Final Card: Joey Jay

Joey Jay (#406) arrived in the majors in 1953 with the Milwaukee Braves. He pitched for them through the 1960 season (the last two as a regular starter).

After the 1960 season, he was traded to the Reds for shortstop Roy McMillan. Jay won 21 games in each of his first 2 years with Cincinnati (leading the league in 1961), and was a mainstay in the Reds rotation through 1965. Midway through the 1966 season, he was traded to Atlanta. The Braves released him after the season, ending his major-league career.


In most record books, this is the end of Joey Jay's story.


As I said in my 1960s blog, my introduction to major-league baseball was attending a Phillies game in early 1967. At that game, I bought a Phillies yearbook (and over the rest of that season, probably memorized it!) I was sure that I recalled a Joey Jay page in that book.

Only in the last few months have I found the baseball-reference.com minor-league statistics pages. There (and elsewhere) I learned that Joey Jay did indeed get a non-roster tryout with the Phillies in the 1967 pre-season, but didn't make the team. He spent the year with the Phillies single-A club in Tidewater, VA before retiring after the season.