Gus Triandos
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| Gus Triandos | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Catcher, First Baseman | ||
| Born: July 30, 1930 | ||
| Batted: Right | Threw: Right | |
| MLB debut | ||
| August 3, 1953 for the New York Yankees |
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| Final game | ||
| August 15, 1965 for the Houston Astros |
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| Career statistics | ||
| AVG | .244 | |
| HR | 167 | |
| RBIs | 608 | |
| Teams | ||
| Career highlights and awards | ||
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Gus Triandos (born July 30, 1930, in San Francisco, California) is a former Major League Baseball player who played 13 years from 1953 to 1965. He played for the New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles and the Detroit Tigers of the American League and the Philadelphia Phillies and Houston Astros of the National League. He primarily played catcher, and logged many hours at first base as well. Triandos batted and threw right-handed.
As an Oriole, Triandos held the then-record for home runs by an American League catcher, at 30. He also was user of an outsized catcher's mitt designed by manager Paul Richards to handle the dancing knuckleball of Hoyt Wilhelm.
Although perhaps the slowest runner in the league, Triandos once hit an inside-the-park home run. Along those same lines, as of 2007, he also holds the record for the most consecutive games without being caught stealing, 1,206. That accounts for his entire career, in which he had exactly 1 stolen base. (Sporting News Baseball Record Book, 2007, p.52) His lone stolen base came on September 28, 1958, the last game of the season, at Yankee Stadium, off rookie pitcher Zach Monroe and third-string catcher Darrell Johnson, with the Yankees saving their regular batteries for the upcoming 1958 World Series.[1]
A popular player in Baltimore, a street remains named "Triandos Drive" in suburban Timonium, Maryland.
As a Phillie, Triandos caught Jim Bunning's perfect game against the New York Mets on June 21, 1964.
He was elected to the All-Star team 3 times (1957, 1958, 1959). Triandos' family origins are from Koronos, Messenia, Greece.[2]
Triandos was mentioned in the second episode of the third season of the HBO drama The Wire, where a character mentions having felt sorry for him as a kid because he had to catch Hoyt Wilhelm's knuckleball.
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