Barney Mussill

 

Barney Mussill was a relief pitcher in 16 games with the 1944 Phillies.

Bernard James Mussill (pronounced mewzle) was born October 1, 1919, in Bower Hill, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh. He was the second of three children of Anthony and Theresa Mussill, both born in Pennsylvania in the 1890s to Austrian immigrants. In the 1920 census the family is living in a rented house on Elm Street in Butler, West Virginia: Anthony, 28, a machinist in a steel mill; Theresa, 25; Edward, 2; Bernard, 3 months; and Theresa’s brother Joseph Pantner, 27, a roller in a steel mill. Butler is at the northern end of West Virginia, on the Pennsylvania border and almost on the Ohio border.

By the 1930 census the Mussills had moved across the Ohio River to Steubenville, Ohio, to a house at 425 Henry Avenue that they rented for $65 a month. Anthony is still a machinist in a steel mill, and 12-year-old Edward and 10-year-old Bernard have been joined by six-year-old Dorothy.

By 1935 the family had moved to River Rouge, Michigan, just outside of Detroit and just across the Detroit River from Windsor, Ontario, and bought a house at 71 Elm Street. Barney attended Our Lady of Lourdes High School, where as a sophomore in 1935-36 he played left end on the football team and pitched two no-hitters for the baseball team. I didn’t find any football mentions from his junior year, but he was on the basketball team, pitched another no-hitter, and was the Catholic League golf champion. In his senior year, 1937-38, the only mention I found of him was in May, when he struck out 18 in a 7-2 victory.

After graduation Barney pitched for Federalsburg (Maryland) in the Class D Eastern Shore League, a Philadelphia Athletics affiliate, but fewer than 45 innings in fewer than ten games, so no stats are available. In 1939 he pitched for both Federalsburg and Lexington in the Class D North Carolina State League, also an Athletics affiliate, but again pitched fewer than 45 innings in fewer than ten games in each league. Around baseball seasons he attended Bowling Green University in Ohio, studying physical education.

In the 1940 census, taken April 4, the Mussill family is at their 71 Elm Street house, valued at $3400. Anthony is a laborer in the automobile industry, making $1800 a year. Edward, 22, is neither a student nor employed, while 16-year-old Dorothy is listed as a student—as is Barney, though the day before this his name had appeared in the Trenton Evening Times on the roster of the Trenton Senators of the Class B Interstate League, as a 6-0, 170 pound left-handed pitcher.

Barney started the season doing more relieving than starting, then in mid-season was starting regularly. A Trenton Evening Times review of the season from December said that “Pitcher Bernard Mussill, a consistent June and July winner, suddenly lost his effectiveness completely in August and had to be placed on the suspended list for a two-week period.” Still, he ended up with a 10-9 record and 3.25 ERA in 133 innings in 27 games, with 127 strikeouts. In June he got his first Sporting News mention, in a list of professional players who wore glasses; the Evening Times tended to refer to him as “bespectacled southpaw” or “bespectacled curve-ball artist.” A September 15 Evening Times article on the players’ off-season plans said that “Bernard Mussill, Detroit boy, will work here.” On October 16 Barney filled out his draft registration card, and gave his address as 71 Elm Street, his employer as the Trenton Baseball Club, the “person who will always know your address” as his father, at the same address, and his appearance as 6-1, 195, blue eyes, black hair, and dark complexion.

In 1941 Barney returned to Trenton; this time he did little if any relieving, and had a 2.79 ERA in 174 innings in 26 games, with 148 strikeouts and a 13-7 record. At the end of the season he was purchased by the Newark Bears, a New York Yankee affiliate in the Class AA International League.

Barney went to spring training 1942 with Newark, but by the end of March his number came up for the draft. He was inducted into the Army and was stationed at Fort Warren in Wyoming, where he played baseball. His drafting nullified the sale to Newark, so he reverted to the Trenton roster, on their National Defense list, until in November he was transferred to the Phillies’ National Defense list—by then Trenton and the Phillies had begun a working agreement, which allowed them to pluck Barney away. In the summer of 1943 he was involved in a mustard gas accident that eventually got him discharged, in October, and on November 1 the Phillies signed him to a 1944 contract.

Barney went to spring training with Philadelphia, now calling themselves the Blue Jays as well as the Phillies. On March 22 he appeared on their roster, listed as 6-0, 200 pounds; in April a story appeared in various newspapers that gave some details on his Army experiences:

Blue Jays Have One-Man Gashouse Gang

No battles have been fought in Wyoming so far in this war, and there have been no gas attacks except rumors anywhere in the whole war, which makes a special case out of Barney Mussill, left-handed pitching rookie training at Wilmington, Del., under the Blue-Jay aegis for a job on Fred Fitzsimmons’ staff.

He is an American soldier, gassed last summer in Wyoming, discharged in October after three months in the hospital. Today he wears thick, tinted eyeglasses and can read only one hour out of every 24, but the pitching muscles are working right, and loom big in the Phillies’ pitching prospects for ’44.

Training with a chemical warfare unit at Fort Warren, Wyoming, Barney was working in a storehouse full of mustard gas containers. He noticed one container out of place. It had been placed “out of place” because of a defect. Barney didn’t know that. He placed it back in position, thereby landing in the hospital for three months, during most of which he was exactly blind.

“Wonderful medical treatment in the Army restored the sight,” testified Barney to training camp reporters. “I can feel my eyes getting stronger every day.”

Army service did not completely interrupt big Barney’s baseball progress, for Fort Warren has a team, coached last year by Art (The Great) Shires. Barney joined in the middle of 1942, won 19 and lost 2 that year, 17 and 2 last year up to the moment he tried to tidy up the gas-house…

Barney made the team, and on April 20, the Blue Jays’ third game of the season, he made his major league debut at home against the Dodgers, pitching the eighth inning in an 8-2 loss. He retired his first batter, Frenchy Bordagaray, on a fly out, but then walked Dixie Walker, who later scored on a single by Augie Galan.

That was the only game Barney pitched in April, and he only made two appearances in May, but he pitched fairly regularly in June and July, all in relief. On July 26, at home against the Cardinals, he got his only decision, pitching the ninth and part of the tenth inning in an 8-6 loss. The last batter he faced was Stan Musial, who drove in the final run with a two-out single. After that Barney was optioned to Utica of the Eastern League, but he doesn’t seem to have pitched there; yet, on September 6 he started an exhibition game for Philadelphia at Fort Dix, New Jersey, against a team of Fort Dix players. He had a 6.05 ERA for the Blue Jays in 19 1/3 innings in 16 games, walking 13 and striking out five.

In February 1945 Barney, still just 25 years old, married Emma Vujaklya in Detroit; they would have two children. He opened a sporting goods store, Mussill’s Sports Center, at 10847 W Jefferson Avenue in River Rouge, which is still in business. According to Baseball Reference, “Along with his personal knowledge of sports equipment, he dedicated his time to research the origin and evolution of the baseball bat.” Barney passed away in Detroit at age 93 on January 27, 2013, and Emma followed on December 29, 2016, the day before her 93^rd birthday.

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/M/Pmussb101.htm

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/mussiba01.shtml