Don Gutteridge, the last living member of the Gas House Gang and the 1944 St. Louis Browns pennant-winning club, died Sunday at his Pittsburg, Kan., home, where he’s remembered as a “baseball icon” and a recent author. He was 96.

Gutteridge played 12 seasons in the major leagues, starting as a Cardinals’ farmhand who made his debut in 1936 and continuing through turns with the Browns, the Boston Red Sox and finally, in 1948, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Three times he finished in the top 20 in MVP voting — all as a Brown — and he appeared in two World Series, including the 1946 series with Boston. In both World Series, his team lost to the Cardinals, yet he told his friend that his “first baseball love was the Cardinals.” In 1944, the second baseman Gutteridge was the Browns’ leadoff hitter and he turned five double plays in one game.

His death, The Joplin Globe points out, came 72 years to the day after his major-league debut.

“When I signed with the Cardinals for the first time, I got $325 a month,” he told author Peter Golenbock for the book, The Spirit of St. Louis. “If you stayed with the Cardinals  until June 15, which used to be the trading deadline, then you got a raise to $500 a month. They called it the farm system. … And if you made it to the majors, (Branch Rickey) would bring you in for a salary talk, and the first thing  you know he’s bringing up all your negative points.

“I learned that instead of going and seeing him, I just wrote a letter. … I knew I wasn’t capable of competing against him. I figured if I wrote a letter, he couldn’t influence me.”

According to his Baseball-Reference page, Gutteridge hit .256 with 39 home runs, 391 RBIs and 586 runs scored in 1,151 games. In his first season with the Browns, the scrappy infielder scored 90 runs and drove in 50. In the first week of his career, Gutteridge had a six-hit doubleheader that included an inside-the-park home run and two steals of home.

After his playing career ended, Gutteridge went on to coach and eventually manage, steering the Chicago White Sox from 1969-70.

He was considered the oldest living player-manager.

A baseball league in his hometown of Pittsburg was just renamed in his honor, as 13-to-15 year olds will now play in the Don Gutteridge league. He and Todd Biggs recently published a book on teaching and playing youth baseball.

Bob Timmermann, brother of our main-man, well-traveled, uber-utility-writer Tom, points out in his morning entry on Baseball Toaster that there are only three living players from the 1944 Streetcar Series: Danny Litwhiler, Marty Marion and Stan Musial.

“Don loved the Cardinals,” Biggs wrote me in an email this morning, “and held dear the memories of the Gas House Gang.”

The obituaries from the local papers offer more detail:

• The Joplin Globe: “When he was asked if any game stood out during his career, Gutteridge replied, “Every game was special when you got to put on that uniform.”
• The Morning Sun: “Baseball Legend Dies.”
• The Joplin Globe: “Unselfish Gutteridge never forgot hometown.”

“When I joined the (Cardinals) in ‘36, Dizzy Dean was still on the team,” Gutteridge said in Golenbock’s Spirit. “When I first went up there, Pepper Martin was playing third base, and he hated it. He wanted to play the outfield. So when I came up there, Pepper told everybody, ‘Leave this kid alone. He’s going to play third base.’ And Pepper protected me. No one got on me. …

“Both those guys (Martin and Joe Medwick) like to play jokes. They never did anything to me. I was a meek little lamb,” Gutteridge continued. “You know when Pepper wasn’t laying you had to watch him, because in St. Louis our bench had two tiers. … And if you were sitting in the front row, Pepper’d sneak up behind you, crawl underneath there, and hotfoot you. … On one ball club, we had Pepper, Dizzy and Medwick. They were not ordinary people.”

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