John Thomas Wyatt (April 19, 1934 – April 6, 1998) was an American

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professional ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

. He played all or part of nine seasons in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

(MLB), primarily as a

relief pitcher In baseball and softball, a relief pitcher or reliever is a pitcher who enters the game after the starting pitcher is removed because of fatigue, ineffectiveness, injury, or ejection, or for other strategic reasons, such as inclement weat ...

. From 1961 through 1969, he played for the

Kansas City Athletics The history of the Athletics Major League Baseball franchise spans the period from 1901 to the present day, having begun as a charter member franchise in the new American League in Philadelphia before moving to Kansas City in 1955 for 13 sea ...

(1961–66),

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...

(1966–68),

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...

(1968), Detroit Tigers (1968) and Oakland Athletics (1969). In the

Negro leagues The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...

, he played for the

Indianapolis Clowns The Indianapolis Clowns were a professional baseball team in the Negro American League. Tracing their origins back to the 1930s, the Clowns were the last of the Negro league teams to disband, continuing to play exhibition games into the 1980s. Th ...

(1953–55). Wyatt batted and threw right-handed. Wyatt saved John O'Donoghue's first big league win, coming at

Dodger Stadium Dodger Stadium is a baseball stadium in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It is the home stadium of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers. Opened in 1962, it was constructed in less than three years at a cost of ...

on May 12, 1964.

Life and career

Wyatt was born in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, a son of Claudette ( née Watkins) and John Wyatt Sr. He grew up in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

, where he attended Fosdick-Masten Park High School. His contract was sold to the

Tigers The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on un ...

from the

Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...

on June 15, 1968."Major League Teams Beat Clock with Last-Minute Trading Spurt," ''Schenectady'' (NY) ''Gazette, Monday, June 17, 1968.
Retrieved February 17, 2023. In his major league career, Wyatt posted a 42–44 record with a 3.72

ERA An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth. Comp ...

and 103 saves in 435 games pitched. He was selected to the 1964 American League All-Star Team, and pitched for the Red Sox in the

1967 World Series The 1967 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1967 season. The 64th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the American League (AL) champion Boston Red Sox and the National Leag ...

, as the winning pitcher in Game Six. Wyatt died from a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

, at the age of 63.

References

External links

1934 births 1998 deaths 20th-century African-American sportspeople African-American baseball players Albany Senators players American expatriate baseball players in Mexico American League All-Stars Baseball players from Chicago Boston Red Sox players Dallas Rangers players Detroit Tigers players El Paso Texans players Hannibal Cardinals players Indianapolis Clowns players Jacksonville Braves players Kansas City Athletics players Major League Baseball pitchers Mexican League baseball pitchers New York Yankees players Oakland Athletics players Pocatello Bannocks players Portsmouth-Norfolk Tides players Sioux City Soos players Sultanes de Monterrey players Sportspeople from Buffalo, New York Baseball players from New York (state) American amputees {{US-baseball-pitcher-1930s-stub