Tommy Toms

Tommy Toms was a relief pitcher for the 1975-77 Giants.

Thomas Howard Toms was born October 15, 1951, in Charlottesville, Virginia. He lettered in baseball and basketball at Albemarle High School in Charlottesville, and graduated in 1970. He then attended East Carolina University, where he made honorable mention, as a pitcher, on the All-Southern Conference team in 1972, then made the first team in 1973, his junior year. In June of 1973 he was chosen by the Giants in the sixth round of the free agent draft.

The Giants sent Tommy to Great Falls of the Rookie Class Pioneer League, where he had a 2.38 ERA in 21 relief appearances, with 41 strikeouts and nine walks in 34 innings. Then he was bumped up to Fresno of the Class A California League and had a 2.40 ERA in 15 innings in four games, two of them starts. On July 18 he filled out a questionnaire in which he gave his off-season occupation as student and his hobby as golf.

Tommy started 1974 with Amarillo of the Class AA Texas League. He pitched well and got moved up to AAA Phoenix in August; between the two teams he had a 2.83 ERA in 108 innings in 46 games, with a 10-5 record and five saves. He returned to Phoenix for 1975, but on May 2 he was called up to San Francisco when Tom Bradley was sent down.

He made his major league debut at home against the Astros on May 4, coming in for Charlie Williams with nobody out in the top of the fifth, Cesar Cedeno on second, a run in, and the Giants behind 10-4. Cedeno stole third, then Tommy struck out Cliff Johnson and intentionally walked Jose Cruz. After Cruz stole second Tommy intentionally walked Milt May and then balked in a run; he then retired Ken Boswell, walked Rob Andrews, and struck out J.R. Richard. He got Houston 1-2-3 in the sixth, including a strikeout of Cedeno, then was pinch-hit for in the bottom of the inning by Glenn Adams, also making his debut.

Tommy then missed some games with elbow soreness, not making his second appearance until May 17, when he pitched the last three innings in a 17-2 home loss to St. Louis, allowing the last two runs. After a few more outings he got some space in Bob Eger’s column in the Arizona Republic:

Toms’ first break this spring was a very bad one. Late in spring training, the people who make such decisions decided he should pitch for Lafayette, La., in the Class AA Texas League despite an impressive showing at Phoenix late in 1974.

Needless to say, Mr. Toms was an extremely depressed young man.

His depression lasted exactly one day. At their nightly staff meeting at Francisco Grande, the Giants’ personnel manipulators decided they had made a mistake and quickly returned him to the Phoenix roster.

Given new life, he started spectacularly with Phoenix and was the first local player promoted this spring when the parent club needed help. He’s been struggling in San Francisco, and he may be back in Phoenix yet, but even that beats the heck out of Lafayette…

Tommy pitched one more game, on the 10^th, and then was returned to Phoenix. He didn’t get there too quickly, though, as reported in the Sporting News July 5:

General Manager Ethan Blackaby of Phoenix, a former professional player himself, said June 16 he would recommend a fine for relief pitcher Tommy Toms, sent down by the parent Giants three days earlier, but not on hand as Phoenix fell to Salt Lake City, 11-7. “It shouldn’t take him three days to find his way down here,” said Blackaby, “and he might have made the difference.” The Gulls jumped on Rob Dressler, who had pitched a four-hit shutout two days earlier, for four runs in the final inning after the Giants were forced to press him into relief duty.

Tommy did find his way to Phoenix and finished the season there. With San Francisco he had a 6.10 ERA in 10 1/3 innings in seven games, while with Phoenix he had a 2.07 mark in 74 innings in 40 games, with 11 saves. He was voted a 2/5 share of the Giants’ share of the World Series money, which got him $115.60.

In 1976 Tommy went to spring training with San Francisco, but was sent to the minor league camp on April 4, and opened the season back at Phoenix. From the May 23 Arizona Republic:

T.T. tough twice in Giants’ sweep

SPOKANE—When Phoenix pitcher Tommy Toms gets back home, don’t be too surprised if his Giant teammates have tagged him “T.T.” for reasons other than the obvious.

“Two-Way Trouble,” which is just what he gave Spokane Saturday afternoon at the plate and on the mound while leading the Arizonans to 4-3 and 5-3 victories over the hometown Indians.

The sidearming North Carolinian with the southern twang recorded his second save of the season in the first game, then hit for himself and delivered a key single before coming around to score the winning run to earn the second-game win.

Not too bad a day—a save, a win, his first hit in years, and the game-winning tally before 3,279 fans at Fairgrounds Park. And in the tradition of all pitchers, his biggest thrill in pacing his club to their third and fourth consecutive victories was easily the last-inning single.

“The hit was something else,” he enthused, “especially because it was so important. The last time I hit was about three years ago in Fresno (California League).”

TSN, June 5:

Salt Lake City third baseman Ike Hampton ignited a wrestling match on May 16 when he rushed Phoenix pitcher Tommy Toms, who had dusted Hampton before a seventh-inning single in the Gulls’ 9-2 triumph. Hampton waited until the inning had ended before he grappled with Toms, leading to a bench-clearing shoving match. Said Hampton: “I told him that the next time he throws at me he had better make it worthwhile by hitting me. All the teams in the league have been throwing at us this year and we are getting tired of it. I waited until the inning was over and saw we had a safe lead before saying something. He started to pop off and I went after him.”

Despite not getting his second save until May 22, Tommy set a new PCL record with 21. Along the way, Art Rosenbaum wrote in his San Francisco Chronicle column on July 12, in an assessment of some of the Phoenix players:

Another who has the ability, in his own way, is reliever Tommy Toms. He is leading the Pacific Coast League in saves, and he is doing it with cute stuff. He is a cross between Stu Miller and Randy Jones. His speeds are slow, slower and slowest, but he gets ‘em out.

Tommy had a 2.13 ERA in 72 innings in 51 games, then was called up to San Francisco when the PCL season ended. He got his first major league save in his first game, on September 7; he relieved Jim Barr with a runner on second with one out in the bottom of the ninth in a 6-3 game, and retired Braves Cito Gaston and Jerry Royster. His 1976 San Francisco stint was very similar to 1975: seven games, a 0-1 record, and a 6.23 ERA (vs. 1975’s 6.10). He did strike out Tony Perez and Johnny Bench on consecutive days.

In 1977 Tommy went to spring training with San Francisco but was sent to the minor league complex on March 22 and opened the season with Phoenix again. From Bart Ripp’s “Ripp’s Rap” column in the April 20 Albuquerque Journal, about the Phoenix Giants and their manager, Rocky Bridges:

…The Phoenix bunch enjoys playing for Rocky because he has no dress code on the road and only this year, because of front office pressure, do Giants players have to have some neck showing beneath their hair.

“Look at a guy like (Tommy) Toms. He’s not gonna be a matinee idol, so what are you gonna do about his hair?” Bridges jokes. “He’d rather wear tennis shoes than Florsheim’s. You never know when you’re going to be walking down the street some day and you want to stuff a basket…”

The next day, Ripp did a column on Tommy:

Fireman Toms Yearns To Be Carpenter

Many major league baseball general managers nurture the nitwit notion that a ballplayer’s value correlates with his off-the-field appearance and demeanor.

These taskmasters think that unless a guy has a Kingston Trio haircut, a $40 clinging polyester shirt with smoky houris [no idea what this means] across the back, double-tight double-knit pants with the Superfly waistband and shiny red patent leather and suede shoes, he just can’t cut it in the show.

Almost any general manager who saw Tommy Toms would do what San Francisco’s Spec Richardson did: send the 25-year-old pitcher back to Phoenix for another season.

A menacing master of a relief pitcher, Toms looks like a roadie for the Grateful Dead who wandered into what he thought was an herb shop and walked out with a haircut. The Giants made Toms cut his hair this spring, but this was like messing with Sampson; Tommy was only the Pacific Coast League’s best reliever last season, compiling a 4-6 record, with a 2.13 ERA and a league record 21 saves.

“He is tough,” Dukes catcher Kevin Pasley says. “He comes from the right side and the ball moves into you. That hard slider away is tough.”

So is Toms’ snaky motion, which Phoenix manager Rocky Bridges describes as “an overgrown centipede throwing the ball home.”

The shorn centipede didn’t take to having his hair cut. “It bleeped me off,” Toms says. “Here’s a jerk weighing 300 pounds in double knits and all and I got my blue jeans on and he thinks I’M weird.”

Toms, who holds B.S. degrees from East Carolina University in physical education and—get this—driver’s education, would fit in perfectly in a jewelry class at UNM. His shirts range from loose-hanging cowboy shirts to tees proclaiming “Greenville’s second annual Halloween riot.” His jeans and red Converse high-tops are also fashionable for this spacey, sensible sort.

Tommy didn’t spend his winter at the Halloween riot, but did live in Greenville, N.C., building houses and learning to snow ski and hang glide.

“Me and my two best friends built this three-story house on the beach,” Tommy recalls, turning up the volume on The Beatles’ “Octopus Garden.” “One night, it was so still, I was laying around thinking, ‘God, I wish the wind would blow.’

“The next day we were out there and the wind was blowing 85 bleeping mph. Trees blowing over and hurricane stuff like that. It blew the house down on top of us.”

Tommy also took up hang gliding in Jockey’s Ridge, N.C., where those old space cadets Orville and Wilbur Wright used to fly.

Asked if he’d like to take off from Sandia Crest and land on the Sports Stadium mound for a game, Toms said, “I want to glide where it’s pretty, not over the Dukes or Giants stadium. I took to the hang gliding pretty good.

“The Giants don’t know about it, but what do I care?”

Tommy does care that San Francisco is wasting his talent. “They think my fastball’s not good enough,” Toms says. “I think it’s damn good. They’ll get rid of me somehow. If somebody wants me, I’m available.”

Bridges enjoys having Tommy around. “Anything I’ve asked, Tommy’s done it,” Rocky says. “When the bell rings, he’s always able to answer the door.

“It’s always a safe out to use him because I can say I’ve used my best.”

Toms, who admits he knocks down hitters who crowd the plate, is the Coast League’s answer to Mark Fidrych, only Tommy has yet to speak with the baseballs or mind the mound. Tommy’s sinker is just as low and hard to hit as Fidrych’s, he also doesn’t seem to care what the Establishment thinks of him, but he has yet to be appreciated by baseball fans and executives.

“If it wasn’t for the money in baseball, I’d love to be a carpenter,” Toms says. “I could work a little, goof off a little.

“I’m not out to make a million dollars. I just want to enjoy life.”

TSN, June 11:

TOMS IS BASKETBALL FAN

Perhaps not typical, but certainly worth noting are the sentiments of Phoenix reliever Tommy Toms on the chances of Arizona State University signing prep basketball phenom Albert King of New York City. “I’ve already talked it over with the wife,” revealed Toms, a Virginia native who closely follows the Atlantic Coast Conference cage race each winter. “If ASU gets King, we’re seriously considering staying here next winter. If he goes to Maryland, we’ll go back to Virginia.”

On June 22 Tommy was called up to San Francisco when Lynn McGlothen was put on the disabled list; he was leading the league in wins (7) and saves (8). He got into four games in the next two weeks, allowing five runs in 4 1/3 innings, but since only one run was earned his ERA was just 2.08. He had his third straight 0-1 record. He then went back to Phoenix, where he ended the season with a 10-3 record and a league-leading 19 saves (second-best was nine), with a 2.81 ERA in 77 innings in 53 games. He was named Phoenix’s most valuable pitcher, and he was returned to the San Francisco roster in mid-September, though told to report in spring training rather than immediately.

During spring training 1978, on April 3, Tommy was sold to the Springfield Redbirds of the American Association, the Cardinals’ AAA affiliate. From Larry Harnly’s column in the May 2 Springfield State Journal-Register:

Summing up pitching at Lanphier Park

Your assignment, Tommy Toms, is to sum up pitching at Lanphier Park in five words or less.

“Do they have to be a printable five words?” Toms asked with a smile…

Pitching at Lanphier Park, with its friendly (for hitters) power alleys, has been hazardous to the mental well-being of Springfield pitchers.

Toms, an easy-going type, could have been critical of the short dimensions, but he was not. “I like this park,” he said. “The grass is super. The fences could be longer and higher. If you put some height on the fences, they would be OK. But you can’t have everything.”

…How does Toms cope with the feeling that goes with giving up a late home run that beats his team?

“Coping with it is not as much of a problem as it probably should be,” Toms replied. “I wish it would bother me more.

“I was involved in a great pennant race this winter in Puerto Rico. Things seem less magnified here so far.”

One year ago, Toms was outstanding for Phoenix of the Class AAA Pacific Coast League. He was 10-3 with 19 saves and a 2.81 earned run average. He enjoyed life in the Coast League.

“My second goal is to get back in the Coast League,” said Toms, coming up with a rather unique goal.

His first goal is obvious—pitching in the majors. He was still the property of the Giants when they put together a package to obtain Vida Blue from the A’s.

“I was sick I wasn’t in that deal,” Toms said. “I would have been back with Jack McKeon (Oakland coach who managed him this winter). I think I would have made that team.”

Instead, Toms was traded—at least he thinks so—to the Cardinal organization during spring training. “I feel I belong to St. Louis and I think I do, but nothing would surprise me,” Toms said…

“I’m not surprised I was traded. I hoped I would go to Oakland or Seattle.”

Toms said he thinks he’s part of an excellent Springfield pitching staff. “I’ve never seen a (minor league) team as deep in pitching as this one,” he added.

“There are no scrubbinis in the bullpen—unless I’m a scrubbini.”

Toms’ quotes are better than most. At 26, he knows it’s about time to make his move toward the major league scene.

“I could go from prospect to suspect,” he said. “All they’d have to do is put the p there and take the s out.”

Toms, a Greenwood, Va., product, said he likes Springfield. “I like country living,” said Toms, the father of a 4-month-old daughter.

If you’re wondering what players do here during their free time, consider what Toms would like to do. “I hope to plant a garden,” he said.

TSN, July 1:

Reliever Toms Suffers After Sterling Seasons

SPRINGFIELD—The past two years, reliever Tommy Toms totaled 40 saves and a 14-9 record while being named the most valuable player for Phoenix (Pacific Coast) both seasons.

Peddled by the San Francisco Giants’ organization to Springfield just before the start of the current season, Toms suffered four straight losses and had a 6.35 ERA before claiming his first win June 15.

What had gone wrong for Toms?

“I’ve gotten some pitches up, and I’ve gotten burned on them,” responded Toms. “I’ve had good velocity for me. But my slider has not been good. That’s usually my out pitch.

“I don’t lack confidence, and I don’t have a negative attitude,” added Toms. “I’ve been pitching terrible, and I am disappointed. When I pitch more, I think I’ll get better.”

Said Redbird Manager Jimy Williams: “Location is his problem. He’s up too much with his pitches.”

Tommy’s ERA was down to 5.09 when on July 12 he was loaned to the Rochester Red Wings of the International League, the Orioles’ AAA affiliate, to make room for a pitcher called up to Springfield from AA. He pitched 27 innings in ten games for them, one a start, and had a 6.00 ERA. In August the Red Wings returned him to Springfield, who turned around and loaned him to the Tucson Toros of the PCL, a Texas Rangers affiliate; sounds like Tommy was no longer valued in Springfield. For Tucson he had an 8.18 ERA in 11 innings in eight games.

In February 1979 Tommy made a few appearances in the Wilson (NC) Daily Times; he participated in a baseball clinic at a high school in Snow Hill, and was the high scorer in a couple of church league basketball games. Also that month Springfield traded him to the Rangers organization for outfielder Keith Smith. I didn’t find anything more about him until the PCL report in the May 12 Sporting News, which reported: “Free agent Tommy Toms, one of the league’s foremost relievers from 1975 through 1977 with Phoenix, was working himself into shape for a possible spot in Tucson’s bullpen.” Apparently that didn’t pan out, and Tommy’s pro career was over.

In 1982 Tommy’s name started popping up in the Wilson Daily Times again, playing church league basketball and mixed doubles tennis and, as youth leader, driving the van for a group of church puppeteers. 

From October 14, 1985:

Former Major Leaguer Now A People Person

By Jim Fitzgerald

Daily Times Staff Writer

It is appropriate that kids are one of the most important aspects of Tommy Toms’ life because he thinks he is really just a kid himself.

“In the three most important areas of my life, I deal with kids,” he said. “In my family, in my job and in my church, I’m surrounded by kids, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

He is a health and physical education teacher in the Wilson County school system, he is one of the youth directors at the First Baptist Church and he is the father of three children of his own.

Toms is a contradiction. While he has a sharp wit and is quick with a joke, there is always an underlying sense of seriousness and concern. While he appears carefree and casual, he can also be extremely compassionate.

He said he took the “Los Angeles Raider” approach to life by reaching out and taking what he wants. He said his life’s motto was taken from a song by Ricky Nelson, “You can’t please everyone so you got to please yourself.”

That is on the surface. Once past that, there is another side, a side that had not always been there. In short, Toms has become more of a people person.

As a former professional baseball player, he said one of the main reasons he made it to the major leagues was his ability to not care about other people.

“When I was pitching, I wasn’t afraid to stick that ball right in someone’s ear. To me, it was win at any cost, and the hitters knew that.”

Toms said he was not a great athlete. He made it because of his desire to win and his ability to intimidate other players.

“Now I wouldn’t trade the relationships I have here in Wilson for anything,” he said. “I’ve care [sic] about people now.”

As an example, from 1980 to 1982, he and his wife, the former Susan Bussey, worked as houseparents for 17 girls at the Oxford Orphanage.

“The girls were mostly between 7 and 11 years old and most of them really weren’t orphans,” said Toms. “They were just unwanted.”

The courts had taken most of the children away from their parents because of neglect or abuse, he said. “I think it is easier to be an orphan than it is to be unwanted,” he said. “That was a tough job. We had to be the mom and dad for those kids 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

Toms is also a Sunday School teacher and youth worker for the First Baptist Church—something he says he does because he wants to and not because he happened to marry the daughter of the Rev. William Bussey, the church’s pastor…

Toms’ job supplies the third contact he has with youth. He teaches health and physical education to fourth through seventh graders at Darden-Vick and Elvie elementary schools…

Toms said he enjoyed playing Class AAA ball as much, if not more, than playing in the major league.

One of the reasons, he said, was because of some of the towns the team played—Salt Lake City, San Jose, Calif., and Albuquerque, N.M. “I used to go camping and fishing between games,” he said. “That’s not something you can do in the majors.”

…He left baseball with no regrets.

“I’ve learned from everything I’ve done in life. Baseball was a great vehicle for me to see the country, to see things I’ll probably never get to see again,” he said. “I really don’t have any regrets about anything I’ve done in my life…

“Everyone’s life has its highs and lows. If I had my life to live over, all of the valleys and all of the peaks, I wouldn’t remove the valleys. That is where I’ve learned the most. Without the valleys, you don’t appreciate the peaks.”

In the years that followed, Tommy continued to pop up in the Wilson Daily Times, coaching Boys Club baseball, basketball, and football, coaching high school baseball, coaching Babe Ruth baseball, playing church basketball, playing tennis, and teaching English as a second language. 

The last I found of him was a picture of him at the end of the Appalachian Trail from August 2003. As I post this he is about a week away from his 70^th birthday.

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/T/Ptomst101.htm

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/tomsto01.shtml