The Pecan Park Eagle

Joe Vance: The Pitcher was also a Running Back.

Joe Vance (BR/TR) (6’1″, 180 lbs.) was a pretty fair country pitcher, although there is no indication that he shared the bloodline that produced the Hall of Fame pitcher we know as Dazzy Vance. He was still a good one at the minor league level. He posted a 3-2, 5.81 MLB mark with the White Sox in 1935 and the Yankees in 1937-38.

Born September 16, 1905 in Devine, Texas, Vance was one of the early multiple sport professional athletes. He played in 11 games for the 1931 NFL Brooklyn Dodgers as a running back, starting in 4 games and scoring 2 season/career TDs. He either got hurt or got wise to the possibility that the impact of football could shorten his baseball career, so he quit football after one season.

Most of Vance’s career was spent in the minors. After 13 seasons in the minors (1930-42), Joe Vance finished with a pitching record at that level of 108-101, 3.53 ERA.

Joe’s best ERA season was at Dallas in 1934 when he went 11-7 with an earned run average of 2.24, His best season for wins was 1937 at Kansas City in which he won 17, lost 9, and put up an ERA of 4.28.

Joe Vance must have been fairly fleet-of-foot too. When he died in Austin on July 4, 1978 at the age of 72, and as you may see on his marker, Joe Vance claims to hold the record for the fastest time in running all the bases and touching home with a lapsed time of only 13 seconds.

Rest in Peace, Joe Vance. You did enough to be remembered by the baseball community for all the best reasons in the world. And these in-the-game accomplishments are more important than establishing a baseball base running niche record.