Richard Joseph "Turk" Farrell (April 8, 1934 – June 10, 1977) was an American

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professional ...

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 ...

who played in

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), ...

(MLB) from to , spending his entire 14-year MLB career in the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

(NL). He threw and batted

right-handed In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjecti ...

. Farrell's son is former MLB pitcher

Richard Dotson Richard Elliott Dotson (born January 10, 1959) is a former right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball in the 1980s. He is best noted for his 22-7 performance of , helping the Chicago White Sox win the American League West Division championship ...

Career

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he played for the NL Philadelphia Phillies,

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...

, and Houston Colt .45s / Astros. Before the 1953 season, Farrell was signed by the Philadelphia Phillies as an amateur free agent. The 19-year-old began his Minor League Baseball (MiLB) career with the class A

Schenectady Blue Jays The Schenectady Blue Jays baseball club was an American minor league baseball franchise based in Schenectady, New York, for 12 consecutive seasons, 1946–57. It was a member of the Class C Canadian–American League through 1950, and the Class ...

. There, over a two-year span (1953–54), he would build a

Win–loss record In sports, a winning percentage is the fraction of games or matches a team or individual has won. The statistic is commonly used in standings or rankings to compare teams or individuals. It is defined as wins divided by the total number of matc ...

of 18–18, with a 3.30 ERA. He spent 1955 in the IL, with the

Syracuse Chiefs Syracuse may refer to: Places Italy *Syracuse, Sicily, or spelled as ''Siracusa'' *Province of Syracuse United States *Syracuse, New York **East Syracuse, New York **North Syracuse, New York * Syracuse, Indiana *Syracuse, Kansas *Syracuse, Miss ...

, going 12–12 with a 3.94 ERA; in 1956, he played for the Miami Marlins, going 12–6 with a 2.50 ERA. In September, 1956, Farrell would get a late-season look by the Phillies and would lose his only decision; but he set the groundwork for a 14-year run in the major leagues. Farrell was one of the young Phillies pitchers of the late 1950s, along with

Jack Meyer John Robert Meyer (March 23, 1932 – March 6, 1967) was an American professional baseball right-handed pitcher, who appeared in all or parts of seven Major League (MLB) seasons (1955–1961) with the Philadelphia Phillies. Born in Philadelph ...

and

Jim Owens James Donald Owens (March 6, 1927 – June 6, 2009) was an American football player and coach. He was the head coach at the University of Washington from 1957 to 1974, compiling a record of in 18 seasons. Owens played college football at the U ...

, dubbed the "Dalton Gang" for their fun-loving late-hour escapades. Retrieved July 21, 2016. "When he loses, he loses his temper," a teammate once said of Farrell, "but when he wins he's the life of the party."Marazzi, Rich; Fiorito, Len (2004
''Baseball Players of the 1950s: A Biographical Dictionary of All 1,560 Major Leaguers''
Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers. p. 109. . Retrieved 2017-01-01. Bearing the brunt on one occasion was the mirror in a Milwaukee bar, broken by Farrell's fist with the explanation, "I looked in the mirror and didn't like what I saw, so I threw a punch." Phillies fans liked what they saw of the hard-throwing rookie right-hander in 1957 when he was 10–2 plus 10 saves and a 2.38 ERA in 52 appearances out of the bullpen. On September 3, 1957, Farrell was the winning pitcher for the Phils in the last of fifteen home games the Dodgers played at the Jersey City Roosevelt Stadium, 3–2 in twelve innings. After four more seasons of relief work with the Phils, Farrell was traded to the Dodgers early in 1961. Farrell was selected in the

1961 MLB expansion draft The 1961 MLB Expansion Draft was held by Major League Baseball on October 10, 1961, to fill the rosters of the New York Mets and the Houston Colt .45s, the new franchises which would enter the league in the 1962 season. The pool of players out of ...

by the Houston Colt .45s. In 1962, Farrell finished with the seventh best

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 ...

at 3.02, but with a poor 10–20 record. A starter in Houston, Farrell was used almost exclusively in relief with Philadelphia and Los Angeles. His career totals include 590 games pitched (134 starts), a won-loss record of 106–111, 83 saves, and an ERA of 3.45. He was selected to the National League All-Star team 4 times (1958, 1962, 1964 and 1965) in his career. Farrell last pitched in the major leagues on September 19, 1969, for the Phillies against the Expos in a game the Phillies lost 10–6. Farrell went innings in the first game of a doubleheader at Parc Jarry, allowing one hit and striking out one. He would never pitch in the majors again, and would leave the US shortly thereafter for good. Farrell moved to England, where he lived and worked on an offshore oil rig just off Great Britain in the North Sea. He was killed on June 10, 1977, in an auto accident in Great Yarmouth, England, at age 43. He was buried in Houston, Texas.

Career

References

External links