Prepare for an historical treat, Pecan Park Eagle Readers. David E. Skelton is one of the most skilled and thorough researchers of baseball history we’ve ever had the good fortune to encounter as a reader. We genuinely think that your second serving of his work here likely will be most welcomed too as a fine follow up to the great article we also published here recently that David so beautifully wrote about the Astros’ great defensive shortstop, Roger Metzger.

Relax and enjoy, folks. You are about to learn more about the athletic history of former MLB player John Orsino than 80% of his blood family line even knows.

And thank you, David E. Skelton, for taking The Pecan Park Eagle on an even higher ride through the skies of baseball history. We are most pleased to having you with us as an independent contributing writer – and we look forward to reading more of your work in the future.

~ Bill McCurdy, Owner, Publisher, and Editor, The Pecan Park Eagle

 

JOHN ORSINO

By David E. Skelton

 

In 1964, Baltimore Orioles GM Larry MacPhail, enthralled with his club’s 26-year-old catcher, claimed, “[A]ll the ‘Orioles need to be a big winner is nine John Orsinos. That boy has the winning spirit.”[i] Two years later, following Orsino’s trade to the Washington Senators, coach George Susce echoed MacPhail by saying, “Orsino is in the ballgame at all times. He’s like the old-fashioned catcher. He runs the game and that’s the way it should be.”[ii]

These quotes came after the 1963 season, Orsino’s best in the major leagues. The sentiments expressed anticipated a rapid rebound after knee and wrist ailments, followed by a debilitating elbow injury that eventually brought an end to Orsino’s career. After retiring in 1969, the talented athlete eventually launched a second career as a professional golfer.

John Joseph Orsino was born on April 22, 1938, the only child of John and Helen (Higgins) Orsino, in Teaneck, a crowded township 20 miles north of Newark in Bergen County, New Jersey. His mother was a native of Scotland while his paternal grandfather, Joseph Orsino, was an Italian immigrant who arrived in the United States around the turn of the twentieth century. In 1940, John’s father supported the family as a baker’s assistant. They lived a quarter-mile west of the Hackensack River in a rented house next to a park.

Orsino attended Fort Lee (New Jersey) High School. Nicknamed Horse for his considerable physique (he was listed at 6-feet-3, 215 pounds during his professional career), Orsino occupied a large presence on the prep-school athletic fields.[iii] He was a standout in baseball and football – he would be inducted into the Fort Lee High School Athletic Hall of Fame for his gridiron accomplishments – but Orsino’s first passion was on the diamond. He drew some interest from major-league scouts and college recruiters but was never offered a professional contract or scholarship. In 1956, shortly after his high-school graduation, Orsino attended a Brooklyn Dodgers tryout at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City (the Dodgers’ part-time home that season). He was selected along with future major-league third baseman Bob Aspromonte and 17 other recent high-school graduates to participate in a 22-game charity baseball tour in the New York City area. When the tour ended with no contract tendered, Orsino enrolled at the University of Bridgeport (Connecticut).

After an 11-year major-league career, former New York Giants All-Star outfielder Willard Marshall retired to Bergen County, New Jersey (one report suggests he lived in Fort Lee). He began scouting for the Giants and quickly took an interest in Orsino. In 1957, with one year of collegiate ball under his belt, the youngster inked a $40,000 bonus to sign with the Giants. Possessing a large network of Class-D affiliates, the organization assigned Orsino to the Michigan City (Indiana) White Caps in the Midwest League. With an impressive roster sprinkled with future All-Stars Matty Alou and Manny Mota, Orsino made an immediate impact. On June 6, his grand slam helped lead the White Caps to a 15-4 win over the Clinton Pirates. Three weeks later Orsino was the first player in the short-lived history of the White Caps to blast a homer over the club’s left-field wall in Ames Field, a towering blow that cleared the 20-foot-high scoreboard atop the wall. In a poll of the league fans, Orsino was selected to the circuit’s all-star team. He placed among the league leaders with 20 homers and 79 RBIs but finished the season with a meager .223 average and a disturbingly high 91 strikeouts in 408 at-bats. Equally disturbing were his 40 passed balls and 29 errors.

In 1958, Orsino continued his offensive blitz with the Class-C Northern League’s St. Cloud (Minnesota) Rox. On May 1 he collected five RBIs in a 22-2 win over the Aberdeen Pheasants. Two weeks later Orsino clubbed four homers over two days – including a grand slam on May 17 – in the Rox’s two successive 14-run wins against the Duluth-Superior White Sox. Orsino and four of his teammates escaped serious injury on June 7 when the station wagon they were in flipped over after blowing a rear tire. All five walked away from the harrowing incident unscathed. With a near-league-leading .354 average in July, Orsino was selected to the Northern League’s all-star team in a poll of the circuit’s managers, umpires, and sportswriters. Though he slowed in the final weeks of the season, Orsino’s .292/.368/.499 slash line helped the Rox to their first pennant in eight years. He also cut down on strikeouts. (There was no discernible improvement on defense.)

The Giants, seemingly focused solely on Orsino’s offensive strides, jumped the youngster to the Triple-A Pacific Coast League’s Phoenix Giants to start the 1959 season. On April 26 Orsino delivered a grand slam in an 8-4 win over the Seattle Rainiers. A week later he was carrying a hefty .386 average. But an ensuing slump, combined with Orsino’s continued challenges behind the plate (10 passed balls in 22 appearances), resulted in an assignment to the Class-B Eugene Emeralds in the Northwest League. On July 18 Orsino, who thrived in bases-loaded situations, hit a grand slam in a 22-0 rout of the Tri-City Braves. He placed among the team leaders in nearly every offensive category while spending nearly one-third of the season at first base. Orsino also collected four triples and his first career stolen base, a surprising yield for the slow-footed slugger. In October Orsino was selected as the aggregate Class-B-C-D catcher in a poll by the National Association of Baseball Writers. He continued his offensive assault over the winter in the Florida Instructional League.

Orsino was initially targeted to return to Triple A in 1960 before Tom Haller, another promising catching prospect, made the leap from Class A to the PCL. Orsino was assigned to the Double-A Texas League’s Rio Grande Valley Giants in Harlingen, Texas, where he shared the catching duties with left-handed-hitting prospect Albert Stieglitz. The pair accounted for a combined 31 homers and 96 RBIs to help lead the club to a pennant in its only full season of existence. Orsino’s all-star campaign included near-league-leading marks in home runs (21) and slugging percentage (.586). Moreover, with his improved defense – five errors and six passed balls in 88 games – Orsino was projected as a late-season call-up by the Giants. But his anticipated promotion was scrapped when Orsino was called up to the US Army Reserve for a six-month stint. The unfortunate timing was assuaged by the National Association of Baseball Writers which, for the second straight year, selected Orsino as a national all-star catcher, this time at the Double-A level.

With his military service extending through March 24, 1961, Orsino was a late report to the Giants spring training. Working hard in the limited time available, he made an immediate and strong impression upon manager Al Dark. On April 2, when Orsino was assigned to the Tacoma Giants in the PCL during the last round of cuts, the rookie skipper mourned the youngster’s departure: “It’s hard to cut any man off a squad who has given 100 percent effort.”[iv]

Orsino wasted no time making his presence known in Tacoma. On May 5 he came off the bench to deliver a two-out, game-tying homer in the ninth inning and, three innings later, ignited a three-run rally in an 8-5 win over the Spokane Indians. Six weeks later, after being sidelined by injury for a period, Orsino delivered two two-run homers in a 6-4 win against the Vancouver Mounties. On July 13 the Giants assigned rookie catcher Tom Haller, struggling with a .145 average in 62 at-bats, to Tacoma and recalled Orsino. The club having relocated to San Francisco three years earlier, on July 14, 1961, Orsino made his major-league debut in the Golden Gate City’s Candlestick Park as the Giants starting catcher against the Pittsburgh Pirates. In his second at-bat, in the fourth inning, Orsino reached base on a run-scoring error by Pirates third baseman Don Hoak. He also committed a fourth-inning throwing error and a fifth-inning passed ball, neither of which proved crucial in the Giants’ 6-4 loss. The next day Orsino collected his first major-league hit, a fifth-inning RBI single against Pirates left-hander Harvey Haddix that tied the score. He moved to third on a double by shortstop Jose Pagan and scored on a bases-loaded single by second baseman Joey Amalfitano. This time Orsino was flawless behind the plate in the Giants’ 8-3 win.

On July 23 Orsino hit his first major-league home run, a towering blast to deep left field in Cincinnati’s Crosley Field during an 11-2 loss to the Reds. The homer was one of two hits he collected against left-hander Jim O’Toole that ignited a 10-game hitting streak and lifted Orsino to a .279 average. On August 23 he came to bat twice in a record-setting 12-run ninth inning against the Reds and contributed the last of the team’s five home runs to tie a major-league record; his was a three-run blast against reliever Bill Henry. Splitting the catching duties with veteran backstops Ed Bailey and Hobie Landrith, Orsino made his contributions felt behind the plate. On July 27 he was on the receiving end of a five-hit shutout by Giants right-hander Juan Marichal. Pleased by the results of the pairing, manager Al Dark put Orsino at catcher in Marichal’s next start, a one-hit shutout against Los Angeles Dodgers. The battery remained intact through Marichal’s next seven starts, during which the future Hall of Famer collected five wins, including a three-hit shutout against the Reds.

The 1961 NL pennant race consisted largely of the Giants’ and Dodgers’ failed pursuit of the first-place Reds. Over the last weeks of the season, Dark attempted to close the gap by inserting All-Star receiver Ed Bailey behind the plate almost exclusively. On September 25, two days after the club had been officially eliminated, Orsino got his only starting assignment of the month. He collected three RBIs on two home runs and a single in leading the Giants to a 10-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies. Both homers were to left field, one of them a mammoth two-run drive in the fifth inning that struck the top of the roof in Philadelphia’s Connie Mack Stadium. When the team departed Philadelphia to finish their few remaining games on the road, Orsino bade his teammates goodbye and returned to New Jersey to prepare for his second stint in the Army Reserve. Stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Orsino was expected to be lost to the Giants for a year.

In January 1962, with the nation months removed from the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, President John F. Kennedy activated two new Regular Army divisions. The move spelled a potential early release for all servicemen in the National Guard and reserve units. In May Orsino reported to Tacoma after securing a 30-day leave (eventually extended to six weeks). In what amounted to his spring training, Orsino collected three doubles and two singles in his first six at-bats of the season. On June 9 he had a perfect 4-for-4 day at the plate, including a homer and a double, to lead Tacoma to a 7-3 win over the San Diego Padres. When he returned to Fort Campbell, Orsino left the PCL with seven hits in his final 14 at-bats while tied for the league lead with 10 home runs.

Orsino was discharged on July 13. That same day the Giants sold reserve catcher Joe Pignatano to the New York Mets to clear roster space. But the re-emergence of Haller, who platooned behind the plate with Bailey throughout the year (the pair accounted for 35 home runs on the power-laden club) spelled little play for Orsino. In a season in which every win proved crucial in a very tight pennant race, Orsino contributed a pinch-hit RBI bunt single to tie an August 4 game against the Pirates and came around to score the winning run after one out. Three weeks later his 10th-inning single ignited a two-out rally in a 2-1 win over the Mets. On October 4, after the Giants had eliminated the Dodgers in a three-game playoff, Orsino entered the top of the ninth inning in Game One of the World Series as a defensive replacement. He came to bat against New York Yankees ace left-hander Whitey Ford in the bottom half and grounded into a double play. It proved to be Orsino’s only postseason appearance. He moved on to winter ball in the Puerto Rican League where he competed for the circuit’s Triple Crown before being called home due to his mother’s illness.

On several occasions after Orsino’s military discharge the Yankees had inquired about the catcher’s availability. Instead on December 15, shortly before his return from Puerto Rico, the Giants traded Orsino to the Baltimore Orioles with pitchers Mike McCormick and Stu Miller for catcher Jimmie Coker and hurlers Jack Fisher and Billy Hoeft. Dubbed the Orioles’ “hottest prize of [the] transaction” by The Sporting News contributor Doug Brown, Orsino garnered instant praise from GM Lee MacPhail: “[T]he Oriole catching, headed by [recently acquired backstop Dick] Brown and Orsino, ‘has been strengthened for some time to come.’”[v]

Orsino lived up to his offensive billing with a team-leading 12 RBIs in the first 16 spring training games. His work behind the plate was another matter. “[He’s] a bit crude defensively,” MacPhail admitted.[vi] On April 8, when the regular season opened, strong-armed backstop Dick Brown was behind the plate. Orsino made his first appearance nine days later in an impressive manner with a fifth-inning two-run homer to help lead the team to a 5-4 win over the Boston Red Sox. After the Orioles won eight of their next 11 games started by Orsino, he was acknowledged as the number-one catcher. Platooned briefly in June when he went 7-for-53, Orsino came charging back in July with a .367-4-11 line in his next 60 at-bats to reclaim the starting job. Beginning July 20, he replaced Jim Gentile as the club’s cleanup hitter when the first baseman’s hitting collapsed. Except for two games in September when outfielder Boog Powell was tried in the number-four hole, Orsino remained in the cleanup spot the rest of the season. He finished with a team-leading .475 slugging percentage while also accumulating career-best marks in runs (53), hits (103), doubles (18), homers (19), and RBIs (56). The slow-footed runner – “You run like you have someone on your back,” coach Hank Bauer told him[vii] — Orsino even snuck in two stolen bases during the season. Crowding the plate, he also placed among the league leaders with nine HBP. Though he continued to struggle defensively, Orsino managed to place among the league leaders in baserunners caught stealing (16), including a successful peg of Chicago White Sox infielder Al Weis on September 25 that ended the speedster’s consecutive stolen-base string dating to the 1962 season.

In February 1964, Orsino was one of several key players unsigned by the Orioles as MacPhail appears to have sent out miser-like contracts during the offseason. (The club was haggling with Orsino over an approximate $4,000, a mere pittance in comparison to ballplayers’ salaries just one decade later.) Shortly after the sides came together, Orsino was sidelined by a dislocated finger suffered from a foul tip in an intra-squad game. On March 30, on his first swing in Grapefruit League competition, Orsino connected with a home run. Nine days later he collected a triple and two doubles to lead the Orioles to an 8-1 win over the Cincinnati Reds. This success carried into the regular season as Orsino had nine hits, including two homers, and six RBIs in his first 22 at-bats.

Far less success ensued as Orsino began struggling with a rash of injuries. He played through a wrist injury to his right hand that saw his batting average tumble more than 100 points. On May 24 Orsino suffered a hairline fracture in his left hand while sliding into third base. Moved onto the disabled list, he insisted on forgoing surgery and returned to the lineup on June 16. “Now all I have to do is learn how to slide,” he cracked upon his return.[viii] But the injury was no laughing matter. Orsino managed a meager 14 hits in 77 at-bats through July and was relegated to pinch-hitting duties. He recovered sufficiently to return to the lineup in mid-August and platooned with Dick Brown through the rest of the season. On September 12, in a duel of one-hitters with the Kansas City Athletics, Orsino collected an eighth-inning leadoff double against left-hander Bob Meyer and came around to score the only run in a 1-0 win. Six days later he connected for a homer – only his second in three months – in a 10-8 win over the Los Angeles Angels. The late surge was not enough to make up for his earlier malaise as Orsino finished the season with a disappointing .222/.290/.359 slash line in 248 at-bats. On November 4, after putting it off for six months, Orsino had surgery to repair his damaged left hand.

The surgery proved a success when Orsino placed among the team leaders with a .333 average in the 1965 Grapefruit League season. His torrid pace continued into the regular season with four home runs – including an 11th-inning game-winning drive against the Washington Senators on April 21 – eight RBIs and 15 hits in his first 50 at-bats. (He was robbed of a fifth homer on April 17 on a leaping catch against the right-field fence by Red Sox outfielder Tony Conigliaro.) On May 2 Orsino delivered a decisive 10th-inning RBI single to lead the Orioles to a 4-2 win over the Yankees. Two weeks later he collected three RBIs on a homer and two singles in a 9-2 win over the Yankees. Significantly, Orsino began this game at first base due to a sore right elbow. He did not disclose until July that the injury had been plaguing him since spring training. Much as he tried to do in 1964, Orsino attempted to play through the injury with the same disappointing results. Over an eight-game span through June 8 he started just one game, and two months later he was relegated largely to pinch-hitting duties. “When someone told Orsino he was ‘looking good,’ the [sharp-witted] catcher replied, ‘Except when I play.’”[ix] On August 28, in what proved to be his last game of the season, Orsino pinch-hit against the Senators in the seventh inning and moved behind the plate through the remainder. Sidelined for the rest of the year, he had a pedestrian .233/.313/.409 line in 232 at-bats.

Senators GM George Selkirk had inquired of Orsino over several seasons in hopes of filling the turnstile that was the club’s catching. On October 12, nine days after the season ended, the Orioles traded him to Washington for outfielder Woodie Held. The move was welcome relief to Orsino. “I asked to go and I’m happy – very happy – about the deal,” he said. “I think [the Orioles] lost confidence in me and there was nothing I could do about it.”[x] Days after the trade, Orsino reported to the Senators’ Florida Instructional League squad to get a jump on rehabilitating his elbow.

In February 1966, shortly after returning to New Jersey, Orsino married Terese Joyce Gentile (no relation to Jim Gentile), a fellow Garden State native three years his junior. The union would produce a daughter, Jeryl, and a son, John, before dissolving in divorce in 1974.

The extra work in Florida yielded promising results when Orsino rebounded with a strong performance during the Senators’ 1966 spring training. But a week before the start of the season, his elbow gave out again. Relegated to pinch-hitting duties and an occasional fill-in at first base, Orsino got just 21 at-bats through the first four weeks of the season. In May, while the club was in Cleveland, he had surgery in Washington to remove a large cyst in the nerve region of the elbow. Returning to the club two months later, on July 24 Orsino made only his second appearance behind the plate. The outing proved short-lived when his elbow swelled after a second inning at-bat. Following a second trip to the disabled list, Orsino was optioned to the Double-A York (Pennsylvania) White Roses. On August 17 he made his first and last career appearance in the Eastern League. Three weeks later, after getting just 23 at-bats from their hoped-for starting catcher, the Senators reached a cash settlement with the Orioles for the “damaged goods” they’d received.

The 1967 script played out nearly the same when, after another strong spring training, Orsino suffered another injury – this time a broken finger – within days of the start of the season. Assigned to the Hawaii Islanders in the PCL, Orsino was content to abandon catching altogether in favor of first base. On April 15, in his first game with the Islanders, he delivered a two-run homer in a 15-2 win over the Indianapolis Indians. But injury soon followed. On May 10 Orsino underwent surgery to remove calcium deposits and scar tissue from his right elbow. He returned to the lineup on July 17 only to reinjure the elbow the next day. Despite his meager .217/.288/.348 line in 46 at-bats, the Senators selected Orsino among the late-season call-ups. On September 10, in what proved to be his last major-league appearance Orsino, pinch-hitting for first baseman Dick Nen, struck out against Angels left-hander George Brunet.

In the spring of 1968, Orsino was assigned to the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons (International League). The cold weather affected his arm and, after playing only one game for the Bisons, he requested a move to a warmer clime. Assigned to the Class-AA Savannah Senators in the Southern League, Orsino dreamt of a return to the majors when, after 144 at-bats, he led the circuit with a.354 batting average. “For the first time in three years I can throw without pain … [and] I’ve been hitting well,” he said. “I feel I deserve a chance to come back. … Now that I no longer have pain in my arm, no one seems to know where I am.”[xi] When the calls did not come, Orsino anxiously awaited the postseason expansion draft to no avail.

In January 1969, the International League’s Syracuse Chiefs, anticipating the loss of catching prospect Thurman Munson to a six-month Army Reserve stint, acquired Orsino from the Senators for minor-league infielder Joseph Mackey. When Munson returned to the club in June, Orsino was traded to the Portland Beavers, the Cleveland Indians’ affiliate in the PCL. He retired after the season and returned to his Fort Lee, New Jersey, home.

In a poll of nationwide sportswriters taken in April 1964, Orsino was tabbed as the Orioles player possessing the “Best Managerial Material.”[xii] The poll proved prescient when Orsino launched a 10-year career as a manager at the collegiate and professional levels. From 1970 to 1976, and returning for one season in 1980, he guided the Fairleigh Dickinson University baseball team (from Teaneck) to 119 wins (the second highest total in the school’s history). Nine of his Knights players would go on to play professionally.[xiii] During his tenure at the university, Orsino resumed his college education and received a bachelor’s degree in business management. In 1977 his career came full circle when he managed Cleveland’s Jersey City Indians in the Eastern League; the team’s home field, Roosevelt Stadium, was the same location where he attended a Dodgers tryout two decades earlier. In 1978 Orsino followed the Double-A team to Chattanooga, where he managed until he was fired on July 22. Though he had little success as a professional manager (a .368 winning percentage in 280 games), Orsino helped usher the careers of future major leaguers Jim Clancy and Chris Bando among others.

While managing, Orsino began pursuing a second lifelong passion: golf. After moving to Florida in the 1970s, he became the assistant golf pro at the Foxcroft Country Club in Miramar. Over the following two decades Orsino moved back-and-forth between New Jersey and Florida where he worked as the head pro for the Emerson (New Jersey) Country Club and the Indian Springs Country Club in Boynton Beach, Florida. In 2004, Orsino became the men’s golf coach at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.[xiv] A decade later, his son John qualified as a PGA apprentice after following his father into the professional ranks.

On November 2, 2016, five months before his 79th birthday, Orsino died in Sunny Isles Beach, a barrier island in northeast Miami-Dade County. In the preceding two years, he had been struggling with varied health issues. Orsino was survived by his second wife, Honey Scriffignano, two children, and three grandchildren.

In 1964, after he suffered the first of a series of injuries that would plague him throughout his playing career, Orsino admitted, “It was my mental attitude, not [the injury], that messed me up. I lost confidence in my ability to hit.”[xv] It took four years before Orsino regained that confidence while playing in Triple-A ball, by which time he was largely overlooked. Over a seven-year major-league career Orsino had 40 homers, 123 RBIs and 252 hits in 1,014 at-bats. Much more had appeared in store when he arrived on the big-league stage.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Ancestry.com and Baseball-Reference.com. The author wishes to thank the Orsino family and SABR members Bill Mortell and Rod Nelson, chair of the SABR Scouts Committee for their valuable assistance. Further thanks are extended to Len Levin for review and edit of the narrative.

Notes

[i] “Fiery MacPhail Hurls Barbs at Gotham Banquet,” The Sporting News, February 15, 1964: 18.

[ii] “Senators May Be ‘Poor Folks,’ but Orsino Thinks They’re Tops,” The Sporting News, March 26, 1966: 20.

[iii] “Johnny Orsino,” NJSports.com. Accessed December 31, 2016 (bit.ly/2iPxPlp ).

[iv] “Dark Cuts Giants’ Roster to 28, Drops Five Players,” The Sporting News, April 12, 1961: 18.

[v] “Orioles, Giants Gamble on Six-Player Trade,” The Sporting News, December 29, 1962: 7.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] “Hats Off: John Orsino,” The Sporting News, September 28, 1963: 17.

[viii] “Medical Miracle – Orsino’s Sore Hand as Good as New,” The Sporting News, July 4, 1964: 9.

[ix] “Generous Orioles Giving Away Runs,” The Sporting News, August 14, 1965: 16.

[x] “Deal for Held Climaxes Three-Year Bird Quest,” The Sporting News, October 23, 1965: 8.

[xi] “Addie’s Atoms by Bob Addie,” The Sporting News, July 13, 1968: 16.

[xii] “Scribes’ Slants on A.L. Players,” The Sporting News, April 25, 1964: 12.

[xiii] “Remembering John Orsino, FDU Knights Head Coach 1970-’76, 1980,” The Fairleigh Dickinson University Baseball Alumni Newsletter, November 11, 2016. Accessed December 31, 2016 (//bit.ly/2hEy1I1 ).

[xiv] “Men’s Golf: Johnny Orsino,” Florida Atlantic Owls. Accessed December 31, 2016 (bit.ly/2hErnRU ).

[xv] “Confidence Jolted – Orsino Pinning ’65 Hopes on Surgery,” The Sporting News, November 7, 1964: 6.

 

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Tags: John Orsino: A Profile by David E. Skelton

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