Frederick John Caligiuri (October 22, 1918 – November 30, 2018) was an American

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

who played during and for the Philadelphia Athletics. Listed at 6' 0", 190 lbs., he batted and threw right-handed.

Biography

A native of West Hickory,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, Caligiuri was one of many major leaguers who saw their baseball careers interrupted by a stint with the United States Armed Forces during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. A late-season 1941 call-up from Wilmington of the

Interstate League The Interstate League was the name of five different American minor baseball leagues that played intermittently from 1896 through 1952. Early leagues Earlier versions of the Interstate League, with years active: *1896–1901: an unclassified ...

, he entered the baseball record books while starting the last game of the season against the

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...

Shibe Park Shibe Park, known later as Connie Mack Stadium, was a ballpark located in Philadelphia. It was the home of the Philadelphia Athletics of the American League (AL) and the Philadelphia Phillies of the National League (NL). When it opened April 12, 1 ...

. It was the game in which

Ted Williams Theodore Samuel Williams (August 30, 1918 – July 5, 2002) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 19-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career, primarily as a left fielder, for the Boston Red Sox from 1 ...

finished the season with a .406

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

, the most recent .400 average in the majors. Williams went 2-for-3 against Caligiuri, who did not yield a run until the ninth inning, and finished with a complete game, six-hit, 7–1 victory over Baseball Hall of Fame standout

Lefty Grove Robert Moses "Lefty" Grove (March 6, 1900 – May 22, 1975) was an American professional baseball pitcher. After having success in the minor leagues during the early 1920s, Grove became a star in Major League Baseball with the American League's P ...

and his Red Sox, a game which also marked the last start for Grove, who retired before the 1942 season. Over parts of two seasons, Caligiuri posted a 2–5 record with a 4.52

ERA An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth. Comp ...

in 18 appearances, including seven starts, giving up 49 runs (nine unearned) on 90 hits and 32 walks while

striking out ''Striking Out'' is an Irish television legal drama series, broadcast on RTÉ, that first aired on 1 January 2017. Produced by Bl!nder F!lms for RTÉ Television, ''Striking Out'' stars Amy Huberman as Dublin-based solicitor Tara Rafferty, who is ...

27 in innings of work. From 1943 to 1945, Caligiuri served in the United States Army during

. His wife of 73 years, Anne, died at the age of 91 on October 11, 2014.Anne Caligiuri's obituary
/ref> Caligiuri died in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 30, 2018, at the age of 100. Caligiuri was recognized as the oldest living major league ballplayer until his death, with Tom Jordan succeeding him. Caligiuri was the last surviving retired MLB player who made his debut in the majors prior to the

Pearl Harbor attack The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, ...

, which led to the United States' involvement in World War II. On April 20, 2021, his sister Vi passed away in Florida at the age of 103.

References

External links

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Retrosheet
1918 births 2018 deaths American centenarians Baseball players from Pennsylvania Major League Baseball pitchers Men centenarians People from Forest County, Pennsylvania Military personnel from Pennsylvania Philadelphia Athletics players Baseball players from Charlotte, North Carolina United States Army personnel of World War II Greenville Greenies players {{US-baseball-pitcher-1910s-stub