Jim O'Toole

1959 Topps baseball card #136

James Jerome O'Toole (born January 10, 1937 in Chicago, Illinois) is a former left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball during the early 1960s. From 1961-64, he won 19, 16, 17 and 17 games for the Cincinnati Reds and played a crucial role in Cincinnati's 1961 National League championship. That season he won 19 of 28 decisions, with an earned run average of 3.10, which placed him second in the NL. He was named Player of the Month for September with a 5-0 record. Although he pitched effectively in the 1961 World Series, O'Toole lost his only two decisions as the New York Yankees bested the Reds in five games.

O'Toole attended the University of Wisconsin and came to the Reds after only one minor league season, with the 1958 Nashville Vols, where he led the AA Southern Association in wins (20), innings pitched, strikeouts and bases on balls. In all of parts of ten seasons (1958-67), O'Toole won 98 and lost 84, with an ERA of 3.57. He was elected to the National League All-Star team in 1963. He played in Cincinnati until his final season, which he spent with his hometown team, the Chicago White Sox.