Barney Martin (baseball)

Barnes Robertson Martin (March 3, 1923 – October 30, 1997) was an American baseball pitcher who had a "cup of coffee" with the Cincinnati Reds in 1953.

Though Martin appeared in just one Major League Baseball game, he had a respectable ten year minor league career. Originally signed by the New York Giants as an amateur free agent before the 1946 season, Martin compiled a 44-43 record and 4.06 earned run average in five seasons in their farm system. He was then acquired by the Reds sometime in the 1951 season, and compiled a 23-7 record, 2.13 ERA and a South Atlantic League leading 174 strikeouts for the Columbia Reds in his home town of Columbia, South Carolina in 1952.

That performance earned him a spot with the big league club for 1953. Already losing 6-2 to the St. Louis Cardinals with Stan Musial set to lead off the seventh inning, manager Rogers Hornsby summoned Martin to relieve Bud Podbielan in the sixth game of the season on April 22, 1953. Martin retired Musial, and got out of his first inning of work unscathed. In his second inning, however, Martin allowed a lead off triple to Rip Repulski, followed by a double by Del Rice. After retiring the next two batters, it appeared Martin would get out of the inning with just the one run scored, however, Red Schoendienst followed with a double to drive in Rice, and bring Musial back to the plate. Musial grounded out to short to end the inning without further damage.^[1]

Five days later, Martin was optioned back to Columbia, where he would compile a 17-6 record with a 2.14 ERA. His overall minor league stats include 104 wins versus 74 losses in 245 games (128 starts). His minor league ERA was 3.35. While pitching for Columbia, he was the team's bus driver and was also a railroad engineer for Southern Railway.^[2]

Though Martin batted and threw right-handed, his son, Michael, was a left hander, who was selected fifth overall in the 1970 Major League Baseball Draft by the Philadelphia Phillies.^[3] A year later, his other son, Jerry signed with the club as an outfielder. Despite having spent three seasons together in the same organization, the two were never teammates.

Sources

• Career statistics and player information from MLB, or ESPN, or Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)