July 11, 1966: Scout Barney Lutz’s lifetime in baseball ends at NY-Penn League game

Barney Lutz’s 30-year career as an outfielder, manager, and scout brought him from Key West, Florida, to Aberdeen, South Dakota, and from Paris, Texas, to Thetford Mines, Quebec.

The unexpected last stop on his long baseball road was the grandstand of Shuron Park,1 a minor-league facility in Geneva, New York. While scouting for the Baltimore Orioles, Lutz suffered a fatal heart attack during the ninth inning of a Class A New York-Penn League game between the Geneva Senators and Auburn Mets on July 11, 1966. He was 50 years old.2

While tragedy was occurring in the stands, an exciting finish was taking place on the field. The Senators had fought back from an early deficit to tie the game at 6-6. But in the top of the ninth, the junior Mets pushed across a run to claim a 7-6 victory. It was the 14th game the Senators had lost in the ninth or extra innings, and the defeat dropped their record to 5-19 in one-run games.3

Lutz was one of just 494 people at Shuron Park that Monday night.4 The Senators, a Washington Senators farm club, hadn’t given their fans much to show up for. They’d finished the first half of the season in last place in the six-team league with a 17-40 record, 23½ games out.5 Early second-half results showed no improvement, as the Senators again sat in last place with a 3-10 record, 6 games behind.6

Manager Gordon MacKenzie’s team fielded three future major leaguers over the course of the season, and two of them played on July 11.7 Twenty-year-old Tom Ragland, a second-year player, started at second base. Although he hit only .216 for Geneva in 1966, Ragland worked his way to the majors for parts of three seasons from 1971 to 1973. Starting on the mound was 22-year-old Mississippian righty Jim Miles, who went 6-11 with a 4.20 ERA in 31 games with Geneva that season.8 Miles reached the majors for 13 games with Washington in 1968 and 1969.

Manager Clyde McCullough’s Auburn team, in contrast, had been the class of the league in the first half. Their 44-20 record was good for first place, putting the Mets 9 games up on second-place Oneonta, a Boston Red Sox farm club. Thus far in the second half, Auburn was tied for second place with an 8-6 record, one game behind first-place Binghamton, a New York Yankees affiliate.

The 1966 Auburn team fielded 11 players who reached the majors – including pitchers Jerry Koosman and Jim McAndrew, who became significant contributors to the 1969 World Series champion “Miracle Mets.”

Koosman and McAndrew didn’t play on July 11, but two other players who reached the majors did.9 Shortstop Joe Moock, a second-year player from Louisiana State University, hit 21 homers and drove in 99 runs for Auburn that season. He went on to play third base for the parent club in New York during the final month of the 1967 season.

Right-handed starting pitcher Jim Bethke was only 19, but his major-league career was already over: He’d worked in 25 games in relief for the New York Mets the previous season, the youngest player in the National League.10 He split 1966 between Auburn and Double-A Williamsport, posting a combined record of 7-8 with a 4.17 ERA in 29 games, including 17 starts.11

It’s not known which player or players Lutz came to check out, but he was a well-seasoned judge of talent by the summer of 1966. He put in 17 seasons as a minor-league player between 1936 and 1954, peaking with two stints at Triple A. Lutz’s later years as a player overlapped with the start of his managerial career. Between 1949 and 1960, he managed minor-league teams in the Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis Browns/Orioles organizations, mostly at lower levels.

Lutz then served as the Orioles’ head scout in New York state and Pennsylvania, and had been recognized as the team’s top scout the previous season.12 The Geneva newspaper reported that two other big-league scouts joined Lutz in Geneva – Danny Carnevale of the Kansas City A’s and Packy Rogers of the Minnesota Twins.13

The opening inning made clear that the game would not be a pitchers’ duel. Auburn put up a run with two out in the top of the first when Moock singled and right fielder Bill Haas pounded a double.14 Geneva responded in the bottom half with four singles – two of them infield hits – by center fielder Bob Weigle, first baseman Butch Menton, third baseman Jerry Merlet, and Ragland. Ragland’s bloop single into center field scored two runs to put the Senators on top, 2-1.

Auburn rebounded to score four times in the third inning. Center fielder Jim Dix singled and stole second. Second baseman John Gonsalves walked. Moock grounded to Menton, who misplayed the ball for a bases-loading error. The Mets took full advantage. Haas drilled a single to right to score two runs. Third baseman Ed Gagle’s grounder through the shortstop hole on a hit-and-run brought in another run, and catcher Dick Summers capped the rally with a sacrifice fly to left. Auburn led 5-2. Miles worked a shutout fourth inning and then was pulled for reliever Gene Baker.

Auburn used daring baserunning to pick up a run off Baker in the sixth. Left fielder Steve “Scooter” Smith and Bethke singled with two out, and Dix drew a walk. Geneva catcher Walt “Chopper” Czopczyc made a pickoff throw to first baseman Menton, hoping to catch Dix napping off first. Instead, Smith broke for the plate, and Menton was slow to react. Smith beat his throw home for a 6-2 Auburn lead.

Geneva responded with two runs in the bottom half. Menton started the rally by reaching base on shortstop Moock’s error, followed by a single by Merlet. Ragland singled in Menton, advancing Merlet to third. Czopczyc appeared to have grounded into an inning-ending around-the-horn double play, but umpire Vince Hahn ruled Ragland safe at second.15 Merlet scored to make the score 6-4.

Bethke had more big-league appearances on his résumé than the entire Geneva lineup combined – but the unintimidated Senators drove him from the game in the seventh. Weigle singled, Bethke hit right fielder William Brown with a pitch, and a sacrifice moved both runners ahead a base. Menton’s double to left-center field scored both runners, tied the game, and chased Bethke in favor of reliever Jerry Wild. Wild, a few weeks shy of 25, was pitching in his eighth minor-league season. He shut down the Geneva rally with strikeouts of Merlet and shortstop Sonny Bowers.

Scout Lutz had complained of chest pains earlier in the day. While watching the climactic ninth inning and chatting with Rogers and Carnevale, he collapsed in the stands and was taken to Geneva General Hospital, where he died. His surviving family included his son, Patrick, who had played two seasons at the lowest levels of the Orioles’ system in 1964 and 1965.16 Lutz was buried in Elmira, New York, where he had played parts of three minor-league seasons and later settled.

Auburn broke the game open in the top of the ninth on a pair of Geneva gifts. Facing the Senators’ third pitcher, Bob Richmond, Dix drew a leadoff walk. Dix led Auburn in stolen bases that season with 31; he stole second, then moved to third when Czopczyc’s throw bounced wildly into center field. Gonsalves’s long fly to center scored Dix for a 7-6 Auburn lead.

Left fielder Ron Robinson gave the Senators hope with a leadoff infield single in the bottom half. But Wild, who struck out seven in 2⅔ innings, struck out Menton, Merlet, and Bowers to end the game in dominant fashion in 2 hours and 54 minutes. Wild earned the win to lift his record to 11-2 – he ended the season at 12-4 – while Richmond, who pitched three innings without yielding an earned run, took the loss to fall to 0-3.

In the New York-Penn League playoffs that September, first-half champion Auburn swept second-half champion Binghamton in a best-of-three series to win the league title. Koosman pitched a four-hit, 1-0 shutout in the clinching game.17 The Senators were spectators during the playoffs, since Geneva finished with a full-season record of 34-90, 43½ games out of first place.18

In 1968 the Orioles introduced the Barney Lutz Memorial Award, given to a minor-league player chosen by the Orioles’ minor-league managers. The award honored players who showed “aggressiveness, competitive spirit, hustle, and dedication to the game of professional baseball.”19

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Larry DeFillipo and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Barney Lutz, Elmira Star-Gazette, July 12, 1966, via Newspapers.com.

Sources

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for general player, team, and season data.

Neither Baseball-Reference nor Retrosheet provides box scores of minor-league games, but the July 12, 1966, editions of the Geneva (New York) Times and Auburn (New York) Citizen-Advertiser published box scores.

Notes

1 The ballpark was renamed McDonough Park in 1977 in honor of Joe McDonough, who had served as general manager of the community baseball organization that owned Geneva’s team. As of 2023, the ballpark was still in place and hosting a summer-league team for college-age players, as well as the Hobart College Statesmen baseball team.

2 “Orioles’ Scout Barney Lutz Dies Unexpectedly,” Elmira (New York) Star-Gazette and Advertiser, July 12, 1966: 15.

3 Norm Jollow, “Senators Agree That Baseball Games Are Too Long,” Geneva (New York) Times, July 12, 1966: 11.

4 The actual attendance might have been higher. The Rochester (New York) Democrat and Chronicle reported earlier that summer that attendance figures at Shuron Park only included tickets sold at the box office, and did not include promotions in which a company or other organization paid a fee of $250 to bring a group to the park. However, the Geneva newspaper’s game story made no mention of any such promotion taking place on July 11. Dave Rosenbloom, “Attendance Shows Serious Decline in NYP Contests,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 14, 1966: 4D; Jollow, “Senators Agree That Baseball Games Are Too Long.”

5 Final first-half standings in the New York-Penn League taken from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 27, 1966: 1D. The June 28, 1966, standings in the same newspaper showed the league restarting for its second half, with each team credited with playing a single game.

6 New York-Penn League standings from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 11, 1966: 1D.

7 This total does not include MacKenzie, a former major leaguer (with the 1961 Kansas City A’s) who played a few games for Geneva in 1966. The future major leaguer who played with Geneva in 1966 but did not appear on July 11 was pitcher Gerry Schoen, who played in a single game with the 1968 Washington Senators.

8 Miles also went 0-2 in two starts that season with Burlington of the Class A Carolina League.

9 In addition to players mentioned in the body of the article, the other 1966 Auburn Mets who reached the majors were Danny Frisella, Bob Moorhead, Grover Powell, Steve Renko, Les Rohr, Al Schmelz, and Billy Wynne. Still another member of the team, catcher Glenn Ezell, never played in the majors but served as a big-league coach for 12 seasons between 1983 and 2002.

10 Bethke was also the youngest player in the major leagues until Joe Coleman joined the Washington Senators near the end of the season.

11 Bethke’s numbers at Auburn: 5-1 with a 4.84 ERA in 16 games, including 8 starts. Bethke completed four of his starts, including one shutout. He pitched in the minors through 1971.

12 “Orioles’ Scout Barney Lutz Dies Unexpectedly.” This story incorrectly reported that Lutz was brought up to the St. Louis Browns near the end of the 1943 season. He was actually sold to the Philadelphia Athletics and was reported to have gone to Philadelphia at the tail end of the 1943 season but did not play in a game. “Pioneers End Great Season with Governor’s Cup,” Elmira (New York) Star-Gazette, September 29, 1943: 13.

13 Jollow, “Senators Agree That Baseball Games Are Too Long.”

14 The Geneva and Auburn newspapers disagreed on the placement of Haas’s double. The Auburn paper described it as “off the scoreboard in right,” while the Geneva paper said it was “off the wall in left center.” The Geneva account mistakenly placed the run in the third inning, rather than the first. Jollow, “Senators Agree That Baseball Games Are Too Long”; “Wild Breezes Fastball Past Senators for 7-6 Mets Win; Auburn Tied for First Place,” Auburn (New York) Citizen-Advertiser, July 12, 1966: 12.

15 The other umpire working that night’s game, David Wrigley, had a brief professional career. According to his Sporting News umpire card, Wrigley was signed by the New York-Penn League on June 6, 1966, and released by the league on July 19. It was his only professional experience. A few days before his dismissal, Wrigley was escorted off the field by police to protect him from an angry crowd following a disputed decision in Binghamton, New York. Dave Zych, “Verdi a Victor – In Absentia,” Binghamton Evening Press, July 15, 1966: 6B.

16 “Orioles’ Scout Barney Lutz Dies Unexpectedly”; Jollow, “Senators Agree That Baseball Games Are Too Long.” The Elmira story described Patrick Lutz as being active in the Orioles organization at the time of his father’s death, but Baseball-Reference only has him listed as playing in 1964 and 1965.

17 Associated Press, “Auburn Wins NYP Title,” Elmira Sunday Telegram, September 4, 1966: 3D.

18 Auburn finished first in the full-season standings with an 80-49 record.

19 Larry Bump, “Wings Explode for 12 Runs to Bury Jets, Even Series,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, September 14, 1968: 1D. A Newspapers.com search in November 2024 did not find evidence of the Orioles bestowing the award after 1972.