Warren Bogle pitched in sixteen games for the 1968 Oakland
Athletics.
Warren Frederick Bogle was born October 19, 1946, in
Passaic, New Jersey. He grew up in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, pitching in Little
League, Babe Ruth League, American Legion, and AAABA (All-American Amateur
Baseball Association), as well as at Lyndhurst High School. In 1963 he starred
for Lyndhurst as they lost the New Jersey state American Legion championship to
Trenton, and two years later they were back, with Warren getting a New York Times mention on August 11:
Junior Hurler Strikes Out 20
BORDENTOWN, N.J., Aug. 10 (AP)—Warren Bogle struck out 20 today as Lyndhurst won the New Jersey American Legion baseball championship beating the defending champion, Brooklawn, 6-2.
And also the Sporting
News of August 28:
Warren (The Bull) Bogle, Lyndhurst’s 6-foot-4, 235-pound lefthander, struck out 20 batters and beat Brooklawn, 7-2, in New Jersey’s final game.
Apparently opinions varied on the final score. Leading up to
the title game, Warren also had a game where he struck out 16 and hit a two-run
double, and he played first base when not pitching. Lyndhurst advanced to the
national tournament, in Aberdeen, South Dakota, that year, and Warren got a
mention in Larry Desautels’ “Batting Around” column in the Aberdeen Daily News:
Another pitcher who is a strikeout artist and will get attention from the scouts is Warren (The Brute) Bogle of the Lyndhurst, N.J., team. Bogle is 6-4 and weighs 235 pounds. In one stretch of 37 innings he registered 68 strikeouts.
In 1966 and 1967 Warren pitched for the University of Miami
in Florida, leading the team in wins and innings each year, and set a school
record for complete games with nine in 1966. He was drafted by the Kansas City
Athletics in the sixth round of the June draft in ’66, but chose to stay in
school, so they drafted him again in ’67 and this time he signed a contract.
Warren pitched in a total of 11 games over the remainder of
the 1967 season, a handful for each of three of the Athletics’ lower minor
league teams. All together he had a 4-1 record and a 2.67 ERA in 64 innings,
with 69 strikeouts and 26 walks. At the end of the season he filled out a
questionnaire in which he gave his nickname as “Bog,” his size as 6-4 225, his
marital status as single, his off-season occupation as student, and his hobbies
as hunting, fishing, and swimming. For “What would you consider your most
interesting or unusual experience in baseball?” he wrote “Hitting 2 HRs in one
game in college + leading batter for 2 years in college.”
Warren started 1968 with the Peninsula Grays of the Class A
Carolina League, for whom he had a 1.23 ERA in 44 innings. From there he was
moved up to the Birmingham A’s of the AA Southern League, where on July 20 he pitched a shutout and hit a home run. In three games with Birmingham
he had a 1.08 ERA in 25 innings; then on July 31 he was called up to Oakland
and immediately inserted into a game. He came in with one out in the 7th
with runners on first and third in the second game of a doubleheader with the
Angels, with Oakland down 2-1. He struck out Vic Davalillo on three pitches,
allowed a run-scoring single to Jim Fregosi, and got Roger Repoz to ground out.
After two more short relief appearances Warren made his
first major league start on August 8 at Yankee Stadium, with a large Lyndhurst
contingent in the stands. He was removed after allowing four runs in 3 2/3
innings, but Oakland came back to win the game. He pitched in 12 more games the
rest of the season, all in relief, and wound up with a 4.30 ERA in 23 innings,
with 26 strikeouts and eight walks.
The Athletics left Warren unprotected for the expansion
draft that fall but he was not selected; meanwhile he was in the Army. The May
6, 1969, Jersey Journal reported:
Pvt. Warren F. Bogle, Jr., whose parents live at 108 Fern Ave., Lyndhurst, was awarded the expert infantryman badge while assigned to the fourth engineer brigade at Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo. An engineer equipment repairman, Bogle entered the Army last October and had been a pitcher for the Oakland Athletics, Oakland, Calif., before entering the service.
By the time this appeared Warren was back in civilian life
and pitching for Birmingham. On June 7 the Sporting
News carried this item:
Warren Bogle has had some hard luck this season, but the Birmingham lefthander bore down to make sure nothing would go wrong in a 5-3 victory over Montgomery May 20. After giving up four hits, including a homer by George Kalafatis, Bogle retired the last 14 batters in a row, striking out four straight at one stretch.
On June 19 he was one of three pitchers who combined on a
three-hitter for the Southern League all-stars to beat the Atlanta Braves, 7-1;
he had been named to the team to replace teammate Vida Blue, who had military
duty. He spent the whole season with Birmingham and had a 9-6 record and 2.91
ERA in 136 innings.
Warren was not on the Athletics’ 40-man off-season roster,
which left him available in the winter draft, but he was not chosen. On January
8, 1970, he was named to the Lyndhurst Little League team of the decade. In
spring training he was sent to the Iowa Oaks of the Class AAA American
Association, where, pitching mostly in relief, he got off to a good start;
however, things went bad for him and he ended up with a 6.63 ERA in 38 innings,
not pitching after mid-July.
Apparently Warren had torn a tendon in his shoulder; he
decided against an operation and instead retired from baseball and went back to
school at Miami. He received his master’s in education in 1971 while coaching
the freshman baseball team. He taught in the Dade County public school system
and eventually retired; then, after moving to Collier County, also in Florida,
he began teaching social studies at St. Ann Catholic School in Naples in 2009.
That same year he was inducted into the University of Miami Sports Hall of
Fame.
No comments:
Post a Comment