The Pecan Park Eagle

Gus Mancuso, Born in Galveston, 12/05/1905.

The Mancuso Brothers are two of this area’s deepest blue credits to the talent and character pool of players in Houston baseball history. I was too young to have ever seen older brother Gus play, but I knew of him – and I listened to him broadcasting sports during the time in the early 1950s that he worked for the new Houston television station KPRC-TV as a sportscaster. Younger brother Frank was another story. I grew up watching him play in the Texas League for San Antonio, Beaumont, and, finally, as a time-to-be-cheered-on-for-our-side catcher for the 1953 Houston Buffs.

Frank Mancuso, Born in Houston, 05-23-1918.

Another factor made the Mancuso Brothers special to me in my early life. Their mother lived just five doors east down the block from our house on Japonica Street on the northeast side of the Flowers Street intersection with Japonica. Mrs. Mancuso was one of the sweetest ladies in our Pecan Park neighborhood, an older grandmother who sometimes went shopping with our mom because our mom was younger, had a car, and loved the company of this really gentle widow lady. We also (and I’m talking all the kids in our little Pecan Park Eagle cadre here) were keenly aware that Mrs. Mancuso’s two sons were these awesome baseball catching talents – and that both had risen to the big league levels and actually had performed in separate World Series contests.

Gus Mancuso had been a lights-out baseball star in the amateur leagues around Houston before he began his professional career. He batted .304 lifetime in an eight-season book-ends minor league career that split down into two segments from 1925-29 and 1946-48. In between, Gus played for 17 seasons in the major leagues (1928, 1930-45) for the Cardinals, Giants, Cubs, Dodgers, and Phillies – with most of that time spent with St. Louis and New York of the National League. For his big league career, he batted .265 with 58 home runs in 1,460 games, and also appearing in five World Series for the Cardinals (1930-31) and Giants (1933, 1936-37) – and playing in two All Star Games (1935, 1937).

As a minor leaguer, Gus played parts of two seasons with the Houston Buffs (1925, 1928). As a major leaguer, Gus had his best full season at the plate when he batted .301 in 139 games for the 1936 National League champion New York Giants. He earlier had batted .366 in 76 games for the 1930 National League champion St. Louis Cardinals.

Gus Mancuso became one of the first former athletes to transition successfully into broadcasting and commentary on radio and TV after his career.

Gus Mancuso died in Houston on October 26, 1984, just about six weeks shy of his 79th birthday.

Frank Mancuso is a much more personal memory for me. In his later years, we got to be good friends and one of my main go-to-guys on any fuzzy question that came up for me in my research on Houston’s early baseball history. Between Frank Mancuso, Red Munger, Jerry Witte, Jim Basso, and Larry Miggins, a lot of deep personal experience from these guys saved me countless hours of shoe leather burning, musty page turning research at the downtown library. Now only Larry Miggins remains from my little informal group of original research consultants.

Frank Mancuso’s baseball history is laced with the painful thought of what-might-have been. His early minor league seasons had definitive future big league star written all over them. In 13 seasons scattered over the 1937-1955 era, Frank batted a career .276 with 128 homers. Frank’s record during the pre-World War II years, however, were loaded with .300 plus season batting averages. His potential as top-notch offensive and defensive catcher seemed like a really good bet.

Then came the war and the intervention of unexpected events.

As a US Army paratrooper trainee at boot camp in Georgia in 1943, Frank Mancuso became briefly the “catcher in the sky.” On his first jump, however, his chute failed to open properly and he suddenly found himself hurtling toward earth and what appeared to be a sure end. Miraculously, Frank survived a hard fall, but he broke his back and damaged a number of discs for all time. Incredibly, he wasn’t paralyzed by the near tragedy.

Frank dedicated himself to recovery. No longer able to serve in the military, Mancuso managed to work himself back into shape to play as a rookie catcher for the 1944 St. Louis Browns. Frank only batted .205 with 1 HR in 88 games, but he teamed well with Red Hayworth as receivers for the only Browns club in history to win an American League pennant and reach the World Series. Frank’s defensive skills were still high. He simply couldn’t look straight up to search for high foul tips.

Franks Mancuso’s 1944 World Series action was limited to pinch-hitting, but that action provided him with perhaps his proudest moment in baseball. Frank went two for three as a pinch hitter with one RBI and a .667 World Series batting average that he treasured for the rest of his life.

As a four-season major leaguer with the Browns (1944-46) and Washington Senators (1947), Frank Mancuso batted .241 and 5 career homers.

After baseball, Frank came home to Houston and went into politics. For thirty years, he represented most of the East End as one of the most honest and dedicated people to have ever served on Houston’s City Council, and working hard to make sure that the largely blue-collar residents of the East End were not shortchanged on the distribution of city services. He was especially effective in getting East End parks built and upgraded for youth sporting activities over the years. The City  of Houston and Harris County finally named a complex in his behalf as a sign of their recognition of his service contributions to kids during his retirement years.

I knew Frank as a real gentleman and good friend. He loved baseball – and he loved Houston. There was nothing in his power that ever held him back from quietly doing what he could to help preserve the memory of the game and make it known and available as a sport of choice for the kids of generations to come. Frank was helping me in the early stages of my research on the history of West End Park.

When he died, I lost a good friend. And Houston surrendered an irreplaceable resource. Frank Mancuso was the very heart of the spirit that made this city the place it fought hard to become as a wide-open area of honest opportunity for all who were willing to work to get there. His departure from us is impossible to calculate in the loss column.

Frank Mancuso died in Houston on August 4, 2007 at the age of 88.

Two of Frank’s family survive as my good friends – and also as friends and supporters of Houston baseball history. They are Frank Mancuso, Jr., an executive with St. Arnold Brewery and Shaun Bejani, Frank Mancuso, Sr.’s grandson. Shaun is an up and coming sports talk show host for AM Radio Station 610. I’ve also met the son of Gus Mancuso, a retired military man. Gus, Jr. also loved baseball and values preserving the history of the game. It apparently just runs with gene-power in the Mancuso family.

Long Live the Mancusos! You were the face of the force that made Houston a great city!

Tags: Baseball, Frank Mancuso, Gus Mancuso, History

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