Marlin Henry Stuart (August 8, 1918 – June 16, 1994) was an American professional baseball pitcher. The right-handed from Paragould, Arkansas, appeared in 196 games pitched (165 in relief pitcher) in Major League Baseball for three American League teams. He batted left-handed and was listed as tall and .
Baseball career
Minor leagues
Stuart played for Greene County Tech, Paragould High School and local American Legion teams while working as a farmer and picking cotton. He signed as a free agent with the St. Louis Browns' system in 1940 and began his minor league baseball career at the Class D level with the
Mayfield Browns of the
KITTY League. Before his 40th and last appearance of the season, Stuart asked his manager if he could pitch barefoot, which was his custom as a boy. Given the green light, Stuart went to the mound on September 7 without socks or spikes and defeated the Fulton Tigers, throwing a seven-inning
complete game and striking out 11.
[ Hagerty, Tim (23 December 2016), "That Time a Pitcher Threw a Complete Game Barefoot," The Sporting News] After three years in the lower minors, Stuart missed the 1943–1945 seasons while performing World War II military duty. He returned to baseball in 1946 and was acquired by the
Detroit Tigers' organization during the 1948 minor-league campaign. On June 27, 1950, Stuart pitched a perfect game for the Toledo Mud Hens of the Triple-A American Association, defeating the Indianapolis Indians, 1-0.
Major leagues
Stuart first appeared in the major leagues the Tigers in as a 30-year-old
rookie. He got into 33 games for Detroit in 1949 and , with some return visits to the minor leagues, then spent the full season with the Tigers, working in 29 contests. In —a nightmarish season for the Tigers, who would lose 104 games and finish last—he fashioned a winning record (3–2) in 30 games with Detroit through August 14, when he was traded back to the Browns in an eight-player waiver deal. In , the last year the Browns would spend in St. Louis before transferring to
Baltimore, he led the pitching staff with eight victories;
[Retrosheet: The 1953 St. Louis Browns] his 8–2 won–lost record was notable, for the Browns posted a poor 54–100 mark all season. He was second in the American League with 60 appearances, after finishing fifth in the Junior Circuit the previous year with 42 games pitched.
[ Information at Baseball Reference] His last
MLB season was , when he pitched in 22 games for the relocated Baltimore Orioles and ten games for the New York Yankees. He retired from professional baseball in 1956.
Despite pitching for several struggling teams, Stuart compiled a career won–lost mark of 23–17 (.575), along with 12 saves. As a starting pitcher, he threw seven , although none was a shutout. He allowed 544 hits and 256 bases on balls in innings pitched, with 185 . His lifetime MLB earned run average was 4.65.
Stuart died in Paragould at age 75 in June of 1994.
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