John Keefe Cato (born May 6, 1958) is a former

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)

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 (medical), fatigue, ineffectiveness, injury, or ejection (sports), ejection, or for other strategic ...

who played for the Cincinnati Reds in 1983 and 1984.

Biography

A native of

Yonkers, New York Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City and Buffalo. The population of Yonkers was 211,569 as enu ...

, Cato graduated from

Fairfield University Fairfield University is a private Jesuit university in Fairfield, Connecticut. It was founded by the Jesuits in 1942. In 2017, the university had about 4,100 full-time undergraduate students and 1,100 graduate students, including full-time ...

, where he played

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional pl ...

for the Stags and holds many Fairfield pitching records including seven career shutouts and one no-hitter. In 1978, he played

collegiate summer baseball Collegiate summer baseball leagues are amateur baseball leagues in the United States and Canada featuring players who have attended at least one year of college and have at least one year of athletic eligibility remaining. Generally, they operat ...

with the

Harwich Mariners The Harwich Mariners are a collegiate summer baseball team based in Harwich, Massachusetts. The team is a member of the Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL) and plays in the league's East Division. The Mariners play their home games at Whitehouse Fiel ...

of the

Cape Cod Baseball League The Cape Cod Baseball League (CCBL or Cape League) is a collegiate summer baseball wooden bat league located on Cape Cod in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. One of the nation's premier collegiate summer leagues, the league boasts over one thousan ...

. He was the first Fairfield athlete to play in a major professional sport on the major league level after being selected by the

Cincinnati Reds The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League Central, Central division and were a charter member of ...

in the second round of the 1979 Major League Baseball Draft.

Sources

External links

Keefe Cato
at Baseball Almanac
Pura Pelota
1958 births Living people African-American baseball players Baseball players from New York (state) Billings Mustangs players Cincinnati Reds players Fairfield Stags baseball players Fairfield University alumni Harwich Mariners players Indianapolis Indians players Las Vegas Stars (baseball) players Major League Baseball pitchers Memphis Chicks players Omaha Royals players Sportspeople from Yonkers, New York Tampa Tarpons (1957–1987) players Tigres de Aragua players American expatriate baseball players in Venezuela Waterbury Reds players Wichita Aeros players 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American sportspeople People from Valhalla, New York {{US-baseball-pitcher-1950s-stub