Primary Position: Catcher
Birthplace: Salisbury
First, Middle Nams: George Thomas
Date of Birth: Sept. 12, 1924 Date and Place of Death: Nov. 4, 1994, Hendersonville
Burial: Western Carolina Veteran’s Cemetery, Black Mountain, NC
High School: China Grove High School, China Grove, NC
Bats: R Throws: R Height and Weight: 6-2, 185
Debut Year: 1952 Final Year: 1952 Years Played: 1
Team and Year: Washington Senators, 1952
Career Summary
G AB H R RBI HR BA. OBP. SLG. WAR
10 23 5 3 6 0 .217 .280 304 -0.2
George Bradshaw was considered a solid, minor-league catcher when he finally got the call in 1952. He had spent almost six years in the low minors. At his last two stops – in Statesville and Morganton in North Carolina – he had smashed more than 30 homer runs and had hit close to .330.
That attracted the attention of the Washington Senators. When his time came, though, Bradshaw lasted about a month in Washington. He appeared in 10 games and hit just over .200. He finished his baseball career as, once again, a solid minor-league catcher.
Bradshaw grew up on a farm in central Rowan County. His father, Hugh, died when Bradshaw was young, and his mother, Jaunita, supported her three children by working in cotton mills in nearby Statesville.
After his discharge from the Marine Corps in late 1945, Bradshaw began playing professional baseball. He would play nine years in the minors, retiring in 1954, and manage and play several more years in semipro leagues.
Bradshaw and his wife, Selma, raised seven children. They lived for at least 20 years in Midland, Pa., where Selma died of leukemia. Bradshaw later lived in Holden Beach, where he ran unsuccessfully for town council, organized neighborhood watch programs, and helped those who had their larynxes surgically removed, as he had, talk again. He won an award for that volunteer work.
Bradshaw was working for a vehicle leasing company and living in Hendersonville, North Carolina, with his second wife, Ann, when he died in 1994 about a month after celebrating his 70th birthday.