Lou Criger Chapter meeting recap – 9/6/2014

From SABR member Steve Krah at the Elkhart Truth on September 9, 2014:

Tom Carroll and Frank Carpin played a combined total of 113 games in the big leagues.

Yet the two former Notre Dame players — infielder Carroll played freshman ball for the Fighting Irish in 1955 and left-handed pitcher Carpin for the varsity in 1958 — experienced the game at its highest level and still have plenty to say about it nearly 50 years after they last swung a bat or threw a pitch for pay.

The New York natives shared their takes recently with a gathering of baseball fans hosted by the Lou Criger chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research. They were invited by another Notre Dame man, Cappy Gagnon.

Carroll, who turns 78 on Wednesday, Sept. 17, was a “bonus baby” with the New York Yankees and went directly from ND to the majors where he made enough money that the parent club was required to keep him on the major league roster for at least one entire season.

As an 18-year-old, Carroll appeared in 14 games during the 1955 regular season then had two pinch-running appearances (and no at-bats) against the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series.

“I was terrified,” said Carroll, who was used 33 times in a pinch-running role in his two seasons with the Bronx Bombers.