Sy Sutcliffe - died
1884-1885 Chicago White Stockings (became the Cubs 1902)
1885 St. Louis Maroons
1888 Detroit Wolverines
1889 Cleveland Spiders
1890 Cleveland Infants
1891 Washington Senators
1892 Baltimore Orioles

Born in Wheaton on April 15, 1862, just as Elmer Ellsworth “Sy” Sutcliffe’s baseball career hit stride it ended prematurely. At age 30 he died from the kidney disorder known as Bright’s disease, in Wheaton on Feb. 13, 1893. Mainly a catcher, Sutcliffe was the rare left-handed backstop. Playing in baseball’s “Dead Ball” era he showed versatility by also playing all infield positions as well as the outfield (and designated hitter!) during an eight-year career.

A wiry 6-foot-2 and 170 pounds, Sutcliffe also served as an umpire during the 1889 and 1892 seasons. Beginning at age 22 with four games under manager Cap Anson for Cubs precursor the Chicago White Stockings, in 344 games Sutcliffe amassed a lifetime batting average of .288 with 174 runs batted in and 177 runs scored. His best overall season came in 1890 with the Cleveland Infants of the Players League. Sutcliffe batted .329 with 14 doubles, 8 triples, 60 runs batted in, 62 runs scored and 10 stolen bases in 99 games.

The next season he hit .353 in 53 games with Washington. Though he was inactive during the regular season, in 1887 Sutcliffe had one hit in 11 at-bats with a stolen base in four World Series games for the victorious Detroit Wolverines – alongside Hall of Famers Sam Thompson and Ned Hanlon – against the St. Louis Browns.

Lee Pfund
1939 – 1941 Signed by the St. Louis Cardinal and sent to the Columbus, Ohio and Mobile, Alabama farm teams. Played in the minor leagues for three seasons while teaching junior high and coaching during the off season.

1941 Broke into professional baseball in the Georgia/Florida League

1942 – 1943 During off season taught math at Longfellow Junior High School and coached grade school baseball teams

1945 Drafted by the Brooklyn Dodgers as a pitcher. Playing for Leo Durocher he had a very successful first season. While with the Dodgers, Lee chose not to play on Sundays, citing religious convictions. As a pitcher, it was easy for the team to adjust the rotation to comply with this request.

1945 Rather than play in Baseball All-Star game, Lee played in a Red Cross charity game

A 1949 Wheaton College graduate, Leroy Herbert Pfund pitched for the 1945 Brooklyn Dodgers, third place in the National League under legendary manager Leo Durocher. A three-sport high school athlete, Pfund played baseball at the University of Illinois and broke into the pro ranks in 1941 with St. Louis affiliate Albany. Four years later the 6-foot-1, 185-pounder appeared in 15 games for Brooklyn, debuting against the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds.

Pfund compiled a 3-2 record with 2 complete games in 10 starts over 621/3 innings pitched. Returning to the minors in 1946, the right-hander never returned to the big leagues and his pro career ended in 1950. His influence was dramatically more profound as a father, teacher and coach. Sons John, Kerry and Randy played basketball for him at Wheaton College, Randy becoming a longtime National Basketball Association executive and coach. All four men earned enshrinement in the Wheaton College’s Hall of Honor, Lee inducted in 1985.

Pfund became Wheaton College’s winningest baseball and basketball coach, his Crusaders winning the 1957 NCAA Collegiate Division national basketball championship. Born in Oak Park on Oct. 10, 1919, Pfund is a member of the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. The executive director of the Wheaton College Alumni Association from 1976-87, in 1977 he was awarded Alumni of the Year for Distinguished Service to Alma Mater.

Don Bollweg - born February 12-1922, died May 26-1996
1941 St. Louis Cardinals farm team in Washington, PA
1943-1945 World War II
1946-1947 Columbus, Ohio - A League
1948-1949 Texas and Rochester NY - AA League
1950-1951 St. Louis Cardinals
1952-1953 New York Yankees
1954-1955 Philadelphia A’s and Kansas City A’s

Donald Raymond Bollweg was a one-time softball player who went on to play for the 1953 World Champion New York Yankees. Born in Wheaton Feb. 12, 1922, on his father’s recommendation Bollweg tried out for the St. Louis Cardinals. Two years after his 1940 Wheaton Community High School graduation, the slick-fielding first baseman delivered a league-leading 25 home runs and 105 runs batted-in for the Washington Red Birds farm club.

After serving as a U.S. Army and Army Air Force corporal during World War II, the 190-pound left-hander rose through the minors until his Major League debut on Sept. 28, 1950. Traded to the Yankees, after two hard-hitting seasons at Triple-A Kansas City, in 1953 Bollweg went north with the big club. In 70 games he hit .297 with six homers and 24 RBI and appeared in three games of the Yankees’ World Series victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Traded to Philadelphia, in 1954 Bollweg endured an injury-plagued campaign, hitting .224 with 5 homers and 24 RBI in 103 games.

He played only 12 games the next season and retired from baseball in 1956. Bollweg went into real estate and sold insurance, later working for the DuPage County Board of Elections. He died in Wheaton on May 26, 1996, and a year later gained posthumous inauguration into the Wheaton Community High School Old Timers Club Hall of Fame.

Jimmy Piersall
1948 18 years old when he signed with the Boston Red Sox
1950 and 1952-1958 Boston Red Sox
1959-1961 Cleveland Indians
1962-1963 Washington Senators
1963 New York Mets
1963-1967 Los Angeles and California Angels

Early in James Anthony Piersall’s 17-year Major League career, Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel called him the most natural defensive player he’d seen – and he’d seen Joe DiMaggio. Piersall handled 3,985 outfield chances with only 39 errors. Primarily a center fielder, he earned All-Star nods in 1954 and 1956, won Gold Glove awards in 1958 and 1961, and was ninth in American League Most Valuable Player voting in 1953 – one of five seasons the sleek 175-pounder drew MVP votes.

Born Nov. 14, 1929, in Waterbury, Conn., in 1956 Piersall led the Junior Circuit in games played, doubles and sacrifice flies. In 1961 the “Waterbury Wizard” hit .322, third in the American League. A White House guest of Presidents John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush, Piersall played 1,734 games in his illustrious career, collecting 1,604 hits, 591 runs batted in, and 811 runs scored with a .272 batting average. Statistics don’t tell his entire story. Piersall’s struggles and heroic comeback were detailed in the 1955 autobiography, “Fear Strikes Out,” adapted into a movie starring Anthony Perkins.

While enjoying a Wheaton residence with wife, Jan, Piersall endeared himself to a new generation with honest, sometimes controversial analysis of the Chicago White Sox on legendary television and radio broadcasts with partner Harry Caray. Piersall’s fielding expertise remained unquestioned; in demand as an outfield consultant into his 70s.

Herb Adams
1948-50 Chicago White Sox
1950 Cleveland Indians

Herbert Loren Adams first stormed a big-league ballpark at 18, three scoreless innings pitched at New York’s Polo Grounds as a 1946 United States All-Star from Oak Park-River Forest High. Born in Hollywood April, 14, 1928, to RKO Studio employees let go during the Depression, “Herbie” was a fleet 5-foot-9, 160-pounder once dubbed “the mighty atom.”

A .405 hitter his first minor league season and league MVP the next, the left-handed outfielder singled in his September 1948 White Sox debut, the American League’s third youngest player that season. Adams tripled leading off both the 1949 and 1950 seasons. Despite various injuries including a concussion from colliding against Fenway Park’s bullpen wall, in 1949 the starting center fielder hit .293, earning a $1,000 bond from hometown fans on “Herb Adams Night” at Comiskey Park.

Between a .203 start in 1950, his subsequent draft into the Army to serve in the Korean War and an overseas bout with hepatitis that reduced him to 119 pounds, Adams never reached the Majors again, compiling a .261 batting average in 95 games. He won a 1957 Silver Glove as the minors’ top center fielder before retiring in 1959. Adams lived 51 years in Wheaton with his wife, Donna, 28 of them as a Wheaton Post Office clerk. They now reside in Tulsa, Okla., near Herb Adams Jr. and his family.

Milt Pappas
1957-1965 Baltimore Orioles
1966-1968 Cincinnati Reds
1968-1970 Atlanta Braves
1970-1973 Chicago Cubs

A 17-year Major League starting pitcher, Pappas’ 1972 no-hitter against the San Diego Padres was the last by a Cub until Carlos Zambrano threw one in 2008. A control specialist, Pappas compiled a 209-164 lifetime record with a 3.40 earned run average and 1,728 strikeouts to only 858 bases on balls. Born in Detroit May 11, 1939, Pappas started the 1965 All-Star Game for the American League and pitched in both 1962 All- Star games.

The first hurler to win 200 games without a 20-win season, he won at least 10 games in 11 straight years. Pappas’ 110 American League victories and 99 in the National League had him one win away from joining a select group of pitchers including Cy Young, Nolan Ryan, Ferguson Jenkins and Gaylord Perry with 100 victories in each league. Joining the Cubs in 1970, the fiery right-hander won a career-high 17 games in both 1971 and 1972. At Wrigley Field on Sept. 2, 1972, Pappas became the only pitcher to have a perfect-game bid snapped by a walk to the 27th batter – on a pitch umpire Bruce Froemming ruled high and outside, a call Pappas will argue to this day.

During and after his Cubs tenure he was a high-profile Wheaton resident who put children Steve and Michelle through Wheaton Central High School; every game Pappas won for the Cubs earned a donation by the local Armbrust family to Wheaton’s Kelly Park.

J. C. Martin
1959-67 Chicago White Sox
1968-69 New York Mets
1970-72 Chicago Cubs

A September 1959 call-up as the White Sox won their first American League pennant in 40 years, Joseph Clifton Martin debuted as a corner infielder. Sent to Class A Savannah in 1962 to learn the art of catching, the former Wheaton resident became one of the game’s best handlers of pitchers. Martin caught several one-hitters, and Joe Horlen’s no- hitter during the 1967 pennant race; he worked with All-Stars like Ken Holtzman, Jerry Koosman and Gary Peters, and Hall of Famers Nolan Ryan, Ferguson Jenkins, Tom Seaver and knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm.

In a 14-year career the 6-foot-2, 188-pound Martin hit .222 with 32 home runs and 230 runs in 908 games. A trusted and valuable backup receiver, he capitalized when it mattered, singling home Al Weis during the “Amazin’ Mets” eighth inning rally in the 1969 National League Championship Series. Martin forced a rule change with another clutch at-bat in the 1969 World Series. Executing a sacrifice bunt in Game 4, bottom of the 10th, the throw to first struck Martin as he unintentionally ran inside the base line. The winning run scored in a 2-1 Mets victory. Set an American League record by being involved in three double plays as a catcher at Cleveland in the second game of a twin bill on June 23, 1963. There were 2 strike em’ out, throw em’ out DP’s and was the middle person in a third to catcher to first DP.

In 1970 a new runner’s lane appeared on all Major League fields. Born Dec. 13, 1936, in Axton, Va., Martin now lives in Advance, N.C. His son, Jay, is assistant athletic director and men’s and women’s golf coach at Wheaton College.

Mike Joyce
1962-63 White Sox

Born in Detroit on Feb. 12, 1941, the hard-throwing sinkerballer made his Major League debut with a scoreless inning against his hometown Tigers on July 2, 1962. A promising right-hander, the 6-foot-2, 193- pound Joyce’s career was diminished by injuries. Signing with the White Sox after a year at the University of Michigan, Joyce burned up Class A Savannah (with fellow honoree J.C. Martin as a battery mate), compiling a 6-3 record with 4 shutouts in 10 starts.

Joining the Sox in 1962, Joyce went 2-1 with a 3.32 earned run average in 25 games. Among his Major League highlights: earning a starting assignment at venerable Yankee Stadium; and being selected by the Sox to dance the twist behind home plate on “Teen Night.” Although the handsome hurler started 24 games at Triple-A Indianapolis the next season, his 6 appearances for the 1963 White Sox were his last in a big league uniform. Suffering what years later was diagnosed as a torn rotator cuff, Joyce was sold to the New York Mets in March 1964 and pitched parts of the next two seasons in the minors before hanging up the spikes.

A sales consultant in Wheaton, he and his wife of 47 years, Shirley, sent children Mike, Kimberly, Chris and Darin through Wheaton Central High School. They have nine grandchildren and Mike still roots for the White Sox.

Chet Lemon
1975-81 Chicago White Sox
1982-90 Detroit Tigers

The 22nd overall draft pick of 1972, Chet “The Jet” escaped the Watts ghetto to enjoy a 16-year, All-Star career that included the 1984 World Series title. The White Sox made a steal of a deal for the daring center fielder and 6-foot, 190-pound Chester Earl Lemon quickly hit stride with the “South Side Hit Men.” He studied Major League ballparks to record an American League-record 512 outfield putouts in 1977.

Lemon made at least 400 outfield putouts in five different seasons, another AL record. (He also led the league four times in being hit by pitch; his 151 plunkings ranks 19th all-time in the majors.) Born Feb. 12, 1955, in Jackson, Miss., the former Wheaton resident played in the 1978 and 1979 All- Star Games. In 1979 he reached career highs with a .318 batting average and 86 RBI, tied for the league lead with 44 doubles and also swatted 17 home runs. He started the 1984 All-Star Game and hit .294 in Detroit’s World Series victory over San Diego. In 1,988 games, Chester hit .273 with 215 home runs, 396 doubles and 884 runs batted-in.

Lemon survived a deadly disease which hastened his retirement – once quoted as saying polycythemia vera is usually discovered in autopsies – to become a hugely successful Amateur Athletic Union baseball coach in Sanford, Fla. His son, Marcus, was a 2006 Texas Rangers draft pick.

Dave Otto
1987-1990 Oakland Athletics
1991-1992 Cleveland Indians
1993 Pittsburg
1994 Chicago Cubs

A slim yet imposing 6 feet, 7 inches on the pitcher’s mound, Dave Otto initially was drafted in 1982 by the Baltimore Orioles as a senior at Elk Grove High School. He instead attended the University of Missouri where as a designated hitter and pitcher from 1983-85 he was a two-time academic All-American, earning induction into Missouri’s Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame in 2000. In 1985, Otto slugged 16 home runs as an All-American DH; he batted .366 in his three seasons for the Tigers. His pitching, however, got him to the Major Leagues. Drafted again in 1985 by Oakland, the tall left-hander with the sweeping curve pitched with four teams over eight seasons.

Born in Chicago on Nov. 12, 1964, Otto spent parts of three seasons with the Athletics and joined the Cleveland Indians’ starting rotation in 1991 and 1992. Otto compiled a lifetime record of 10 wins and 22 losses in 109 appearances. Otto concluded his career with is hometown Cubs; in 1994 during an exhibition game against the Chicago White Sox, he flied out to a right fielder named Michael Jordan, and then allowed a single to Jordan.

Otto continued in baseball as an excellent television and radio broadcast analyst, and he still conducts pitching clinics in Wheaton. His son, Travis, a former Wheaton North first baseman, was drafted by the White Sox in 2008.

Dan Schatzeder
1976 – Selected by the Montreal Expos in the third round of the amateur draft 1977-79 – Montreal Expos 1980-81 – Detroit Tigers
1982 – Toronto Blue Jays 1982 – San Francisco Giants 1982-86 – Montreal Expos 1986-87 – Philadelphia Phillies 1987 – Minnesota Twins 1988 – Cleveland Indians 1988 – Minnesota Twins
1989-90 – Houston Astros 1990 – New York Mets 1991 – Kansas City Royals

Daniel Earnest Schatzeder, a highly valued and well-traveled left-handed pitcher, was third in the National League in 1979 with a 2.83 earned-run average. Born Dec. 1, 1954, in Elmhurst, he played baseball and basketball at Willowbrook High School in Villa Park, earning inaugural membership into its athletic hall of fame in February 2010. Moving to Wheaton after his Major League career, he put son, Dusty, and daughter, Lauren, through Wheaton North High School while assisting former Falcons baseball coach Jim Humay. The 6-foot, 185-pounder had lessons and tales aplenty gleaned over 15 big league seasons. Among the landmark moments he witnessed were Pete Rose’s 4,000th hit and Mike Schmidt’s 500th home run.

Schatzeder earned the victory in Game Six of the 1987 World Series pitching for the champion Minnesota Twins. Throwing a sweeping curve that befuddled lefties and righties alike, Schatzeder – a tough battler with a good bat and great mustache – began his big-league career as a starting pitcher and evolved into a set-up man. After going 10-5 in 1979, Schatzeder was dealt to Detroit where in 1980 he attained career highs with an 11-13 record in 192 ¨ø innings pitched. He retired after the 1991 season with a lifetime 69-68 record and 3.74 ERA in 504 games. Now an Oswego resident, Schatzeder teaches physical education and coaches football at Waubonsie Valley High School in Aurora.

Ollie Voigt
1924 – St. Louis Browns

An argument could be made that Olen Edward Voigt’s Major League pitching career was damaged by overuse in the minors. Starting with 29 appearances for the Rockford Rox as a 20-year-old in 1919, the 6-foot- 1, 170-pound right-hander averaged more than 263 innings pitched
in six minor league seasons. He topped 300 innings twice in his career – 303 with Rockford in 1920 and a whopping 332 innings pitched while compiling a 19-22 record with the Denver Bears of the Western League in 1923. After throwing his heart out for Denver, in 1924 Voigt hit Sportsman’s Park with the St. Louis Browns, managed by Hall of Famer George Sisler.

At the age of 25 Voigt made his Major League debut on April 19, 1924. In eight games with the Brownies he went 1-0 on the mound with a 5.51 earned-run average, also swatting a triple in five plate appearances. His final big league appearance came on May 31, and then Voigt returned to Tulsa of the Western League. Returning to workhorse status with Tulsa the remainder of the 1924 season, “Ode” went 12-11 in 191 innings pitched and retired with a minor league record of 78-82 in 234 games.

Born in Wheaton on Jan. 29, 1899, Voigt starred at Wheaton High School and the University of Illinois. He passed away on April 7, 1970, in Scottsdale, Ariz.