September 20, 1953: Joey Jay becomes first former Little Leaguer to start a game in the major leagues

Milwaukee Braves right-hander Joey Jay made baseball history in 1953 when he became the first former Little Leaguer to play in the major leagues. A native of Middletown, Connecticut, Jay had joined the town’s Little League team at age 12 in 1948, nine years after Little League’s 1939 founding in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Jay signed with the Braves shortly after he graduated from Middletown High School in the spring of 1953. His $40,000 contract made him a “bonus baby,”1 requiring the Braves to put him on their big-league roster for two years under a rule instituted by the major leagues that year.2

Just 17 years old, Jay made his first big-league appearance on July 21, when Milwaukee manager Charlie Grimm called on him in the seventh inning of a 10-0 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. Jay threw two scoreless frames, giving up two hits and walking one batter. He stayed on the bench for the next two months.

The 1953 season was the first in Milwaukee for the Braves. After several years of declining attendance in Boston – they drew 281,278 fans in 1952, the fewest of any National League club – the team moved west. When the Braves played their first home game at Milwaukee’s County Stadium, 34,357 fans showed up.

After being tied with the Brooklyn Dodgers for first place in the NL on June 27, the Braves fell behind and remained in second for the remainder of the season, as the Dodgers won their second consecutive pennant. With the Braves 12½ games behind the Dodgers and out of the pennant race, Grimm tapped Jay – who had celebrated his 18th birthday on August 15 – for his first major-league start on September 20.

The Braves were finishing a three-game weekend series against the Cincinnati Redlegs.3 The Redlegs were in sixth place with a 64-82 record when they arrived in Milwaukee. They lost Saturday’s series opener, 5-2, when future Hall of Famer Warren Spahn pitched a complete game for his 21st win of the season.

A crowd of 36,011 was there for Milwaukee’s last home date of the season, a Sunday doubleheader, to bring the Braves’ overall attendance to 1,826,397, a new NL record.4 Braves principal owner Lou Perini spoke to the fans in a pregame ceremony and announced that a bronze plaque would be placed in County Stadium in appreciation of the community’s support for the club in its first year.

“You are the finest fans in baseball. You have restored their pride to members of the entire Braves organization,” said Perini. NL President Warren Giles told the crowd, “Your entire enthusiasm and loyalty will have an effect all through Organized Baseball.”5

The Redlegs won the first game of the doubleheader, 5-3. Cincinnati right-hander Bud Podbielan went the distance to earn his sixth win of the season, against 16 losses. It was his first win since July 2. Johnny Antonelli, himself a former “bonus baby” pitching for the Braves, took the loss.6

Jay started the second game, a makeup of an April 26 rainout. He faced Cincinnati left-hander Joe Nuxhall. Nuxhall had the distinction of being the youngest individual to play in the National or American Leagues; in June 1944, weeks before his 16th birthday,7 he pitched in the top of the ninth inning of a 18-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.8 Now 24 years old, Nuxhall entered his start in Milwaukee with an 8-10 record and a 4.41 ERA.

Jay struggled in the first but managed to keep the Redlegs from scoring. After notching his first major-league strikeout against leadoff batter Bobby Adams, he walked Grady Hatton, who made it to third on a wild pitch and a passed ball. Jay walked Gus Bell, putting Redlegs on the corners for slugging first baseman Ted Kluszewski.

A .321 hitter, Kluszewski had already clubbed 40 home runs and knocked in 107 runs in 1953, but Jay got him to pop up to shortstop Johnny Logan. Rookie left fielder Jim Greengrass, whose 20th homer of the season had put the Redlegs ahead to stay in the doubleheader’s opener, flied out to end the inning.

Nuxhall failed to get through the first unscathed. After walking leadoff batter Jim Pendleton, he got Logan and future Hall of Famer Eddie Matthews to hit into force outs. But cleanup batter Andy Pafko hit his 16th home run to give the Braves a 2-0 lead.

Cincinnati’s Willard Marshall singled to start the second. Hobie Landrith flied out to right and Roy McMillan followed with another fly ball to Pafko. Marshall tagged and attempted to take second, but Pafko’s throw beat him to the base for the double play.

Jay allowed two more hits and walked two more over the next four innings, but the Redlegs failed to score. The Braves’ defense contributed another double play in the fourth. Jay retired the Cincinnati batters in order in the fifth and sixth, picking up his fourth strikeout when Bell fanned to start the sixth.

Nuxhall also pitched shutout ball through the fifth, surrendering just one more hit, a two-out single by Matthews in the third.

Milwaukee added an unearned run in the bottom of sixth. Logan reached on an error by shortstop McMillan. Pafko’s one-out single put runners at the corners and Joe Adcock’s fly to center scored Logan to make the score 3-0.

After Jay retired the Redlegs in order in the seventh on a pair of groundouts to second and a fly out to third, the game was called after 6½ innings, reportedly on account of darkness.9 Jay picked up the win, his first and only one of the 1953 season. Grimm used the rookie one more time, in the fifth inning on September 26 against the Redlegs. Jay pitched a scoreless frame, giving up a single while facing three batters.

The Braves finished their season on the road, playing three more games against the Cardinals and finishing with two games in Cincinnati. They ended the season with a 92-62 record, 13 games behind the Dodgers.10 Cincinnati came in sixth, 37 games behind Brooklyn.

Grimm expressed confidence in Jay when the 1954 season began. “The kid has looked very good and I am sure he can help us,” he said. “When a pitcher shows as much as he has, you have to find a spot for him.”11 Despite his early show of confidence in Jay, Grimm ended up using him primarily in the bullpen that season.

Jay appeared in just 15 games in 1954, all but one as a reliever. In 18 innings, he walked 16 batters and struck out 13. He gave up 13 runs for an earned-run average of 6.50, to go with a record of 1-0.

Jay was no longer a “bonus baby” in 1955 and Milwaukee was not required to keep him on their major-league roster. The Braves sent him to the minors to work on his game. He spent the next three years in their farm system and finally returned to the majors full time in 1958. Jay was 22-24 with a 3.27 ERA over the next three years.

The Braves traded Jay to Cincinnati for McMillan in December 1960. He pitched six years with Cincinnati, going 75-63 with a 3.80 ERA. Jay spent the second half of 1966 with the Braves – who had relocated from Milwaukee to Atlanta before the season – after a June trade, going 0-4 in nine games, He started eight of those games. He earned a three-inning save in his last appearance. Jay retired after the season.

Since Jay’s debut in a major-league uniform, more than 50 Little League players have made it to the majors. Some of the notable names who also donned a Little League uniform are Boog Powell, Gary Sheffield, and Cody Bellinger.12

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Victoria Monte and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Joey Jay, SABR-Rucker Archive.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for the box score and other material. The author thanks Joseph Wancho for information from his SABR biography of Jay.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MLN/MLN195309202.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1953/B09202MLN1953.htm

Notes

1 Bonus babies were the group of amateur baseball players who went straight to the major leagues between 1947 and 1965. Players who received a signing bonus in excess of $4,000 during that era have been identified as bonus babies.

2 The Bonus Rule was instituted by in 1947 to prevent teams from assigning certain players to farm clubs. The rule stated that when a major-league team signed a player to a contract in excess of $4,000, the team had to keep him on the 40-man roster for two full seasons. In 1952 the majors revised the rule, changing the contract amount to $6,000. The revision also stated that a team had to place the players who met the Bonus Rule criteria on the major-league roster immediately and he had to remain on the roster for two calendar years from the signing date.

3 From 1953 to 1959, the Reds played under the name Cincinnati Redlegs. The switch was entirely political. Cincinnati’s original name was the Red Stockings but they were known as only the Reds after 1881. The 1950s was the time of the “Red Scare” in the United States and the team feared that seeing “Reds” on their uniforms would evoke a connection to communism.

4 The Brooklyn Dodgers held the previous record of 1,807,526, set in 1947.

5 Associated Press, “Milwaukee Bows 5-3, Then Downs Redlegs, 3-0, Before 36,011 Fans,” New York Times, September 21, 1953: 29.

6 Antonelli was signed by the Braves after graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School in Rochester, New York, in 1948 for a reported $50,000.  .

7 Major League Baseball in 2020 recognized the seven Negro Leagues that operated from 1920 to 1948 as major leagues. As a result, Roy Campanella became the youngest player in major-league history. Campanella played six games for the Baltimore Elite Giants in 1937 when he was just 15 years old.

8 Nuxhall walked five and gave up two hits, allowing five earned runs in that appearance. Nuxhall was then assigned to the Birmingham Barons of the Southern Association. He pitched only one more inning in 1944 walking five and allowing six earned runs.

9 While newspapers said that the game ended due to darkness, it was most likely that both teams received permission from the league to play just seven innings in the makeup game.

10 Milwaukee fans continued to support the team. The Braves drew over 2 million fans annually over the next four years and led the National League in attendance every year through 1958.

11 Bob Wolf, “Joey Jay Is Possible Mound Sleeper Among Braves’ Mound Hopefuls,” Milwaukee Journal, March 14, 1954.

12 Cole Jacobson, “20 stars who went from the LLWS to the big leagues,” MLB.com, August 18, 2023. https://www.mlb.com/news/notable-little-league-world-series-alumni-to-reach-mlb.