Don Minnick’s Career Year

This story is about the only 20-game winner in the history of the Reading, Pennsylvania, entry in the Eastern League. In 1955, Don Minnick was one of Reading’s fifteen starters. Minnick and Don Nance started the most games (26), and Minnick also relieved in four. Besides Minnick, three of the other pitchers made it to the majors: Bobby Locke, Dan Osinski, and Jake Striker.

Before playing at Reading, Don lead his Trenton, New Jersey, American Legion Junior team to the 1948 national title. In 1949, his first year in pro ball, he pitched at Pittsfield. In 1951 his record at Wichita was 14-11 with an ERA of 3.12. After two years in the military, he was 7-9 with an ERA of 2.88 with Reading, pitching mostly in relief.

Other future major leaguers who played in Reading that year are perhaps better known: Roger Maris, of course, broke Babe Ruth’s home run record. Carroll Hardy was the only man ever to pinch hit for Ted Williams. Larry Raines may be the only player to play in the Negro Leagues, the Japanese Leagues, the minors, and the majors. Dick Brown caught Herb Score in high school. Other teammates included Clell Hobson, Clell “Butch” Hobson’s father; Gene Lary, brother of the Tigers’ Yankee killer Frank Lary; and Frank Tanana, father of another major league son.

Don was the number three starter. He started his first game April 23 against Elmira, going eight innings for the 7-5 win. He next blanked Williamsport, 9-0, on the road April 29, for a 2-0 record for April.

On May 4, he got no decision against Binghamton in a 9-5 Indian loss. Minnick made his first relief appearance two days later against Williamsport, pitching two innings of shutout ball. He started, completed, and won his next three games. On May 12 he shut out Binghamton, 5-0, on two hits. On May 16 he allowed Wilkes-Barre ten hits but only a single run, while Reading scored ten. And on May 24 he beat Albany, 5-2. In his next appearance he worked one shutout inning against Albany in the second game of a Reading sweep. Minnick finished off May with a 10- 3 complete game victory at home against Albany in which Roger Maris hit three homers.

Minnick was even better in June. He completed and won every game he started. Don beat Schenectady, 9-5, in the second game of a Reading split on the fourth. In another second-game win, he beat Wilkes-Barre on the eleventh, 6-5. On the seventeenth he beat Williamsport, 4-1, before ending the month with a 7-5 win at Elmira.

He matched June’s win total in July, but also suffered his first loss. He started the month with a no decision against Binghamton, a game that Reading won 8-5. On the Fourth of July he pitched a seven inning complete game against Johnstown, a team that had relocated from Wilkes-Barre in the middle of the season, winning, 5-4. He pitched a scoreless inning in relief against Allentown on the seventh, then shut out Schenectady, 8-0, on the ninth, behind Maris’s seven RBIs. On the fifteenth, he went all the way to beat Albany, 6-4, with the help of a grand slam by Bob Johnson (not the Indian Bob Johnson who played in the big show). Two days later he blanked Schenectady during a 1-1/3-inning relief stint. On the nineteenth he beat Albany again, 6-4. After an eight-hit shutout of Allentown on the twenty-third, he took his first loss, 6-5, to Johnstown on the twenty-seventh.

Minnick seemed to tire in August and September. He was 3-2 and 1-1. On August 2 he beat Elmira despite giving up seven runs in 8-2/3 innings, winning, 9-7. On the seventh he went only four innings and lost his second game, 10-6, to Elmira. He started against the Eastern League All-Star team on August 9, a game Reading won, 6-5. The starting lineup for the All Stars was: 1B Neal Hartweck, Allentown; 2B Marty Devlin, Elmira; 3B Milt Graff, Williamsport; SS Larry Curry, Elmira; OF Zeke Bella, and Sam Seplizio, Binghamton; Emil Plasko, Williamsport; C Johnny Blanchard, Binghamton, and P Jim Coates, Binghamton.

Tired or not, Minnick completed the year with five straight complete games, the first being a 9-1 drubbing of Johnstown on the fifteenth. He lost, 2-0, to Allentown on the twenty-first, then beat Schenectady and future Phillie Henry Mason, 7-1, on the twenty-seventh.

Schenectady and Mason returned the favor and beat him on September 1, 6-5. In Minnick’s last start of the season three days later he got his twentieth win, 6-5, in eleven innings over Albany.

In the postseason, Don beat Schenectady’s future Phil Don Cardwell, 4-3, in the playoffs. Over the course of the regular season, he was 12-0 at home. He was 11-0 at the end of June, 16-1 at the end of July, and 19-3 on the last day of August. His remarkable 20-4 is the only 20-win season in the history of Reading’s Eastern League entries.

Don Minnick’s major league career consisted of two appearances, both for the 1957 Washington Senators. The first occurred on September 23 against the Boston Red Sox. In this game Ted Williams ran his consecutive on-base streak to 16 by singling in the first, walking his next three times, and getting hit by a pitch before leaving in the eighth. Minnick entered  the game in the fifth and issued the walk that extended the streak to 15. Williams was the only runner Minnick allowed. Also in this game future Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew hit one of his seven minor league career pinch-hit homers. The game was Roy Sievers Night in Washington and was attended by then Vice President Richard Nixon. In Minnick’s only other appearance, he started five days later against Baltimore going 7-1/3 innings, walking three, striking out five, and giving up fourteen hits while taking the loss.