Earl Jones

Earl Jones was a left handed relief pitcher for the 1945 St. Louis Browns.

Earl Leslie Jones Jr. was born June 11, 1919, in Fresno, California, to Earl and Madge Jones. He had two older sisters, and eventually a younger brother and sister. In the 1920 census the family lives at 142 Inez Street and his dad’s occupation is listed as transfer man, for the city. In the 1930 census they’re still at 142 Inez and Dad is still a transfer man, but no longer for the city; he has gone from “wage or salary worker” to “working on own account.”

Earl lettered in baseball as a sophomore pitcher in 1935, then during the summer played for the Fresno American Legion Junior team and for the Holmes Rookies in the Fresno City Playground Department’s Twilight League. In his junior year of high school he was a star and got a lot of attention in the Fresno Bee; often he was referred to as Uncle Earl Jones, and frequently he was described as “husky,” “stocky,” or “hefty.” 

A story in the March 28, 1936, Bee included the following:

The “city kids” again beat the “country kids” here yesterday in baseball.

But what a time the youthful farmers from Washington Union gave Roosevelt High School’s heavily favored city dudes before the Fresno team earned a 6-to-5 league victory. It was Earl Jones, southpaw pitcher nicknamed Clark Gable by the petite farmerettes in the stands, that finally stopped the tide…

…Jones, Roosevelt’s dark-haired, jovial and somewhat plump twirler, took over mound duties from Lawrence Cole in the fourth…

After the school year ended Earl again played both American Legion and Twilight League baseball. In Legion ball on June 14 he pitched a no-hitter, struck out 19, and had three hits; in the Twilight League he played right field when not pitching and finished third in batting average at .444. 

In January 1937 he graduated early, which deprived him of his final year of high school baseball eligibility. In June, after his 18^th birthday, he started pitching for the semi-pro Catalina Island Angels, a team owned, as were the Chicago Cubs, the Los Angeles Angels, and Catalina Island itself, by gum millionaire William Wrigley. The Catalina Island team played against mainland semi-pro teams and served as a sort of low-level farm team for Wrigley’s professional teams. In a game in late July Earl threw a four-hitter against Libby Food Products, striking out sixteen and walking three; he was said to have had a good year but no stats turned up.

In February 1938 Earl was invited to spring training with the Los Angeles Angels, from where he was sent to the Bisbee Bees of the Class D Arizona-Texas League. On April 23 he pitched a four-hitter while walking 12 and won 14-8; this seems to have been fairly typical of his season. On June 8 he walked ten in the first three innings and lost 6-2, on June 21 he allowed six hits and ten walks and lost 5-2, then on June 28 he pitched in the league’s all-star game—it was a four-team league and the game pitted the first-half Champs, El Paso, against a team taken from the other three teams, and Earl was one of three pitchers named to the latter team. Meanwhile, on June 15, four days after his 19^th birthday, he had gotten married. From the June 18 Fresno Bee:

Antoinette Schiavon and Earl L. Jones, Jr., Wed Secretly in Tucson

Word has been received here of the secret marriage in Tucson, Ariz., on Wednesday afternoon of Miss Antoinette Schiavon and Earl L. Jones, Jr., both of Fresno. The civil ceremony was solemnized by Superior Judge William G. Hall.

News of the wedding came as a surprise to relatives and friends. The former Miss Schiavon left June 10 with Jones and his mother, Mrs. Earl L. Jones, Sr., for a visit to Bisbee, Ariz. The bridegroom is a pitcher for the Bisbee club in the Arizona-Texas baseball league.

The former Miss Schiavon is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. R. Joseph Schiavon, both of this city. She and her husband were graduated from the Roosevelt High School. Jones is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Earl L. Jones, Sr., of Fresno.

Earl finished the season with a very interesting stat line. In 79 innings in 15 games, he allowed 65 runs (45 earned) on 58 hits and 109 walks, with 64 strikeouts, for a 5.12 ERA; his won-lost record was 6-5. He also hit .341.

I didn’t find any information on how it happened, but for 1939 Earl found himself the property of the St. Louis Browns and was invited to spring training with their Class B Three-I League farm team in Springfield, Illinois. He ended up being sent back to Class D, this time with the Beaver Falls Bees (still Bees!) of the Pennsylvania State League. He finished 15-7 with a 3.52 ERA in 184 innings in 29 games, allowing 151 hits and 143 walks—the walks were now fewer than the innings—and led the league with 205 strikeouts.

In the 1940 census Earl and Antoinette are living at 3736 Tyler Street in Fresno; they own the house, which is valued at $2000, and they are listed as having lived there in 1935, which is not likely. Living with them are their ten-month-old daughter Katheline, Antoinette’s 18-year-old high school senior sister Clara Schiavon, and Clara’s five-month-old daughter Joyce Clark. Earl’s yearly income is listed as $740, for 40 weeks of work. Meanwhile, Earl’s parents and younger siblings are still at 142 Inez, and Earl Sr. is listed as a nightwatchman for the county.

Earl went to spring training 1940 with the San Antonio Missions, the Browns’ Class A-1 farm team, and was optioned to the Class B Springfield Browns in time for the opening of their training camp on April 15. Just a few days later, Springfield’s Daily Illinois State Journal, which was very enthusiastic about their team and would continue to report on Earl throughout his career, mentioned that he “has a lot of stuff.” 

The regular season began in early May and he made his first start on the 10^th, pitching a two-hitter with five walks and two wild pitches, winning 2-1, and getting two hits himself and scoring the winning run. The Journal described him as “chunky.”

In the league stats published on June 23, Earl was 6-2 with 42 hits allowed, 38 walks and 45 strikeouts in 57 innings. On July 4 he pitched a seven-inning no-hitter in the second game of a doubleheader, and on July 15 he started in the league’s all-star game, against first-place Cedar Rapids, for the team made up of players from all the other teams. In three innings he allowed two hits and struck out four, and made an error that led to an unearned run. He finished the season 12-5 with a 4.15 ERA in 156 innings in 26 games, striking out 123 and allowing 127 hits and 117 walks. The team finished third and lost in the first round of the four-team playoffs; as the series ended the Journal observed “It begins to look as if a big lead is fatal to Earl Jones. The chunky lefthander has run into several weird games and all of them came after his mates had given him a comfortable lead.” A year-in-sports-review article on December 31 included the assessment “Jones, a left hander, turned in a seven inning no hitter against Decatur, but from there on completely lost all sense of direction so that he was more of a liability than an asset in the pennant race.”

On October 16 Earl filled out his draft registration card, which listed him as 5-10, 195, with ruddy complexion, brown hair and blue eyes. He went to spring training 1941 with San Antonio again, and again was sent to Springfield. From the Journal of May 2:

The chunky southpaw’s back for another shot at Triorb competition after winning twelve and losing five last year. A seven inning no-hitter against Decatur was one of his chief performances. A changed delivery is destined to help control, his only handicap last year…He lives in Fresno, Calif., where Mrs. Jones and their young daughter rule the roost. His favorite sports, besides baseball, are fishing and hunting. He manages an olive oil plant in the off season.

On May 4 he pitched the 8^th and 9^th in the Browns’ opening-day win, and on May 8 he was one of four members of the team who spoke at a Kiwanis Club meeting. From the Journal of May 14:

HE LIKES WORK.

Considerable comment was heard yesterday on the fact that Earl Jones already has started one game and relieved two others for the Brownies. Don’t be surprised if he stages many repeat appearances of that sort. The chunky portsider thrives on work. It helps his control, the one handicap that kept him from being a sensation last year.

On June 12 he pitched a twelve-inning complete game, winning 3-2, striking out 17 and allowing eight walks (all in the first four innings) and nine hits. The Journal had this to say on the 14^th:

Art Scharein, whose handling of pitchers kept the club up in the race last year, has been working overtime with Earl Jones and result [sic] of his labors were apparent in the last eight rounds of Thursday’s battle. The chunky southpaw was ahead of every hitter and really treated his public to a great exhibition of tossing. If the remedy to his wildness is at all permanent, the Triorb will see one of the finest twirlers it has owned in years, for he has plenty of stuff on the old onion.

The remedy to his wildness was apparently not permanent. On June 24, the Journal commented “At his present gait, Earl Jones is proving to be the town’s best aspirin salesman…His pitching antics have given Manager Art Scharein and his co-workers more and better headaches than the weather man, which is saying plenty.” On June 26 he suffered his second relief loss in two nights, and the next day he was optioned to Youngstown in the Class C Middle Atlantic League, where he finished the season. With Springfield he had a 4.33 ERA with 82 strikeouts and 59 walks in 79 innings; with Youngstown it was a 2.45 ERA with 142 strikeouts and 91 walks in 125 innings, so his control didn’t really improve but his results were much better anyway.

In 1942 Earl went to spring training with Springfield, and started the season with them, but before he got into a game he was optioned to the Gloversville-Johnstown Glovers, the Browns’ farm team in the Class C Canadian-American League. On June 11 he beat the Pittsfield Electrics, 3-2, striking out nine and going four-for-four at the plate. In July he pitched in the league’s all-star game, and on August 4 he started, finished, and won both games of a doubleheader against the Quebec Athletics. He struck out seven in the seven-inning first game and nine in the nine-inning second game, walking one in each, allowing a total of eleven hits—and drove in the winning run in the second game with a single. On September 3 the Associated Press reported on his final start of the season:

Southpaw Pitcher Earl Jones, 20, of Fresno, Calif., was so elated with his selection yesterday on the Canadian-American League All Star team that he went out and:

Pitched a no hit, no run game against Rome, winning 7-0.

Set a league record by striking out twenty two batters in nine innings.

Raised his season’s strikeout total to 222.

Increased his wins to seventeen.

Jones retired the side on strikes in six innings. He walked two and another opponent reached first on an error. The Gloversville outfield behind the St. Louis Browns’ protégé made only one putout.

Earl struck out his 222 batters in 230 innings and walked 103, much better control than he had yet shown in pro ball. His record was 17-11, his ERA was 3.33, and he pitched 22 complete games.

For 1943 Earl signed a contract with the Toledo Mud Hens, the Browns’ Class AA farm team in the American Association. In May the Springfield Daily Illinois State Journal observed that four former Springfield pitchers were with Toledo, adding “Earl Jones, the chunky southpaw, also is on hand and apparently in the best shape of his career.” But he had only pitched 20 innings in nine games (4.50 ERA, 11 strikeouts, 20 walks) by mid-July—apparently due to an injury of some sort--when the Browns called him up and immediately optioned him to the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League. After a relief appearance he got his first start for the Oaks on July 29, and pitched a four-hitter but lost 2-1. On August 3 he pitched another four-hitter, walking 6, and won; the San Francisco Chronicle gave him a new adjective, referring to him as “wee Oakland left-hander.” On August 5 the Chronicle reported:

…but the bantam lefthander Earl Jones will take up some of the slack in the pitching department. The St. Louis Brownie, who hails from Fresno, has turned in a pair of four-hitters since joining the club in the Northwest.

They tell a story on Jones-y.

On his first time at bat against the Seattle club Jones pickled a single. That night he told his roommate, in all seriousness, “That’s what comes of not taking hitting practice. If I had had my cuts in hitting practice that ball would have gone over the wall for a home run instead of being just a measly single.”

The little fellow has confidence to spare.

On August 12 the Chronicle called him “diminutive left-hander,” on August 13 they said that “Jones doesn’t hold runners very close to the base,” and on August 23 they reported that “stocky Earl Jones” had pitched a two-hit shutout. On August 28 there was an article about three Oaks who the Seals could have had, part of which went:

Jones’ case was different, and out of it grew a bitterness the left-handed hurler spends little time trying to conceal.

A wow on a Fresno High School team, a playmate of Don Trower and Harry Goorabian, later to become Seals, Jones claims he had a verbal agreement with Graham in 1938 that the Seal prexy promised to put him on the pay roll the following spring. Came spring, didn’t come any orders for Jones to report. That winter he had, so he says, turned down several major league tryout requests, because “Mr. Graham wants me to play with the Seals.”

Finally, Earl came to camp on his own, looked like a walking moving van, and suddenly disappeared. He weighed 210 pounds.

“I guess they thought I was too fat,” was Jones’ only explanation for the “bum deal” he got. And added:

“I’m glad they didn’t take me. If that’s the way they treat their players, I don’t want any part of them.”

And Earl meant it, too.

That’s why the Earl of Jones never got into the Seal flannels.

On September 3 he pitched a five-hit shutout, and then there was a story about him lobbying manager Johnny Vergez to let him pitch both games of a doubleheader like he had done the year before, but this didn’t come about. On September 10 he had a no-hitter until two out in the 9^th in his final start of the year; he finished the PCL part of his season with a 2.17 ERA in 91 innings, with 39 strikeouts and 47 walks. On September 29 it was announced that the Browns had recalled him from Oakland and he was to report to them for spring training.

During spring training 1944 Earl was classified 4-F by the Fresno draft board due to a punctured eardrum, but despite the ballplayer shortage he was sent back to Toledo, where he spent the entire season. On July 12 he lost a no-hitter in the 8^th, in an August game he tied the league record by striking out 13, and on August 29 he allowed ten hits and eleven walks in ten innings yet gave up just one run. He finished the season with a 10-6 record, a 3.69 ERA in 144 innings, 122 strikeouts and 76 walks. After the season he joined the St. Louis Browns, but did not play for them and I don’t know that he was ever on the roster, but he was mentioned as shagging flies before one of their World Series games.

On March 22, 1945, Earl got a writeup in the Sporting News:

Whiffer Jones Makes Blazing Bid on Browns

Southpaw Likely to Remain; Hurler LaMacchia Also Believed Ready

By Frederick G. Lieb 

Cape Girardeau, Mo. 

When the Browns won their first pennant, in 1944, Luke Sewell accomplished the feat largely with his five righthanders, Nelson Potter, Jack Kramer, Bob Muncrief, Sig Jakucki and Denny Galehouse. The veteran southpaw, Al Hollingsworth, was credited with five wins against seven defeats, but pitched in only three complete games. Two young lefties, Sam Zoldak and Weldon West, made occasional appearances in the box scores, but neither figured in a victory or defeat.

It probably will be different this year, with a strong-armed lefthander from California, Earl Jones, making a bid for a place on Sewell’s regular staff. What’s more, opportunity is still knocking at Jones’ door, and the job is his if he can whip in that fast one and buzz over his curve as he has done so successfully for Brown farm clubs in the minors.

A trail of strikeouts has followed Jones throughout his career, and it is a poor season when chubby Earl whiffs only 100. His record was 205 with Beaver Falls in 1939 and 123 with Springfield in 1940. Between Springfield and Youngstown, Jones collected 224 victims in 1941 and almost hit that figure on the nose, with 222, with Gloversville in 1942. He was out for much of the ’43 season, but fanned 39 batters for Oakland in the last six weeks of the race. Though injuries kept Jones on the sidelines for nine weeks in Toledo last season, he racked up 122 strikeouts in 144 innings, while winning 10 games out of 16. Poor control of his fast ball held Earl back, but he has steadied with experience and now appears ripe. Watch him enter some of those strikeouts in American League ledgers. A punctured eardrum put him in 4-F.

(Earl seems to have impressed everyone in spring training, though some papers were calling him “Whiffer” and others “Whipper”—neither of which I ever came across before now.)

Also that March, Earl filled out an American Baseball Bureau questionnaire, in which he listed his nickname as “Lefty,” his nationality as Irish and Welsh, his address as 142 Inez Street, his height and weight as 5-10, 195, his off-season occupation as Roma Winery, his favorite sport other than baseball as hunting, and his hobby also as hunting.

Earl opened the season with the Browns, and spent the entire year with them (three games with San Diego that show up on his Baseball Reference page were actually a different Earl Jones), yet he never got into a game until July 6, when he pitched a perfect ninth against the Senators, with one strikeout. On the 12^th he pitched 5.1 innings of effective relief, then sat some more until August 6, when he gave up one run in a three-inning relief stint. On August 10 he pitched another 5.1 innings of relief, during which he had his first major league hit, a three-run homer—this coming a few days after Antoinette gave birth to their second daughter, Linda. Earl got into three more games in August and two in September, all in relief. He ended up with a 2.54 ERA in 28 innings in ten games, with 13 strikeouts and 18 walks, yet that was it for Earl’s major league career. The Browns finished in third place, and Earl was voted a full share of the third place money.

On December 29 the Browns released Earl to Toledo, and he spent the entire 1946 season with them. In March he filled out another questionnaire, listing his height and weight now at 5-10 ½, 188 (slightly taller and lighter than last year), two nicknames, “Jonesie” and “Lefty,” his favorite sport other than baseball is now swimming, hobbies hunting and fishing, and his ambition in baseball is to win 20 games. For “To whom do you owe the most in your baseball career?” he put “Father & wife,” and for “What would you consider your most interesting or unusual experience in baseball?” he listed:

1942 with Gloversville pitched & won double header 2-1 & 5-0 

Also pitched no-hit no-run game striking out 22 

First base hit in majors home run with 2 on, 1945

In late June it was reported that Earl was considering bids from the outlaw Mexican League, but nothing came of that. He went back and forth between starting and relieving, pitching some good games but ending up with a 5.52 ERA in 137 innings, with 84 strikeouts and 97 walks.

Earl spent 1947 with Toledo again. The Springfield Daily Illinois State Journal, still keeping tabs on him, reported on June 25, “Earl Jones, the chunky lefthander who was either great or terrible while with the Brownies, seems to be finding himself at last. He has hurled steadily for the Mudhens.” He pitched a seven-inning three-hit shutout in the team’s final home game of the season, and wound up with a 4.37 ERA in 105 innings in 23 games (11 starts), with 65 strikeouts and 49 walks.

On March 10, 1948, Earl was sold to the Oakland Oaks, for whom he had pitched part of the 1943 season. On March 24 the San Francisco Chronicle reported:

Earl Jones, a left-hander, has lost several pounds and will be given a starting assignment against a major league club before the PCL season opens next Tuesday, according to Stengel. Jones is on a look basis. He has no contract.

Earl made the team, and pitched in relief in the second game of the season. The Chronicle said:

Stengel, incidentally, was impressed by the relief work of Earl Jones on Wednesday night—the Earl Jones who pitched for the Oaks in 1943, but no one remembers him. Jones showed finesse of a Pudgy Gould sort.

He immediately moved into the starting rotation. On April 17 the Chronicle, reporting on his four-hit shutout, called him “the cool, control-ball leftie,” and on April 24 they reported:

Barrel-chested Earl Jones, a handsome curly haired left-hander who doesn’t want to go into the movies, pitched the Oaks into a 7-2 win over the Portland Beavers tonight before 4857…The Beavers couldn’t touch his smart pitching until the eighth when Portland broke a 15-inning run drought and nicked Mr. Barrel Chest for the first run off him in 17 innings…

From this point the Chronicle overwhelmingly adopts the description “barrel-chested” for Earl, rather than chunky or pudgy or stocky. By late May he was 4-0 with two shutouts, he pitched his third shutout in early July (with no walks!), and he finished the season 13-6 with a 2.98 ERA in 196 innings in 39 games, with 82 strikeouts and 110 walks. His strikeout rate was way down, and it seems as though he was relying less on speed, though he was still issuing plenty of walks. He ended the season with a win in game two of the championship series with Seattle, which the Oaks won in five games.

In 1949 Earl again spent the year with Oakland. He turned thirty during the season and didn’t have nearly as good a year as he did in 1948, ending the season with a 10-10 record and a 4.35 ERA in 161 innings, with 52 strikeouts and 78 walks.

Earl signed a 1950 contract with the Oaks, then reported to training camp overweight. He started four games and lost them all, then, as the Chronicle reported on April 23:

The sad case of Oakland starting pitcher Jones reads like a script for a radio soap opera. The portly lefthander, who hasn’t won a game so far this year, was sold to Little Rock of the Southern Association before the game started—but he didn’t even know it.

Earl never played for Little Rock, but I couldn’t find any details. Maybe he didn’t want to leave California and refused to report. The next mention of him I found was in the San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune of August 27, 1951, which found him pitching for the Fresno Cardinals, a St. Louis Cardinal farm club, in the Class C California League. He beat Stockton, 3-2, singling in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. He had a 5.46 ERA for Fresno in 94 innings in 19 games, with 71 strikeouts and 36 walks (the best ratio of his career).

He did not pitch professionally in 1952 or 1953, then he popped up again in 1954. On March 1 he filled out another questionnaire, giving his address as 4054 Montecito in Fresno and his height and weight as 5-10, 195. His daughters are now 14 and 8, and he gives his off-season occupation as city fireman in Fresno. He pitched in five games that season for the Visalia Cubs of the California League, but the only available stats are his 1-0 record.

Earl turns up in the 1955 Fresno city directory, his occupation listed as city firefighter, and again in the 1960 directory, which shows him and Antoinette at 4054 Montecito and gives his occupation as “Mtr Pump Eng.” I have found nothing about him after that until his death, in Fresno on January 24, 1989, aged 69. Antoinette passed away in 2017 at the age of 98.

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/J/Pjonee102.htm

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/jonesea01.shtml

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/profile.asp?ID=13441