated pretty roughly by NL hitters. His '59 numbers were trending the same way when the Phils moved him to the Cubs in May. His work that year for the Cubs produced the similar results but in 1960 he improved significantly. Although he was only 2-9 on the North Side appeared in 45 games and had his best WHIP and his ERA was below 4.00 for the first time since his rookie year.

Traded to the Braves on the eve of the 1961 season, Morehead picked up an early season relief win but he was ineffective otherwise and by late May he was in the minors. One last appearance came in September of that year and then he was back in the minors for two seasons before retiring.

After baseball Morehead completed his degree at Baylor University and was in the finance/insurance business for 36 years before he retired for good. In this book excerpt writer Willie Morris tells a good story of meeting him at a banquet many years after Morehead had fanned him four times in a Louisiana youth league championship game.

Pretty neat card with Morehead shown at Connie Mack Stadium inside a black frame.

#246 J. W. Porter

J. W. Porter was signed by well known scout Bobby Mattick out of Oakland, California in 1950. One of his high school teammates was Frank Robinson. He was called the best schoolboy prospect in the country. This comes from the 1951 Sporting News Baseball Guide:

Another record was set by J.W. Porter, Oakland catcher, when he captured the national batting championship for the second successive year. The 17-year-old receiver, who hit .551 in ten tourney games the previous year, produced a .488 average in 1950 national tourney play to retain the Hillerich & Bradsby trophy which is awarded annually to the leading batter … Porter, who received a bonus in excess of $50,000 for signing with the Chicago White Sox organization in December, 1950, was named the No. 1 American Legion Junior player of the year.

Starting in the White Sox system Porter hit well in his first season and a half in the minors before the Sox included him in a trade to the St. Louis Brown in July of '52. He played with the Browns for the rest of that season not as a catcher but as a centerfielder. He was traded to Detroit and then spent two years in Military Service before he was ever able to play for the Tigers.

Porter played for part of the 1955 season for Detroit and then was used very sparingly in 1956 getting only 14 trips to the plate despite being on the roster all season. There was a new Tiger manager in '57 and Porter got more work but he still wasn't a starter.

Traded to the Indians in 1958 he stayed one season before being traded to the Senators and from there to the Cardinals in 1959. He caused a minor stir in Cleveland by using a first baseman's mitt to catch Hoyt Wilhelm. He never returned to the majors but spent seven years in the high minors for several organization as a C/OF. For his career Porter hit .228 with 8 home runs.

Following his active career he managed for several seasons in the Montreal Expos system. He was known as a character during his playing days and has upheld that reputation since. He does some writing for baseball blogs, a bit of which I found here. The video below (which may or may not work for you) shows him introducing Jim Kaat at a function at the Elliot Museum in Florida which had a fairly extensive baseball exhibit. In the video Porter claims to have caught 14 Hall of Fame pitchers.

Tom Owens' Baseball by the Letters blog has featured Porter and adds some career anecdotes.

#247 Don Ferrarese

Don Ferrarese won only 19 games for five different teams over the course of eight seasons. Those numbers don't knock you over but he certainly shouldn't be dismissed that easily. You see it's what Don Ferrarese has done with his life after baseball that makes him stand out. But back to the game...

... Ferrarese signed on with the Phils in 1948. He wound his way through independent ball in the PCL and was dealt to the White Sox and spent time in the service. He was traded to the Orioles and debuted briefly in 1955. He made the O's staff in '56 and then spent 1957 shuttled between the O's and AAA ball. His baseball journey took many twists and turns as he was traded several times and through 1962 he was rostered by the White Sox (again), the Phils (again) the Indians, Cards and finally the Colt 45s for whom he never played.

Through it all he appeared in 183 games including 50 starts. He had a record of 19-36 with 12 complete games, two shutouts and 5 saves. His best game came with the Orioles on May 12 of 1956 when he entered the ninth having held the Yankees hitless. He lost the no-no but won a 1-0 game on a two hitter.

He once tossed four straight shutouts with San Antonio in the Texas League and had a three double day as a hitter for the Indians in May, 1959.

When he retired he went to work running his parents deli business and then he went into the real estate business. He was very successful and established a charitable foundation that benefits, among other things, needy students in his area of California. He has raised and donated millions of dollars. His foundations' website can be seen here. A few interviews with Ferrarese are here and here. More about his foundation is found here and here.

Sometimes what you find when you look into what appears to be just another '59 card can be amazing.

#226 Art Ceccarelli

Lefty Art Ceccarelli signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948 and pitched for four seasons in their minor league system and squeezed in a couple of years of military service, too. He never made the Bums roster and was sold to the Yankees in 1954 before being drafted away by the A's later that year.

He made 16 starts among 31 appearances in his rookie season of '55 for Kansas City and went 4-7 with a high ERA. He spent the next season mostly in the minors but managed to lose one decision for KC. He was traded to the Orioles and went 0-5 in 1957, pitched well in the minors in 1958, was drafted by the Cubs and spent the first part of 1959 in their system.

Ceccarelli was brought up by the Cubs in July of that year and won his first four starts, three with complete games and one on a shut-out. Then hard times hit and he finished the year 5-5. He opened the 1960 season with the Cubs but was traded to the Yanks in May and ended his career in the minors after the 1963 season. He was 9-18 for his careen with an ERA of just over 5.

After baseball Ceccarelli returned to his native Connecticut and taught and coached high school for many years and coached baseball at Southern Connecticut State University. He passed away in July, 2012.

This card uses an airbrushed version of his 1958 Topps on which he is shown in an Orioles uni.

#199 Leo Kiely

 Jersey Boy Leo Kiely had a 26-27 career mark with 29 saves over seven big league seasons, mostly in Boston. But those rather pedestrian numbers belie some interesting aspects of his baseball days. For example Kiely was the very first player with major league experience to play in the Japanese major leagues.

According to his interesting SABR bio he pitched in Japan on days off from his duties as an active serviceman in the employ of Uncle Sam. And his 100,000 yen salary was just slightly less than that of the Emperor.

Kiely was in the service despite the after effects of a near fatal accident he suffered as a 5-year-old when he was run over by a truck and fractured both knees among other serious injuries. As a result he had one shorter leg for which he wore special shoes and subsequently was classified as 3-C by his draft board and placed into military service in a non-combat role. SABR goes into detain about Kiely's rough-and-tumble early life.

Kiely's career began when he was drafted by Boston in 1948. He was playing ball in a CYO league as he had never attended high school. Hard to conceive of that happening today. He had impressive minor league numbers and debuted in Boston in mid-1951. He went 7-7 in 19 games, mostly starts. He went into the service after that and that's when he pitched Army ball as well as in the Japanese League.

Returning to the Sox he was given a spot starter's role in 1954 and he went 5-8. He pitched out of the Red Sox' bullpen for another year and a half before he went back to AAA through 1957, He won a PCL high 21 games that year.

That earned him a return to the bigs and he had two seasons in the Sox' bullpen and finished his career with the A's in 1960 following a pair of trades that sent him to the Indians and then Kansas City in the off season. He pitched well for the A's but a sore shoulder ended his season and eventually his career.

Returning to New Jersey Kiely worked several jobs and died from throat cancer in 1984 at the age of 54.