1968

Gene Oliver was born on March 22, 1935, in Moline, Illinois. A three-sport star athlete at Alleman Catholic High in nearby Rock Island, he accepted a football scholarship to Northwestern University after turning down a $60,000 bonus from Detroit Tigers. A shoulder separation ended both his football pursuits and the Tigers’ interest. Though the university changed his scholarship to baseball, the dejected youngster instead returned home, took a job with IBM, and got married. 

He rehabilitated his arm and when the Cardinals’ Midwest scouting chief, passed through Moline and inquired about his health. On a frigid day in January 1956, a throwing exhibition inside the local YMCA was arranged and, convinced that the shoulder was adequately healed, a scout signed Oliver for a fraction of the amount previously offered by Detroit.

Gene was transferred to the Ardmore (Oklahoma) Cardinals, where he terrorized the pitchers in the Class D Sooner State League. Flirting with the .400 mark through the early season, he finished with a .333 batting average and helped the Cardinals to a first-place finish. This harried pace continued the next year in the Class B Carolina League, when Gene set the Winston-Salem Red Birds’ home-run record with 30.

Proving that he could hit a ball out of any park, Gene continued his torrid pace after reporting to his first major-league spring training camp in 1958. Assigned to the Rochester (New York) Red Wings of the Triple-A International League and slowed by an arm injury in May, he finished second on the team with 18 home runs.

Although Oliver broke camp with the Cardinals in 1960, his .182 average in the Grapefruit League (likely because of a hairline fracture discovered in his right hand weeks later) eroded their confidence in the young slugger. He sat on the bench for 15 days until was reassigned to the Red Wings. He proceeded to lead the Pacific Coast League with 36 homers for the Portland Beavers in 1961. 

His powerful bat did not find a permanent home in St. Louis until 1962. His season total of 13 home runs as a catcher (he hit another while playing the outfield) tied a team record. Genes slow start in 1963, combined with the club’s desire to find playing time for $80,000 bonus-baby catcher, Tim McCarver, cut into Gene's time behind the plate.

In the final hours of the June trading deadline, Gene was sent to the Milwaukee Braves. With five catchers now on the Braves’ roster, the team optioned Bob Uecker to Denver and announced that Gene would play first base. In his first three games as a Brave, he got six hits in 12 at-bats. For the season, he had 11 home runs in 296 at-bats and tied for fourth on the Braves, despite appearing in only 95 games. 

During the 1964 season, in addition to Joe Torre, who manned the post often when newly acquired Ed Bailey served behind the plate, Gene found himself sharing the position with five other players. The constant platooning led to only 279 at-bats for him, but he muscled 13 home runs.

In search of a backup catcher in 1965, the Braves turned to the man who’d previously admitted he didn’t like the position. Injuries forced Bobby Bragan to rotate Torre and Gene between the plate and first base. Gene saw little playing time when the franchise moved to Atlanta the next year. In a spring-training collision at home plate, he suffered a torn ligament in his left knee, that further limited his time when the season opened, and a .152 average by mid-June, indicated that he never got fully untracked. 

His 1967 spring began with another injury. This time it was a broken bone in his throwing hand, but when he recovered he hit .294. In June, with the team mired in seventh place, he was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for Bob Uecker to catch Phil Niekro.

The Phillies saw the acquisition as an opportunity to improve their offense. Gene was inserted behind the plate and proceeded to hit .339 with four homers in his first 59 at-bats. 

In December, he was traded to the Boston Red Sox. In 1968, Red Sox catcher Russ Gibson underwent an appendectomy in March, but when Gibson returned and Gene struggled at the plate, the defending American League champions began actively shopping the 33-year-old veteran.

Gene was sold to the Chicago Cubs in June and was with the Cubs for less than a month, when he had to have surgery for torn knee cartilage. He returned to the club in 1969 but was used sparingly, and had a brief stint with the Cubs’ Double-A affiliate in San Antonio. In September, he was released and named a Cubs coach. He continued as a minor-league instructor in the Cubs and Phillies organizations into the 1980s.

When his coaching career was over, Gene went back home to Rock Island, Illinois. He had done sales and public-relations work in clothing stores and car dealerships, and now added the position of part-time bailiff to his résumé.

But his true passion centered on his high-school alma mater. He’d taken to broadcasting Alleman High games and, with his love of children continued in one capacity or another with the school, until his final days. When the school established an athletic Hall of Fame in 1995, Gene was among the first inductees. A year later he was inducted into the Quad Cities Sports Hall of Fame. 

Gene had developed A friendship with Cubs catcher Randy Hundley, when he was Hundley’s backup, and Gene was a regular participant at Hundley’s Cubs Fantasy Camp. The camps were the ideal transition from his playing days. 

Gene Oliver’s own path came to an end on March 3, 2007, when he died from complications after lung surgery, in Rock Island, Illinois, at age 71.