1943-1945
EDDIE LAKE   SS/P

Eddie Lake was born in Antioch, California on March 18, 1916. He went to Castlemont High School in Oakland, where he both pitched and played outfield, and was on the football and track teams and he had planned to become a cabinet maker. Even though he was only 5' 7", the St. Louis Cardinals took a chance and signed him.

In 1937, he played in the Class-D Nebraska State League for the Grand Island Red Birds. He jumped two levels and played 1938 in the Class B Three-I League for the Decatur (Illinois) Commodores. He then was with the Houston Buffaloes in the Texas League, an A-1 circuit, the equivalent of Double-A ball in the early twenty-first century.

In September his contract was formally sold to the Cardinals and he was brought to St. Louis, debuting in September 1939 in Cincinnati, as a pinch-runner. He trained with the Cardinals at St. Petersburg and opened the 1940 season with the team, combining pinch appearances with second base and shortstop work and got into 32 games.

In July, not having played in the interim, the Cards sent him to the Sacramento Solons (Pacific Coast League), where he batted .295 and was selected him as utility infielder for the PCL all-star team.

He played all of 1941 for St. Louis, but it was a dispiriting year as he hit just .105 in 92 plate appearances. When he wasn’t playing, he was often used to warm up pitchers in the bullpen. He decided he’d rather play in the minor leagues that have another season like that. 

In April 1942 he joined the Solons. The Coast League had a much longer season, and Eddie played in 176 games for Sacramento, far more enjoyable than sitting on the bench.

Eddie was still on a St. Louis Cardinals contract, but with the Red Sox losing a significant number of players to military service, the Sox wanted to shore up the shortstop position for 1943. And in September, the Red Sox purchased Eddie’s contract from the Cardinals. Near the end of March, he contracted German measles however, and was placed in “virtual quarantine,” isolated from the rest of the team. He only batted .199, playing in 75 games.

In 1944 he got his chance to pitch in a regulation game. He did marginally better at the plate, batting .206, but had the uncommon opportunity to actually pitch, not just one time, but in six games. All told, his line as a pitcher was 19 1/3 IP, 20 hits, 2 HRs, 11 BB, 7 Ks, and an almost respectable 4.19 ERA.

There wasn’t much reason to think the Red Sox would want him back in 1945, based on his ’43 and ’44 seasons, and indeed he didn’t even come east for spring training. He hadn’t been called into the service, but he was working at a defense plant in California. But when the Sox lost the services of Bobby Doerr to the war, Eddie was summoned east, arriving in mid-April. Starting in late May, he put together a 10-game hitting streak, bumping his average up from .000 to .390. There was another hitting streak, 11 games, from June through July. All in all, the way he had become red-hot was just one of those unexplainable things in baseball. He cooled off, but put up a respectable .279 average, with 51 RBIs – third on the team. It was by far his best year.

With Johnny Pesky coming back from the service, Eddie had become surplus but still a valuable commodity. Just as the new year began, the Sox sent him to the reigning World Champion Detroit Tigers, in January 1946, for  Rudy York

Eddie could never say he hadn’t got his chance to play, appearing in 155 games in 1946 for the Tigers. His 703 plate appearances led the league, but his 35 errors at shortstop were second highest.

He picked it up in 1947 with a good April, but by May had dropped under .200 and didn’t reach it again until June. By season’s end, he was at .211, a drop-off that is difficult to understand.

In 1948 he did hit almost precisely 50 points higher at .263. In August, during the game against the Athletics at Shibe Park, he took a throw as the baserunner crashed into him at the second-base bag. The third finger of his left hand was broken in two places and he was out for the rest of the year. Quick to sign in 1949, he had an entirely lackluster season, hitting for just a .196 average.

Eddie’s last season was 1950. Even though he appeared in 20 games, spread throughout the season, he didn’t get even one base hit, pinch-hitting nine times and pinch-running nine times.  It was no surprise to anyone that the Tigers cut him loose before the 1951 season. 

In April, his contract was sold outright to the San Francisco Seals. In February 1952, the Oakland Oaks traded for him, but he never sufficiently impressed at anything, however, and only appeared in 47 games, batting .210. He rejoined the Oaks in 1953 as a utility infielder, and got a fair amount of work.

He ended up in A ball, playing in the Western International League for the Victoria Tyees. The league disbanded after the 1954 season, replaced by the Class-B Northwest League, and the Spokane Indians hired Eddie as their manager for 1955. In 1956 he managed the Class C Salinas Packers (California League), where he hit .312 in 119 games, his last games in professional baseball. 

In 1959, Eddie got into scouting and worked that year for the Washington Senators, followed by 1960-1962 for Minnesota, and 1968-1970 for the Detroit Tigers. In 1965 he had signed on as baseball coach for the noted St. Mary’s of Moraga, California. 

He spent a few weeks in both 1969 and 1970 working in Mexican baseball, conducting a series of baseball clinics, for the Mexico City Reds in 1969 and the Union League clubs at Queretaro in 1970. After 1970, he retired from baseball.

Eddie Lake died on June 7, 1995, at the Baywood Nursing Facility in Castro Valley, California. He was 79 years old, and had died from generalized nodular Hodgkin’s disease some 10 weeks after surgery.