Gallagher: Oldest living Expos player, Elroy Face, still going strong at 88
From SABR member Danny Gallagher at Baseball Hot Corner on June 9, 2016:
“Of all time, you mean?’’ asked the man on the other end of the phone line.
“Yes, you’re the oldest living, former Expos’ player going back to when they started in 1969,’’ I told him.
“Huh,’’ the man said, very much appreciative but a little disbelieving of what he was hearing.
On April 3, 1969, one of the greatest relief pitchers in baseball history with the Pittsburgh Pirates was released by the Detroit Tigers late in spring training so he went home to North Versailles, Pa.
Not long after he got home to go golf and take up carpentry work, he went to New York City for a visit. While he was there, Elroy Face received a phone call from Pittsburgh writer and close friend Charley Feeney.
Face and Feeney had struck up a trusting friendship that started in 1966 when Feeney became a beat writer covering Face and the Pirates for the Post-Gazette. It was a friendship that lasted until Feeney died in 2014. Both lived in North Versailles about a 20-minute drive from Pittsburgh.
Read the full article here: http://baseballhotcorner.com/oldest-living-expos-player-still-going-strong-age-88/
- Related link: Read the SABR biography of Elroy Face, by Gary Gillette
Originally published: June 10, 2016. Last Updated: June 10, 2016.