Tag: Wilmington

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Prince, Don

Primary Position: Relief pitcher
Birthplace: Clarkton

First, Middle Names:  Donald Mark

Date of Birth: April 5, 1938    Date and Place of Death: Nov. 8, 2017, Myrtle Beach, SC
Burial: Hammond Cemetery, Nichols, SC

High School: Floyds High School, Nichols, SC
College: Campbell University, Buies Creek, NC; East Carolina University, Greenville, NC

Bats: R Throws: R        Height and Weight: 6-4, 200
Debut Year: 1962        Final Year: 1962          Years Played: 1
Team and Year: Chicago Cubs, 1962

Career Summary
G          W        L          Sv        ERA     IP         SO       WAR
1          0          0          0          0.00     1.0       0          0.0

Don Prince pitched one inning in the major leagues and seven years in the minors, but this really isn’t a story about his life in baseball. He was later a successful insurance agent and enthusiastic private pilot. This isn’t about annuities or aviation, either. This is, instead, a sad tale about how a brother’s fidelity – yes, some might bluntly call it his stupidity – led him down a dark path where federal agents posing as hit men lurked in the shadows. This is a story about how Don Prince, baseball pitcher, insurance salesman and pilot with a wife, children, a house at the beach, and all the trappings of a good life, turned to murder to save his brother.

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Brittain, Gus

Primary Position: Catcher
Birthplace: Wilmington

First, Middle Names: August Schuster   Nicknames: Shuny

Date of Birth:  Nov. 29, 1909 Date and Place of Death: Feb. 16, 1974
Burial: Oakdale Cemetery, Wilmington

High School: New Hanover High School, Wilmington    

Bats: R             Throws: R        Height and Weight: 5-10, 192
Debut Year: 1937       Final Year: 1937          Years Played: 1
Team and Year: Cincinnati Reds, 1937

Career Summary
G         AB       H         R          RBI      HR       BA.      OBP.    SLG.     WAR
3          6          1          0          0          0          .167     .167     .167     -0.1

Gus Brittain was undeniably one tough SOB. A baseball player who knew him well was once riding on a train that hit a car. This is how he described the awful grinding and crunching of metal: “Sounds like Gus Brittain is under the train.”[I]

Though he spent only two months in the major leagues, Brittain, like so many players of his era, had a long career in the minors as a player, coach or manager. From the Piedmont League to the Sally League, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Trenton, New Jersey, Brittain left a trail of suspensions and fines for feuding with umpires and fighting with players, even those on his own team. His reputation was such that a newspaper in Maryland in 1940 felt it necessary to warn players with “pugilistic tendencies” in the Eastern Shore League when Brittain was hired to manage the team in Salisbury. “Brittain is a swash-buckling, rugged fellow, a great jockey who can give and take and pretty handy man with his dookies,” the newspaper noted.[II]

It’s likely that Gus Brittain is the only player from North Carolina promoted to the majors solely for those fighting skills. He’s certainly the only one who was ever banned from baseball.

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Bowens, Sam

Primary Positions: Right field, left field
Birthplace: Wilmington

First, Middle Names: Samuel Edward Jr.

Date of Birth:  March 23, 1938          Date and Place of Death: March 28, 2003, Wilmington
Burial: Greenlawn Memorial Park, Wilmington

High School: Williston High School, Wilmington
College: Tennessee State University, Nashville, Tenn.

Bats: R             Throws: R        Height and Weight: 6-1, 195
Debut Year: 1963       Final Year: 1969          Years Played: 7
Teams and Years: Baltimore Orioles, 1963-67; Washington Senators, 1968-69

Career Summary
G         AB       H         R          RBI      HR       BA.      OBP.    SLG.     WAR
479   1287   287    141      143      45      .223     .283     .375     0.0

Much was expected of Sam Bowens when he joined the Baltimore Orioles at their spring training camp in Miami, Florida, in 1964. He had been a star athlete in high school and college and had hit .346 in the minors the previous year before pulling a groin muscle in July and struggling through the rest of season. He hit with power and played the outfield with grace. His throwing arm was a weapon that base runners respected. Bowens would team with Boog Powell, another powerful youngster, to give the Orioles a potent, lasting tandem.

“You don’t give up on a guy like that,” manager Hank Bauer said that spring, “not at least until the day after tomorrow.”[I]

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