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Weekly 150: J. Tom Winsett

Long Tom and Pro Baseball

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A few years ago I came across an old Life Magazine cover with a baseball player who looked as if he was trying to knock the cover off the ball. Since the cover was with other historical photos of McKenzie, I assumed the player had something to do with McKenzie but I never pursued any information. Then last week during a Rotary Club meeting, I noticed the photo downstairs at Lakeside Senior Living Community.

After a few minutes of digging, I learned the fella’s name was John Thomas Winsett, which didn’t ring a bell, but I found myself going down the proverbial rabbit hole. Much of what I am sharing this week must be credited to the research of Bill Nowlin with the Society for American Baseball Research.

John Thomas Winsett was born November 24, 1909, in McKenzie to John Daniel Winsett (1870–1939) and Ida May Aylor Winsett (1875–1954). He was one of five children; Goldia Mae Winsett Wilson (1891–1948), George William Winsett (1894–1987), Agnes Elnora Winsett Wilson (1899–1971), Ruben M. Winsett (1907–1992).

Tom went through the McKenzie schools system and graduated from McKenzie High School. Measuring 6’ 2” and weighing 190 pounds earning the nickname “Long Tom”, he then spent two years at Bethel College playing baseball and football.

Tom’s professional baseball career began at age 19 in 1929 with Lake Charles in the Class-D Cotton States League. He was a pitcher when he first came into the league. It was noted he was “too good a hitter to keep on the bench between starts.” He threw right-handed but batted left.

After hitting .284 with four homers in 22 games for Lake Charles, he joined the Mobile Bears. For Mobile, he hit .346 in 78 games. His name appeared in headlines around the country when his contract was sold to the Boston Red Sox.

Boston had planned to send him into their farm system. After he belted a towering home run on March 27, 1930, the Sox began to reconsider the decision.

A team official was quoted as saying of the home run’s length “far out into the gulf at Legion Park…Any player who can hit the ball gets Wagner‘s vote.” He was a raw talent, “an inexperienced outfielder... He is not always sure where he should throw that ball when it comes to him with men on bases. But the way he hits that ball has been the subject of more than a few whispering huddles on the part of Wagner and right-eye Jack McCallister.”

A bases-clearing 10th-inning double on April 5 in Indianapolis helped his cause. He started the season with the Red Sox but had just that one at-bat in his April 20, 1930 debut at Boston’s Braves Field. With the Athletics leading, 5-3, Winsett pinch-hit for pitcher Danny MacFayden in the bottom of the ninth. He struck out on three pitches, “taking a healthy but belated swing at all three, which were fast ones.”

A few days later on April 25, he was optioned to St. Paul.

The following season, the Red Sox brought him back to spring training in Pensacola. Boston kept him on their roster and he had a great showing in his first 1931 at-bat, on opening day at Yankee Stadium. In front of 70,000-plus fans, two home runs were hit, one by Yankee great Babe Ruth and a pinch-hitting Tom Winsett for Boston.

At season’s end, Tom had 81 plate appearances with 15 hits, seven RBIs, and a .197 batting average with 21 strikeouts. He was traded to the International League’s Buffalo Bisons. The 1932 season was spent with Buffalo. He played in 109 games; batting .351 with 18 home runs, making the International League All-Star team.

Tom was called back up to the Boston Red Sox only to be sent to the Montreal Royals. With a less than stellar season, the Red Sox traded him to Rochester, a farm team for the St. Louis Cardinals.

He had a good spring with the 1935 Cardinals batting .500, but four days later the Cardinals sent him to Columbus on cut-down day.

With Columbus, he hit 20 homers and a .348 average. In 1936, he led the league with 50 home runs (21 in June alone) and batted a league-leading .354. He also led the league with 154 runs batted in. Winsett’s biggest day was June 13, 1936, when he hit three homers, drove in nine runs, and scored six runs himself. The knock was still his fielding.

The Brooklyn Dodgers wanted to take their chances with him and on August 1 purchased his contract from Columbus, to report to Brooklyn at the end of the American Association season. Long Tom played in 22 games in September. All but one was as a position player. He was productive at the plate, driving in 18 runs.

On April 25, 1938, he was the first baseball player to be featured on the cover of Life Magazine with an inside caption which read: “The rubber-legged batter on the cover is John Thomas Winsett, of McKenzie, Tenn. one of the most curious players on the most curious team in the major leagues. He plays right field for the Brooklyn National League Baseball Club, better known as the ‘Daffy Dodgers’ because of the way they play. The first time Winsett batted in a big-league game he hit a homer, but shortly went back to the minors. The Dodgers paid $40,000 for him last year and Winsett hit a dismal .237. Both Dodgers and Winsett are expected to play better this year.”

Winsett spent most of 1938 in Jersey City. He started the season with the Dodgers and played 11 games in April – five in left, four in right, and two as a pinch-hitter. He pinch-hit in the May 1 game, the last major-league game in which he appeared. In his 12 games, he hit .300 and drove in seven runs, but on May 2, the Jersey City Giants purchased his contract from Brooklyn.

With Jersey City, he played in 132 games but hit for just .259. He had, however, regained his power stroke and hit 20 home runs. He was called up by the parent New York Giants in September but did not appear in any games.

Winsett played four more seasons – all in the minors – before World War II was on in earnest and he decided to join the effort. He was 32 years old and single and decided to enlist, joining the United States Army Air Force on July 17, 1942.

As a corporal, he was attached to the athletics and recreation of the basic training facility at St. Petersburg in 1943. By August he was promoted to lieutenant. By 1944, he was stationed in Hawaii; his Seventh Army Air Force team won the Hawaiian Senior League championship. The team featured Joe DiMaggio, Jerry Priddy, Walt Judnich, Dario Lodigiani, and pitcher Harold Harriston (the only Negro member on the 7th AAF baseball team).

As World War II concluded, Tom married Dorothy Ruth Donahoe on September 7, 1945. He served until 1946. After the war, he became involved in selling real estate as a broker for the Kemmons Wilson Realty Company.

He and Dorothy had two children and later divorced. John Thomas Winsett died July 20, 1987, at age 77. He is buried at Memorial Park Cemetery in Memphis.