Don Bessent

The name Don Bessent sparks the memories of Brooklyn Dodgers fans of a certain age for helping his slumping team revive during the 1955 pennant race. But, for most fans, he’s a candle that burned brightly, but quickly.

Fred Donald Bessent was born on March 13, 1931, in Jacksonville, Florida, the eighth and last child of Callas L. and Donnie Lee (Tillis) Bessent.1 Callas was a railroad engineer and Donnie a homemaker.

At Robert E. Lee High School, Bessent was quarterback and captain of the football team, while also serving as ace of the baseball squad.2 The 6-foot, 175-pound righthander pitched for an American Legion post in Jacksonville whose team won seven Florida state championships in the late 1940s and early 1950s.3 He graduated in 1950 and quickly signed a contract with scout Leon Hamilton of the New York Yankees. His bonus was $4,500.4

While baseball sources consistently referred to him by his middle name, other names trailed him. Teammate Roger Craig, reminiscing 30 years later, called him Fred, as did The Sporting News and newspapers at several minor-league stops before he was established in the majors.5 His teammates, noting his sharp facial features, christened him “Weasel.”6

Bessent joined the LaGrange (Georgia) Troupers of the Class D Georgia-Alabama League and quickly became their ace. He opened the Georgia-Alabama League playoffs with a no-hitter over the Carrollton Hornets, walking four but striking out 10 while going three-for-four at bat.7 LaGrange won the league title and Bessent finished 22-7 with a league-leading ERA of 2.23.

Over the winter of 1950-51, Bessent expected to be drafted into the Army.8 He originally joined the Class A Binghamton (New York) Triplets for spring training, but left the team in anticipation of being drafted.9 Although he was not drafted, he did not join the Norfolk (Virginia) Tars of the Class B Piedmont League until June. Bessent still found time to go 11-2 with a 2.04 ERA and won praise from Hall of Famer Billy Herman, managing elsewhere in the league.10 But it was not all smooth. “One day,” Bessent told Roscoe McGowen of the New York Times, “something snapped in my back and I rested about two weeks, then went back to pitching.”11

But one morning that fall, Bessent said, he got out of bed and immediately fell down. His mother and sister had to get him back into bed. He was paralyzed from the waist down. The Yankees sent him to Dr. George Bennett at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Bennett found two parted vertebrae in Bessent’s lower back. He fused them with a piece of Bessent’s pelvis and put him in a rigid plaster cast for six and a half weeks. By early 1952, he’d progressed to a smaller cast and a brace which were only removed when he slept.12

“When the doctor felt I could go home, he told me: ‘It is wholly up to you whether you ever play ball again. There’s no reason you can’t. I operated on another boy in the same manner but he quit. You don’t have to quit if you don’t want to,’” Bessent recalled, “I had lost the feeling in my legs… But I followed Dr. Bennett’s instructions about exercising my legs and trying to jog around.” By late 1952, he was pitching in Jacksonville’s amateur City League and playing touch football.13 The Yankees placed him on the retired list due to injury.

There are two stories of how the Dodgers came to draft Bessent. The organization’s minor-league director, Fresco Thompson, said that Bessent’s name on the list of those left off rosters had struck a chord with Dodger farm executive Dick Walsh (later general manager of the California Angels). Walsh recalled Bessent’s sterling 1950 and 1951 seasons and the Dodgers moved in.14 In another version, Hamilton had kept in touch with Bessent and also moved to the Dodgers from the Yankees. He told the Dodgers about Bessent’s recovery and piqued their interest. Different Yankee officials said either that there had been a clerical error or that the injury had caused them to give up. Bessent said he might have lost a tick on his fastball as a result of the surgery, but this pushed him to learn other pitches.15

By spring training in 1953, whatever concerns the Dodgers had about Bessent’s back were being assuaged. “He’s as fast a young pitcher as I’ve seen in spring camp in several years,” said Clay Bryant, manager of the St. Paul Saints, a Brooklyn farm team in the Triple-A American Association.16 Nevertheless, back soreness continued to plague Bessent as he joined the Saints.17 He finished the year with an 11-10 record and a 4.32 ERA, a bit better than the league average of 4.53. The Dodgers protected him on their 40-man roster despite 71 walks against 65 strikeouts. He was regarded as promising enough to bring to spring training in 1954, along with a left-hander named Tom Lasorda.18

Bessent was sent back to St. Paul, where he improved his ERA to 3.93 (league average 4.57) even as his record fell to 12-13. More importantly, his walk numbers fell while his strikeout rate rose. That winter he went to the Venezuelan league, opening the season for Caracas with a 7-1 win and being carried off on the shoulders of the crowd.19 He finished the season with impressive marks of 10-7 with a 2.57 ERA in 151 2/3 innings for the Leones. He appeared in 26 games, starting 14 times and completing eight.

At Vero Beach for spring training in 1955, Bessent, by then wearing glasses, made a strong impression. Sportswriters deemed him close to making the club.20 In fact he did make the club, but sat unused in the dugout as the Dodgers blazed to a 10-0 start.21 Bessent said he went to manager Walter Alston and asked to be sent back to St. Paul, where he could get regular work and perhaps return ready later in the season.22 The Dodgers agreed and optioned Bessent to St. Paul amid a roster crunch as cutdown time approached in late April.23 Bessent pitched well for the Saints, running up an 8-5 record with a 3.58 ERA. He even volunteered to catch one day after manager Max Macon’s lineup card error left the team without a backstop.24

Meanwhile, Brooklyn had begun its season 22-2, and on the morning of July 17 boasted a record of 60-27 and a 12½ game lead in the National League. However, the team’s pitching was beginning to falter. Don Newcombe was clearly the pitching ace, but injuries (Carl Erskine, Russ Meyer, Johnny Podres, Billy Loes, Karl Spooner, Sandy Koufax) and ineffectiveness (Jim Hughes) had weakened the staff.25

On July 16 general manager Buzzie Bavasi called for reinforcements – Roger Craig from the Montreal Royals and Bessent from the Saints. The results were immediate and positive. On July 17 Craig beat Cincinnati, 6-2, in the first game of an Ebbets Field doubleheader and Bessent shut down the Reds until weakening in the ninth in an 8-5 victory in the nightcap. “I was mighty tired but thrilled at pitching in the majors. I probably was a little too cautious for all I wanted to do was stay in there,” he said.26 Four days later, he beat the Chicago Cubs 4-1 in a complete game five-hitter. Inexplicably, it would be his last major-league start.

Pitching in relief over the rest of the season, Bessent made 22 more appearances covering 46 1/3 innings, with a 2.53 ERA and a 6-1 record. His overall major-league record for 1955 was 8-1, with a 2.70 ERA. The Dodgers coasted to the pennant with a 98-55-1 record and a 13½ game lead over the second-place Milwaukee Braves. “I don’t know what we’d have done unless Bessent came along and helped us,” said Walter Alston.27 Summing up the season, the Daily News’s Dick Young identified the arrival of Bessent and Craig as the “stabilizing force” that prevented a midseason collapse.28

In the World Series – which the Dodgers won for the first time after ongoing vows of “Wait ’til Next Year” – Bessent appeared in three games, pitching 3 1/3 innings without giving up a run. His teammates voted him a full Series share ($9,768.21) and The Sporting News put him third in the National League Rookie of the Year voting behind Bill Virdon and Jack Meyer. The World Series share was nearly twice what his regular season contract called for.29 Bessent offered half of his World Series share to Leon Hamilton, the scout who had discovered him (they became long-time friends), but Hamilton passed on the offer.30 Don returned home to Jacksonville for a dinner in his honor.31

Bessent reported to spring training in 1956 with a contract for $9,500, nearly twice the $5,000 he had made in 1955. But he soon was suffering muscle problems in his abdomen which necessitated an operation.32 The abdominal problems continued until midseason.33 In August his problems receded, and everything fell into place. On August 3, he had an 0-2 record and a 4.65 ERA. He then pitched 26 1/3 shutout innings before surrendering a run, lowering his ERA to 2.64 as the team moved into second place behind Milwaukee. He finished the year at 4-3, 2.50 ERA with (as retroactively calculated) nine saves, second on the club behind Clem Labine’s 19. In 27 appearances after the All-Star break, Bessent was 4-2 with eight saves and posted an ERA of 1.59. The Dodgers edged Milwaukee for the pennant by one game. Bessent’s last appearance of the season was on September 30 against the Pirates in Game 154. He came on in relief of Don Newcombe with the Dodgers up 7-6 with one out in the eighth inning. He recorded the last five outs of the game, the last out being a strikeout of Hank Foiles, as the Dodgers clinched the pennant.

In the World Series, Bessent’s brilliance continued. In the second game, Dodger starter Don Newcombe was raked for six runs in less than two innings. Brooklyn rallied in the bottom of the second and Bessent came into a tied game to start the third. Seven innings later he emerged the winner, having limited the Yankees to two runs while his teammates scored five. The Dodgers were up 2-0 in the Series.

Having pitched seven innings and needing time to rest, Bessent didn’t return to the mound until the seventh game, when Newcombe was torched again. This time the Weasel threw three shutout innings, but the Dodgers failed to score. After a season in which he went 27-7 with a 3.06 ERA and won both the National League Cy Young and MVP awards, Newcombe had suffered through a dismal World Series. In fact, before the seventh game, some pundits had been pushing Alston to start Bessent in the finale even though he’d worked out of the bullpen all year.34

The 1957 season started poorly and then went further downhill. Bessent reported a sore arm early in spring training, attributing it to skipping winter ball for the first time.35 He pitched only 44 innings that year and his ERA more than doubled. “One of the major mysteries of the Brook collapse has been Don Bessent’s ineffectiveness,” wrote Dick Young, “Consensus of players is that The Weasel hasn’t lost the zing to his fast ball but that he hasn’t been throwing enough and, therefore, his control has suffered.”36 The Dodgers cut his 1957 salary of $12,500 to $11,500 for 1958.

Things didn’t improve much in 1958. The bright moment of Bessent’s year was a hole-in-one in the ballplayers’ annual golf tournament just before spring training – the first in the 18-year history of the event.37 Entering the year, he still figured in the Dodgers’ plans as they moved to Los Angeles. Farm director Fresco Thompson included him in “the finest trio of relief men in the league.”38 But there were reports that he was losing his fastball.39 On Opening Day in San Francisco, Bessent entered the game in the fourth inning with runners on first and second and the Dodgers trailing 4-0. He allowed both runners to score and, in the fifth inning surrendered Orlando Cepeda’s first big-league home run. By the time Bessent left the game for a pinch-hitter in the seventh inning, the Giants led 7-0. They went on to win, 8-0. By June the Dodgers put him on the disabled list with a sore arm. He returned in September for five more appearances. His numbers (24 1/3 innings with a 3.33 ERA) were adequate – but he was clearly losing his place in the Dodgers’ thinking. They cut his salary again, to $10,000.40

In 1959 Bessent didn’t even make it out of spring training. The Dodgers sent him back to St. Paul on April 2 after he cleared waivers, indicating that no other team was willing to take a chance on him. By May he was on the disabled list with a sore arm.41 However, he did make 18 starts for St. Paul and registered a 2.65 ERA, despite an unimpressive 1.336 WHIP. That winter he went to Cuba to play for the Marianao club but packed up and left the team after he suffered a beaning (he’d appeared just three times).42 He also may have been influenced by a letter from Dodger officials urging their players to come home because of the political situation. Fidel Castro had overthrown Fulgencio Batista earlier that year and promised safety to American ballplayers, but the Dodgers remained concerned.43

Bessent returned to spring training with the major-league team in 1960 but was soon back at St. Paul. Dodger pitching coach Joe Becker said that Bessent had lost his fastball and that was a problem because the fast ball was essentially his only pitch.44 Bessent’s ERA ballooned to 4.42, and his WHIP continued to deteriorate. His most surprising moment that year came when manager Danny Ozark ordered him to throw at umpire Tom Bartos and told catcher Dan Gatta to miss the pitch. The pitch also missed the umpire, but Ozark drew a suspension.45 Bessent spent 1961 with the Dodgers’ farm club in Spokane in the Triple-A PCL, working frequently (59 games) but posting an unsightly 5.77 ERA.

In 1962 he was sold at his request to the Jacksonville Suns to be close to home. 46 The Suns were Cleveland’s top farm club in the Triple-A International League. However, with Bessent’s ERA hovering at 5.00, the Suns released him in June, and he signed on with the Rochester Red Wings, a Baltimore affiliate also in the International League.47 Things went from bad to worse in Rochester and Bessent was released on June 30, after only two weeks.48 At the time his combined ERA of 6.98 over 15 appearances for Jacksonville and Rochester was the worst in the International League.49 He then retired.

In previous offseasons, when he wasn’t playing winter ball, Bessent had worked at a soft drink distribution business in Jacksonville.50 He later worked in construction and for 7-Up bottling.51 He had married Joan Goodman in August 1952, while he was rehabilitating from his back injury. They had three daughters.52 Bessent had reportedly been a hard drinker during his Dodgers days, “a Scotch man on a club of beer-drinking buddies.”53 After his playing career ended, his life deteriorated. In 1980, Joan divorced him. He retired in ill health at age 50 in 1981.54 In 1985, when the Dodgers were organizing an Old-Timers Day for the 1955 and 1959 World Series winners, they couldn’t find him.55

Thirty-five years after helping the Dodgers to their only world championship in Brooklyn, Bessent was still popular in New York. In May 1990, he attended an autograph show in New York with his daughter Nancy.

Bessent died around 5:30 p.m. on July 7, 1990, of what the Jacksonville Medical Examiner’s Office termed “alcohol poisoning, aggravated by cirrhosis of the liver.” The circumstances were poignant; he was found in his car parked outside a Wendy’s restaurant. His blood alcohol level was 0.35%, well above the 0.10% level which Florida defines as being legally drunk.56 Sadly, store employees said that Bessent had asked for help around 5 p.m., but that the assistant manager told them not to do anything. Indeed, the staff members who wanted to be Good Samaritans were threatened with the loss of their jobs – and the three who approached a police officer at the restaurant were fired. Upon investigation by Wendy’s, they were reinstated, and the assistant manager was dismissed.57

Bessent was buried at Oaklawn Cemetery in Jacksonville. When his former wife Joan died in 2019, she was buried in the grave next to Don, and they share a headstone.58

Roger Kahn, author of The Boys of Summer, an iconic book about the 1950s Dodgers, remembered Bessent for a fastball so hard catchers didn’t like catching him. “His personality was recessive,” Kahn said, “He was just one of the many promising kids who came out of the Dodger system. One of the curious things was that they produced so many promising pitchers who blazed briefly and then expired. After the first year, we thought he would win 20 games.”59

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello and Rick Zucker and fact-checked by Paul Proia.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the end notes, information was taken from Retrosheet.org, baseball-reference.com, pelotabinaria.com.ve, Ancestry.com, Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodger yearbooks, and Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball, 1878-1961 by Jorge S. Figueredo.

Notes

1 On a questionnaire Bessent filled out for William Weiss in 1959, he listed his birth year as 1932, but no other source lists that date.

2 Herb Heft, “Don Bessent Surgery’s Gift to Brooklyn,” The Sporting News, September 28, 1955: 5. The high school’s name has been changed to Riverside High School.

3 Alvin Burt, “Farm System Paying Off for Florida Post,” The Sporting News, July 20, 1955: 21.

4 Roscoe McGowen, “Brooklyn’s Bessent Battled Back from Paralyzing Injury,” The Sporting News, April 13, 1955: 34.

5 See, e.g., Brad Willson, “Five Braves Among 26 Players Signed by Winter Leagues,” The Sporting News, October 20, 1954: 24; Bob Beebe, “19 of 28 Games Left Billed at Nicollet,” Minneapolis Star, August 18, 1953: 23.

6 Joseph M. Sheehan, “Bessent Bargain as $4,500 Claim,” New York Times, October 6, 1956: 24.

7 “Don Bessent Hurls No-Hit Game as Troupers Win, 14-0,” Opelika Daily News, September 5, 1950: 7.

8 “Call to Colors,” The Sporting News, March 21, 1951: 27.

9 “Bessent Leaves,” Binghamton Press, April 11, 1951: 50.

10 Billy Herman, “Today’s Lineup,” Richmond News Leader, July 17, 1951: 26.

11 Roscoe McGowen, “Brooklyn’s Bessent…”

12 Roscoe McGowen, “Brooklyn’s Bessent…”

13 Roscoe McGowen, “Brooklyn’s Bessent…”

14 Harold C. Burr, “Junior Executive Beats Yanks in Draft,” The Sporting News. December 31, 1952: 14.

15 Herb Heft, “Don Bessent’s Surgery…”

16 “Training with Minors: American Association,” The Sporting News, March 25, 1953: 25.

17 “Saints Win; Zimmer Hits 22nd Homer,” Minneapolis Tribune, July 2, 1953: 18.

18 Roscoe McGowen, “Four Rookie Twirlers to Bid for Place in Sun at Brook Base,” The Sporting News, January 13, 1954: 7. In another version, Bessent is quoted as saying the back injury occurred in the last game of the 1952 playoffs. Dick Young, “The Sports of Kings and Queens,” Daily News, September 9, 1956: 24.

19 Franklin E. Whaite, “35,000 Gate at Inaugural in Venezuela,” The Sporting News, October 20, 1954: 23.

20 J(oe) T(rimble), “Diamond Dust: Marathon Leaves Yankees Limp,” Daily News, March 21, 1955: 46; and (Dick) Young, “Diamond Dust: Lopat Wants Spitter Back,” Daily News, April 3, 1955: 417.

21 Roscoe McGowen, “Young Brook Right-Hand Hurlers Alike, Even to Capturing of Debuts in Majors,” New York Times, July 18, 1955: 24.

22 Herb Heft, “Don Bessent’s Surgery…”

23 Dick Young, “Brooks Just Too Good; Ship Three to Minors,” New York Daily News, April 30, 1955: 234.

24 “Rigney’s ‘Joker in Deck’ Trumps Saints’ Thompson,” Minneapolis Star, May 16, 1955: 26.

25 “Dodgers in Trouble,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 16, 1955: 12; and Roscoe McGowen, “Smoky Set to Fire Kids in Series – If,” The Sporting News, August 24, 1955: 9.

26 Star Sports Wires, “’Big Day’ for Brooks, Says Alston After Bessent, Craig Win,” Minneapolis Star, July 18, 1955: 27.

27 Dick Gordon, “Bessent Proves AA Ball Good, Too – Jones,” Minneapolis Star, July 26, 1955: 34.

28 Dick Young, “’Brook Victory the Greatest,’” New York Daily News, September 9, 1955: 157.

29 “Brooks Reap Series $ Harvest: 9 1/2G a share,” New York Daily News, October 7, 1955: 20; and C.C. Johnson Spink, “Score, Virdon Named Rookies of Year,” The Sporting News, October 5, 1955: 1.

30 “Hamilton Baseball Scout De Luxe,” Tampa Tribune, February 21, 1980: 42.

31 “Party for Podres Tops Celebrations for Series Stars,” The Sporting News, October 19, 1955: 14.

32 Roscoe McGowen, “Reese Takes Over – Zimmer’s Wait at Short Gets Longer,” The Sporting News, April 4, 1956: 16; and “Don on Shelf Several Weeks,” The Sporting News, April 4, 1956: 24.

33 “Diamond Dust,” New York Daily News, June 6, 1956: 78; and Roscoe McGowen, “Smoky Keeps his Firemen on Gallop as Starters Fizzle,” The Sporting News, June 27, 1956: 8.

34 Joe King, “Newk’s Flop, Hit Fadeout, Beat Dodgers – King: Second-Guessing to Linger Over Hill Choice in Finale,” The Sporting News, October 17, 1956: 11. Also, Roscoe McGowen, “Big Newk’s Arm Twinge Big Pain for Brooks, too,” The Sporting News, October 31, 1956: 8.

35 Dick Young, “32G Labine Uncertain He Wants Starting Role,” Daily News, February 27, 1957: 64.

36 Dick Young, “The Sports of Kings and Queens,” Daily News, September 12, 1957: B11.

37 “Pearson Beats Gray in Diamond Tee Test,” Daily News, February 17, 1958: 232.

38 Joe King, “’Weak Spots Can Trip Braves,’ – Fresco,” The Sporting News, March 19, 1958: 2.

39 Dick Young, “The Sports of Kings and Queens,” Daily News, March 27, 1958: B1.

40 “Don Bessent Signs for ’59,” Los Angeles Times, February 15, 1959: C3.

41 “American Association,” The Sporting News, May 6, 1959: 34.

42 “Minoso Injured; Bessent Quits,” Palm Beach Post, November 14, 1959: 8.

43 Ruben Rodriguez, “Ailing Rodriguez Quits Job as Manager of Almendares,” The Sporting News, November 11, 1959: 20.

44 George Lederer, “Ortega Dodger Sleeper,” Long Beach Independent, March 4, 1960: C1.

45 “Ozark Draws Suspension, Fine for ‘Dusting’ Umpire,” The Sporting News, July 20, 1960: 29.

46 “Don Bessent is Sold by Spokane,” (Salinas) Californian, February 23, 1962: 11.

47 “International, Major League Averages,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, June 17, 1962: 32; “Rochester Gets Bessent,” Orlando Sentinel, June 17, 1962: 32.

48 “Frick to Hear Thomas on Lopat Dispute,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 1, 1962: 37.

49 “IL, Major League Batting, Pitching Averages,” Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, July 8, 1962: 46.

50 Frank Finch, “Four Dodgers Settle in L.A.,” Los Angeles Times, September 9, 1958: C2.

51 “For the Record: Obituaries,” The Sporting News, July 23, 1990: 45.

52 See either https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/jacksonville-fl/joan-bessent-8767780 or https://www.arkbh.com/celebrity-deaths/athletes/don-bessent/

53 Maury Allen, “It’s Autumn for ‘Boys of Summer,’” Standard-Star (New Rochelle, New York), July 13, 1990: 1.

54 Maury Allen, “It’s Autumn for ‘Boys of Summer,’” Standard-Star (New Rochelle, New York), July 13, 1990: 3.

55 Scott Newman, “Once More for the Ages,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1985: OC-B12.

56 “Ex-Dodger Bessent Dead at 59,” New York Daily News, July 11, 1990: 188.

57 “Ex-Dodger Reliever Bessent dies,” Chicago Tribune, July 11, 1990: 4:5. “Man who blocked aid effort is fired,” Tampa Bay Times, July 12, 1990: 24.

58 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/214035036/joan-bessent

59 Elliott Almond, “Death of Bessent is Special Tragedy,” Los Angeles Times, July 11, 1990: C1.