Primary Position: Relief pitcher
Birthplace: Mount Airy
First, Middle Names: Ronald Hamilton
Date of Birth: April 23, 1935 Date and Place of Death: April 29, 1998, Morganton, NC
Burial: Carolina Memorial Park, Kannapolis, NC
High School: A.L. Brown High School, Kannapolis, NC
Colleges: Catawba College, Salisbury, NC; Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, NC
Bats: R Throws: R Height and Weight: 6-0, 160
Debut Year: 1958 Final Year: 1959 Years Played: 2
Teams and Years: Pittsburgh Pirates, 1958-59
Career Summary
G W L Sv ERA IP SO WAR
64 3 2 4 3.50 108.0 50 0.8
In the era of baseball bonus babies, Ron Blackburn made it to the majors the old-fashioned way. Teams didn’t throw wads of money at him or promise him a spot on the roster when he graduated from high school in 1953, as they had done to his older brother a few years earlier. He was among the 80 kids who showed up for a Pittsburgh Pirates’ tryout in Burlington, North Carolina, that summer. “We got up at 5:30 in the morning and drove 100 miles to get there,” he recalled years later.[I]
He stood out among the horde, and the Pirates’ scout asked him to come back. “When I was called to pitch the next day in a squad game, I faced only six batters but struck out four of them,” he remembered. “That’s when the Pirates offered me a contract and I signed.”[II] Continue reading “Blackburn, Ron”
