1943

Howard "Danny" Doyle was a catcher, called up to the major leagues right at the end of the 1943 season, but then got a call-up of another sort and served in the United States Army Air Force in 1944 and 1945. With the onset of diabetes, and all the veteran Sox servicemen returning in 1946, he never saw duty again as a major-league ballplayer, though he signed a number of players as one of the most effective Red Sox scouts.

He was born on January 24, 1917, in McCloud, California and went to the McLoud schools, then Dale High School in Dale, Oklahoma, and eventually to Oklahoma A&M. He graduated in 1940 with a B.S. in Agronomy and played basketball as well as baseball, for four years in high school and three at the university.

The Oklahoma A&M basketball team was a powerful one and Danny traveled with the team to Madison Square Garden for three consecutive seasons to play for the national championship. 

He played semipro baseball for several years and, despite having started his professional career with the Centreville Red Sox in the Class-D Eastern Shore League in 1940, kept playing semipro ball after the season. In September 1940, he was on the Enid, Oklahoma, team that traveled to Wichita and won the National Semipro Baseball Congress championship.

In 1941 he started the season in Class B with the Greensboro Red Sox. In June he was optioned to the Canton Terriers and left to join the Class-C Middle Atlantic League team. He was sent to play in the Texas League in 1942, catching for the Oklahoma City Indians.

Danny joined the Boston Red Sox and debuted in Washington in September 1943. In all, he appeared in 13 games and the Red Sox only won two of them.

Doyle didn’t really have a chance to make the team in 1944, and as it happened he never returned to the majors. He was ticketed for military service and enlisted in April 1944, at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He served in the Army Air Force, becoming a buck sergeant and because of allergies, he never served overseas.

As a late enlistee, Doyle wasn’t discharged as early as a lot of other players but he did get to spring training in time to have made the 1946 club. The Red Sox kept him in their system, but he spent his 1946 season with Louisville and Nashville, with a combined .218 batting average.

In January 1947, he was named varsity basketball coach at Auburn University and worked there for two seasons, but resigned in March 1949 to become a scout for the Red Sox. He was a scout through 2002, and was on the books as a scouting consultant in 2003 and 2004.

Danny Doyle lost his sight in his final years, and passed away on December 14, 2004, at Stillwater, Oklahoma, at the age of 87.