1960-1961

Cal Koonce was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina on November 18, 1940. He played baseball and basketball for Campbell College and was a junior college All-American.

Cal signed with the Cubs in 1961 and was sent across the country to pitch in Wenatchee, Washington.

The 103-loss Cubs were protected from the basement only by the 120-loss expansion Mets in 1962. Cal was the most successful Cubs starter his 1962 rookie season, going 10-10 for a team that had one 20-game loser.

The Cubs were better in 1963, but Cal was not. He was sent down to Salt Lake City of the Pacific Coast League in June with his ERA hovering around 6.00. He then went 5-3 with a 3.00 ERA in Triple-A, before being recalled in August, but the beatings continued.

The Cubs kept the 23-year-old righty in Salt Lake City for most of 1964. His hard work in Utah paid off with a promotion to Chicago, where he went 3-0 with a 2.03 ERA, to finish the season. 

In 1966, he started eight games for Chicago’s Triple-A affiliate in Tacoma and, after going 5-3 in eight starts there, he was back in Chicago. After his rough start his ERA kept dropping until he ended the season. He finished with a respectable 3.81 ERA.

Cal again started poorly in 1967 and was sold to the Mets in August. But things were changing in New York. The Mets were a laughingstock for their first six seasons. Other than a couple of starts late in the 1968 season, Cal made 53 relief appearances. His 2.42 ERA and 6-4 record topped the Mets bullpen.

In 1969 the deep starting Mets staff included Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Don Cardwell, and rookie Gary Gentry, plus as talented a swingman, Nolan Ryan. So it was little surprise that for the first time in his career, Cal did not start a game. He again, however, began the season poorly. He wound up allowing as many home runs in 1969 as he had in the previous two seasons combined. He still had an ERA of 6.00 as the Mets went on a tear in June. In all, Cal had nine appearances in which he threw three or more innings.

He began the 1970 season in New York, but after having appeared in just 13 games in early June 1970, the Mets sold him to the Red Sox. He wound up seeing more action in Boston, even starting eight games and throwing what turned out to be his final career complete game. He went 3-4 with a 3.54 ERA for the Red Sox after going 0-2 as a Met, with a 3.27 ERA in 1970. The next year Cal fell into the same pattern of infrequent use in Boston that he’d experienced with the Mets, and the Red Sox released him in August.

Cal had worked as a stockbroker in the off-season during his career and had spoken about becoming a golf professional, but after leaving the majors, he soon found his way back to baseball. He began as a coach and physical education teacher at Fayetteville Academy in 1974, and then moved on to South View High School in his hometown of Hope Mills from 1974 to 1979.

He returned to his alma mater, Campbell University, and took over the baseball program from 1980 to 1986. He retired in 1986 after being named the Big South Coach of the Year, the only Campbell coach so honored. He was inducted into the Campbell Sports Hall of Fame in 1987.

In 1987, Cal became general manager of the Fayetteville Generals, the first minor league team in that city in more than three decades. He stayed with the Generals for two years before returning to coaching, this time at Terry Sanford High School in Fayetteville from 1989 to 1991. He also served as a scout for the Texas Rangers in 1991 and 1992, but by then he was gravely ill. 

He also served as a town commissioner in Hope Mills, North Carolina, from 1987 to 1992 before his illness forced him to resign.

Cal Koonce battled lymphoma for four years, before dying at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, at the age of 52, on October 28, 1993.