Gus Triandos (July 30, 1930 – March 28, 2013) was an American professional baseball player and scout. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher and a first baseman, most prominently as a member of the Baltimore Orioles where he was a four-time All-Star player. He also played for the New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers of the American League (AL) and the Philadelphia Phillies and Houston Astros of the National League (NL).
Playing career
Born in San Francisco, California, Triandos attended Mission High School and was signed by the New York Yankees as an amateur
free agent in 1948.
[ Gus Triandos Trades and Transactions at Baseball Almanac] He joined the Yankees' major league roster briefly as a 22-year-old in 1953, but was sent back to the minor leagues in 1954. Triandos was traded to the Baltimore Orioles in 1954 where he played mostly as a first baseman for his first two years with the team, before becoming the Orioles' regular catcher in 1957.
As the Orioles' catcher, he used an outsized catcher's mitt designed by manager Paul Richards to handle the unpredictable
knuckleball of
Hoyt Wilhelm.
[ "Gus Triandos Looks Back on his Catching Career", Baseball Digest, June 1997, Vol. 56, No. 6, ISSN 0005-609X] Triandos was behind the plate when Wilhelm threw a
no hitter against the New York Yankees on September 20, 1958, the first no-hitter in Baltimore Orioles history,
[100 Things Orioles Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die, Dan Connolly, Triumph Books, Chicago, 2015, ISBN 978-1-62937-041-5, p.212 ] and also scored the only run of the game when he hit a home run in the eighth
inning.
[ September 20, 1958 Yankees-Orioles box score at Baseball-Reference]
Although perhaps the slowest runner in the league, Triandos once hit an inside-the-park home run.[ Inside the Park: Home Runs by Catchers at The Encyclopedia of Baseball Catchers] As of 2021, 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 one stolen base.[ Sporting News Baseball Record Book, 2007, p.52.] That stolen base came on September 28, 1958, in the 9th inning of the last game of the season, at Yankee Stadium, off rookie pitcher Zach Monroe and catcher Darrell Johnson.[ Baseball Almanac][ 1958 American League Fielding Leaders at Baseball-Reference] In 1959, he hit 20 home runs by mid-season and was again selected to be the starting catcher for the American League in the 1959 All-Star Game, However, a hand injury meant that he only had 25 home runs for the entire season.
In 1962, he hit .169 in 63 games and was traded to the Detroit Tigers at the end of the year.[ Baseball Digest, July 2001, p.86, Vol. 60, No. 7, ISSN 0005-609X] The following winter, he was traded along with Jim Bunning to the Philadelphia Phillies, where he again shared catching duties, this time with Clay Dalrymple. As the Phillies' catcher, Triandos caught Bunning's perfect game against the New York Mets on June 21, 1964, thus becoming the first catcher in Major League history to catch no hitters in both the American and National Leagues.
Career statistics
In his 13-year major league career, Triandos played in 1,206
Games played, accumulating 954 hits in 3,907
at bats for a .244 career batting average along with 167 home runs, 608 runs batted in and a .322 on-base percentage.
He ended his career with a .987 fielding percentage in 992 games as a catcher and, a .988 fielding percentage in 168 games as a first baseman.
Triandos led American League catchers twice in assists and in baserunners
caught stealing.
In 1957, he threw out 66.7% of the base runners trying to steal a base, the third highest single-season ratio in Major League history.
[ CS% Seasons at The Encyclopedia of Baseball Catchers] Over his career, Triandos threw out 46.62% of the
Baserunning who tried to
Stolen base a base on him, ranking him 6th on the all-time list.
[ 100 Best Caught Stealing Totals at The Encyclopedia of Catchers] Triandos was elected to the American League All-Star team for three consecutive years, in 1957, 1958 and 1959.
His 142 home runs hit as an Oriole player ranks him 13th highest in the team's history.
In 1961, the reigning American League stolen base champion,
Luis Aparicio, rated Triandos just below
Earl Battey as the toughest catcher on which to attempt a stolen base.
Personal life
Triandos's family origins are from
Koroni,
Messenia, Greece.
[ Baseball Acropolis] He was one of four children of Peter Triandos and Helen Mourgos, Greek immigrants to the U.S. He and wife Evelyn had three children, son Gary Triandos and daughters Lori Luna and Tracey Hook.
Triandos served as a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1973 to 1975. In later years, he lived in San Jose, California. Triandos Drive in Timonium, Maryland is named in honor of the popular catcher.
[ "Catching Up With Gus Triandos", The Toy Department ( The Baltimore Sun sports blog), Tuesday, May 5, 2009]
In popular culture
In the second episode of the third season of Baltimore-based
HBO show
The Wire, Triandos is referenced and discussed about by the character Herc, who talks about how Triandos was tasked with the tough job of catching for
knuckleball pitcher
Hoyt Wilhelm for five years and how Triandos remarked that catching for Wilhelm "nearly ruined me." The reference to Triandos arose when Herc told Carver that if he had to engage in sexual intercourse with any man it would have to be Triandos.
, the showrunner for "The Wire", wrote that he sent Triandos a copy of the script before filming and that Triandos called the reference "pretty funny".
External links
