Wrightsville Beach – Tarheel Boys of Summer

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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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.

Continue reading “Brittain, Gus”