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ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
BASEBALL IN PENNSYLVANIA

1. Student ' s Name
2. Subject's Name
3. Subject's Background
a. date and place of
b. Present address
c. Present Occupation
4. Date of Interview

Ma

jor

League
J

Scout

9/8/94

5. General Comments:

DO NOT WRITE BELOW THIS LINE

Atlanta

Braves

--·-

BASEBALL INTERVIEW

PAUL STEFANO
NOVEMBER 22, 1994

---

BASEBALL INTERVIEW WITH FRED SHAFFER

Paul Stefano:

How long have you been involved in baseball?

Fred Shaffer:

Well,

I started playing in 1933 and

I've been

scouting now since 1948. This is 47 years.

Stefano:

What teams have you scouted for?

Shaffer:

I started out in 1948 with the Chicago White Sox and

I stayed there for 28 years. Then I went to Oakland for 3
years. I was with the Cubs for 2 1/2 years. Then I went back to
the White Sox for 4 more years and then I started with the
Atlanta Braves with Chuck Tanner in 1986. I'm still

with the

Braves.

Stefano:

What was amateur baseball

like around New Castle when

you were younger; when you started playing?

Shaffer:

Well

when I played there were

al ot of teams. Of

course there weren't as many automobiles and they used to have
a Lawrence County league and a city league and then they had
other leagues-- teams all
more baseball

over Lawrence County. There was much

being played then. They also had American Legion,

but they didn ' t

have the Little League teams and the Colt

League.

It was more 1 ike American Legion and Amateur ball

Semii -Pro

ba 1 1 . The Semi -Pro

ba 1 1 were

p 1 ayers

that

p 1 ayed

and
in

the minor leagues and some college players. They used to get a
few dollars for each game when they play ed.

Stefano:
d id

What team did you play for ? What teams in the area

y ou play?

Shaffer:

Well

I pla y ed for Brent in the Lawrence County league

earl y when I was probabl y 1 7 . Then I played for the Universal
Rundle


Pottery it was then). That was in 1933. That

was a semi-pro league and I pitched for that team.

Stefano:

Were there any other famous players around here that

you played against?

Shaffer:

Well , Paul

McCul 1 ough, he played in pro bal 1 . He was

a pitcher on the same team at Uni v ersal

Pottery, and of course

later on I played with Chuck Tanner when he was in high school.
When we played, Jewey Cohen had a team in the city league and I
just got out of the service.
ball

then.

Stefano:

I was through playing professional

I pla y ed with Chuck on that team.

What professional

teams did you play for?

Shaffer:

Wel

·1

,

I started

out by signing

w

i th the

Yankees

in

1933 after I pitched against the Pittsburgh Pirates. I pitched
for Wheel 1ng in the Middle Atlantic League and I signed in
August. I think it was August 10th and the season was over on
Labor Day. So I went back the ne x t
unt i 1 I hurt my arm and

year and I pitched there

oh, it was in May sometime. Then I

didn't pitch the next year until

July 1935. I went down to

Mayedon, North Carolina in the Bi-State League and they had a
working agreement with Louisville at the end of

the year. They

were to get 3 players, from the club. I happened to be lucky to
be one of those 3 they picked. I went to Louisville the next
year for Spring training in 1936. Burly Grimes was the manager
there. I played there in '36,

' 37,

'38, and '39. The Red Sox

took it over and we won the playoffs. We won the Little World
Series. We beat Rochester. They had Marty Marion as the
shortstop and we had Peewee Reese. We had 2 good Triple A teams
and in '40 we were in it again. Newark beat us. That was a
Yankee farm club. In '41 we had another good team. We had Tex
Houston and Johnny Pesky and some more that played on the Red
Sox. Stan Spence was there in '39.

Stefano:

That was here, in New Castle when you played the

Pirates?

Shaffer:

Centennial

Field.

Stefano:

Was that often then that major league teams would

come into an area and play a team?

Shaffer:

No, it was just that I think the Pirates played

before, earlier than that. I think Jewey Cohen pitched against
them. That was before--I was just a young boy then. But they
didn't play too often. It was just one of those games. They had
about 5,000 people at Centennial

Field. They filled the park.

It was a big day for New Castle.

Stef ano:

How was the f an support for amateur teams against

amateur teams? Since there weren't automobiles as common as now
how did people get around?

Shaffer:

Wel 1 , they walked. Some had cars,

but al ot o·f them

walked and you would be surprised they had probably more fans
then they have today. I don't know exact numbers but I know
there were always a bunch of fans there at every game.

Stefano:

Who were some of the best players you ' ve seen come

through Western Pennsy lvania ?

Shaffer:

Western Pennsylvania, well, I saw Chuck

(Tanner)

before he played, even before I was scouting. The year before I

started to scout I thought he was a pretty good player, good
hitter. Of course Gary Peters. I signed him. He was a
left-handed pitcher. He was a good athlete. He could've played
first base or the outfield, but he was a good left-handed
pitcher so he pitched in the major leagues. He was Rookie of
the Year in his first year, and he was a 20 game winner. Pete
Vukovich from Johnstown--! signed him. He was a good pitcher.
There were alot of others, ones you know that come from
Pennsylvania, but I can ' t remember all of them. I signed
different guys out of Ohio and I recommended Nellie Fox that
played second base for the White Sox. He played in alot of
all-star games. I think it was 11. I recommended Joe Carter for
the Chicago Cubs and they traded him to Cleveland. Then
Cleveland traded him to Toronto. He's still
Toronto. I signed quite a few.

playing for

I can ' t remember all

their names

now.

Stefano:

How has baseball

changed nationally and locally

during the time that y ou've been involved in the game?

Shaffer:

Well, I don't think the game has changed. The players

now make more money. I mean the salaries have really
skyrocketed. Alot of them have agents now, which I think is
something baseball should do away with. They're getting 10% of
the upfront money that they sign---these big bonus players and

the players that get like 5 year contracts (Bonds and some more
of them). There is alot of them. But as far as the game, the
game is the same. They play it the same. I think the ball

is a

little livelier now and that's why they're hitting more home
runs. I think they use lighter bats and they strike out more.
Maybe they all

swing for the fence. They all

want to make the

big money.

Stefano:

Going back to local

ball---When you were an amateur

how often would it be that a team from New Castle would go to
Butler or another town and play?

Shaffer:

Well 1, when I played

with Universal,

a semi- pro team,

we went to Butler and all around. We had teams that came here
like the Homestead Grays and of course like I said before, the
Pittsburgh Pirates. We had some players that were from Canton
and Cleveland and we had a good ball

club. We traveled some.

Then of course when I played in the Lawrence County League we
traveled to different places, but it wasn't that much
traveling. The teams weren't that far apart.

Stefano:

Without there being as much travel ing

1

do you think

that brought more of an interest in the game because there were
more teams and more players?

Shaffer:

Yeah,

I think

it made more interest in the team, like

in the teams in New Castle. The players and their families
would come out and their friends and everybody had a team that
they pulled for. They would go out and back them up. They
followed them all

over wherever they went to play. So there was

more interest then and they didn't have things like soccer, and
basketbal11
football

·1

1n

the surnmert i me and they st i 11

in the summertime.

It was all

baseball

worked

out in

1. They played

each season. Every sport had its own season and in the
summertime
ime it was

al 1 basebal 1 .