Saturday, June 26, 2010

Final Card: Chuck Schilling

Chuck Schilling (#6) had a short career with the Red Sox in the early 1960s.

Chuck was signed by the Red Sox in 1958, and made his major-league debut in April 1961. His career started off well, as he was Boston's starting 2nd baseman for 157 games, and finished 3rd in Rookie of the Year voting. He also led the American League with 738 plate appearances.

Schilling was the regular 2nd baseman (133 starts) in 1962, but missed over 40 games due to a wrist injury that would hamper him for the rest of his career. He bounced back in 1963 (137 starts at 2nd base) but then started a downward slide.



In 1964, Schilling dropped to #3 in the pecking order at 2nd base, behind rookie infielder Dalton Jones, and journeyman Felix Mantilla. In 1965, Mantilla took over almost completely, making 120 starts at 2nd base to Schilling's 35 starts.

This was the end of the line for Chuck. In April 1966, he was traded to the Twins, but his 1966 season went like this (from Wikipedia):

Coming out of spring training, he was traded to the Minnesota Twins with catcher Russ Nixon for left-handed pitcher Dick Stigman. Schilling began the season on the Twins' 28-man roster, but he never appeared in any games and retired before the rosters were cut to 25 men on May 15.

After baseball, Schilling became a high school math teacher, and also played competitive softball until the age of 69.

3 comments:

Spiff said...

Any relation to Curt?

Jim from Downingtown said...

I would say no, since any relation is not listed in Baseball-Reference.com as it is with, for example, Felipe Alou, (shown here).

Unknown said...

I had him as my 7th grade math teacher