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Another Edition of Baseball’s Forgotten Stars: Buddy Rosar
We always enjoy shining the spotlight for a brief moment on baseball’s forgotten stars. In doing so, every once in a while we stumble upon a real gem. I think we have one for you today.
If I asked you name the best catchers, I’m willing to bet the name of Buddy Rosar would not come up; but he was unquestionably one of the game’s best defensive catchers. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read about Buddy Rosar’s defensive abilities in this post. I think you’ll end up agreeing with me.
Seventy years ago this month, on May 20, 1947, Philadelphia Athletics’ catcher Buddy Rosar dropped a pop-up, ending his major league record of 147 consecutive errorless games. The streak included the span of the 117 games he played the previous season in which he handled 605 chances without an error over the entire campaign.
In the featured photo above, we see Buddy Rosar on the left with Yankee teammates and fellow catchers, Bill Dickey and Arndt Jorgens.
Rosar’s path to the major leagues started in a most unusual way. In 1934 he played in an All-Star game for Buffalo, New York amateur baseball players. As luck would have it, the wife of Yankee manager Joe McCarty was in attendance and was impressed with Rosar’s catching ability. Apparently Mrs. McCarthy was an astute appraiser of major league talent, because the Yankees sent a scout to follow Rosar based upon her recommendation. He was later signed as an amateur free agent and assigned to the Yankees’ minor league affiliate, the Newark Bears. Rosar’s 1937 Newark team won the International League pennant by 25½ games and become known as one of the best minor league teams of all time.
Over his 13-year major league career (1939-’51), Buddy Rosar played for the Yankees, Indians, Athletics, and Red Sox. He hit .261, with 18 home runs and 367 RBI’s. Used primarily in his Yankee years as the back-up to Yankee great Bill Dickey, his best offensive year was 1940 in which he hit .298, with 37 RBIs and a .357 on-base percentage. On July 19 of that year, he hit for the cycle.
In spite of his modest offensive numbers, he was selected to five All-Star teams based upon his defensive reputation.. He was a member of two Yankee World Series championships (1939 and ’41). In 1942, a dispute with Joe McCarthy over a request to be with his pregnant wife who was about to have a baby ended Rosar’s tenure with the Yankees as he was traded to the Indians by season’s end.
Rosar’s meal ticket was, of course, his defensive. He led American League catchers in fielding percentage four times, in assists three times, twice in base runners caught stealing, and once in caught stealing percentage. His 54.81% career caught stealing percentage ranks third all-time behind only Hall-of-Famers Roy Campanella and Gabby Hartnett. During a three-season period between 1946 and 1948, Rosar committed only three errors. He is one of only three catchers in major league history to catch at least 100 games in a single season without committing an error. He also caught two no hitters in his career.
Rosar has the best ratio of double plays to errors of any catcher in major league history, and holds the 20th Century career record for fewest passed balls per games caught (0.0300) with only 28 in 934 games. Rosar’s .992 career fielding percentage was at the time of his retirement in 1951 the highest for a catcher in major league history.
Now aren’t you glad you took a few minutes to read about the career of Buddy Rosar?
-Gary Livacari
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Photo Credits: All from Google search
Information: Excerpts edited from the Buddy Rosar Wikipedia page.
Statistics from the Buddy Rosar page on Baseball Reference.com
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