1951-1952

Bill Wight was born on April 12, 1922, in Rio Vista, California. He attended Lafayette elementary school and Lowell Junior High in Oakland, and graduated from McClymonds High School in Oakland in 1940. He played outfield at first, but had a strong arm and soon turned to pitching. It wasn’t in high school that he got any real help; he learned the most playing semipro baseball, often against veteran ballplayers. 

The University of California made him him an offer, but he hadn’t been on a college track and said he didn’t think he had the grades. He was signed by the New York Yankees and played his first season as a professional in 1941 for the Idaho Falls Russets in the Class C Pioneer League.

Bill moved up to the Class A Binghamton (New York) Triplets in 1942, but the weather in upstate New York was too cold for him. He was shifted to the Class B Norfolk Tars in Virginia. He was slated to pitch for the Kansas City Blues, one of the Yankees’ top farm teams, at the end of the year, but shoulder trouble ended his season a few weeks early. 

In November 1942, Bill joined the U.S. Navy and served until his discharge in December 1945. The navy took over Oakland’s St. Mary’s College and made it into a preflight school, bringing in many pro athletes to help build a program. His primary duty was being the base mailman, and helping with physical training. There was, naturally, a baseball team organized. 

With the end of the war, the Yankees were unsure of what they had in terms of players available for the 1946 season, so they scheduled an early spring training in Panama. Bill was on the Newark Bears’ roster but had asked if he could train with the big-league team. The Yanks purchased his contract from Newark four days before Opening Day, and he made his first appearance in Philadelphia in April and stayed with the Yankees all season, appearing in fourteen games.

He spent 1947 with the Class Triple-A Kansas City Blues of the American Association. The Yankees recalled him in September, and he appeared in one game, a complete-game win in the final game of the year, against Philadelphia at Yankee Stadium.

His connection with the Yankees ended in 1948, when he was packaged as part of a late February trade with the White Sox. He was 9-20 with a 4.80 ERA for the last-place White Sox in 1948 and also led the league in walks with 135. He enjoyed a much better year in 1949, winning fifteen games and losing thirteen with a greatly improved 3.31 earned run average. 

Bill started well in 1950, but he missed almost three weeks due to hemorrhoids, followed by an ailing elbow. In October and November he took part in a 33-game postseason exhibition tour, pitting the American League All-Stars versus the National League All-Stars and visiting twelve states and Canada.

In December, the Red Sox moved to bolster its pitching staff by trading for Bill. After he was knocked out in his first five starts for Boston, he was pulled from the rotation and used as a reliever and spot starter from that point on. By season’s end he was 7-7 with a 5.10 earned-run average. In 1952, when it came time for a trade, he was made available and was sent to the Tigers as part of a nine-player deal in June.

Bill was stingier with runs that season, finishing 1952 with a combined ERA of 3.75 and a 7-10 record.  His ERA for Detroit was 8.88 in thirteen appearances. Just a little over a year after the trade to Detroit, he was sent to Cleveland in an eight-player trade in June. 

He missed the Indians’ trip to the World Series in 1954, though he did get a $1,000 Series share. He had trained with Cleveland in Tucson, but was sold to San Diego and spent all of the season there. He excelled against PCL batters, posting a 17-5 record with a 1.93 earned run average for the pennant-winning Padres. Bill led the league in both winning percentage and ERA, and was one of three pitchers named to the league’s All-Star team.

His work in the PCL propelled him back to the majors in 1955, where the Indians used him in seventeen games. Though Bill had pitched well in limited action, he was placed on waivers in mid-July and claimed by the Baltimore Orioles. 

Seen from the start as part of the four-man rotation, Bill was the Orioles’ Opening Day starter in 1956. By December 1957, he found himself in the National League, after being sold to the Cincinnati Reds. Cincinnati planned to use him in the bullpen in 1958, but after appearing in seven games, the Reds released him in May. The St. Louis Cardinals picked him up as a free agent the next day so they could have at least one lefty reliever on the staff. He won three games without a loss for St. Louis, but his earned run average was 5.02.

During the off-season, he toured East Asia with the Cardinals, traveling to the Philippines, Korea, and Japan. After beating the Hawaiian All-Stars in October, he was released by the Cardinals but welcomed to continue on the tour. 

In 1959 Bill worked briefly in one final season, pitching in four games for the PCL Seattle Rainiers and then retired.

He worked for a while as a liquor salesman, but also enjoyed time at his ranch in Mount Shasta, California. From 1962–66, he was a scout in Northern California for the National League’s new Houston club. He was a scout for the Atlanta Braves from 1967 to 1998 and signed more than a dozen players.

Bill was a man who had a few different talents. He enjoyed playing chess, when he could find a suitable opponent, and he was a very good sketch artist. 

Bill Wight died of a heart attack on May 17, 2007, in Mount Shasta, California, at age 85.