1960-1962

With one pitch, Tracy Stallard guaranteed himself a place in baseball history, when, on October 1, 1961, he gave up the home run that allowed Roger Maris to pass and lay claim to one of baseball’s most cherished records, the single-season home run standard. Ironically, Stallard’s 1-0 defeat represented one of the best games the young right-hander pitched that year.

Tracy Stallard was born on August 31, 1937, in Coeburn, Virginia. A local legend, the 6-foot-5, hard-throwing pitcher was unbeaten in four years of baseball at Coeburn High School, capping his career with an 8-0 senior year that included two no-hitters. It was an effort that would earn him induction into the Virginia High School League Hall of Fame in 2005. It also earned the attention of major-league scouts and Stallard was signed by the Boston Red Sox in 1956. 

Assigned to the Lafayette Red Sox in the Class D Midwest League, the lanky 18-year-old compiled a 5-8 record with an earned-run average of 4.50 in 17 games and just over 100 innings. A second year with Lafayette yielded similar results. Things started to come together the following year when Stallard, assigned to Raleigh in the Class B Carolina League, lowered his ERA to 3.09. He started 1959 with the Allentown Red Sox in the Class A Eastern League, before earning a promotion to the Minneapolis Millers in the Triple-A American Association. There his record was only 2-5, but his ERA was 2.25. The following year Stallard experienced a similar arrangement. He spent time back in Allentown, and then to Minneapolis, pitching all but four of his 34 games in relief.

Finally, after five seasons toiling in the minors, Stallard spent the whole of 1961 with the Red Sox. He appeared in 43 games, starting 14 and finishing with a record of 2-7 for the sixth-place Red Sox. He pitched 132 2/3 innings with an ERA of 4.88, but the whole season was overshadowed by his being the victim of Roger Maris’s record-breaking 61st home run in the fourth inning of the 1-0 season finale.

It was a bittersweet end to Stallard’s season and he spent most of 1962 back in the minors. He did make one brief appearance with the Red Sox, recording a single shutout inning, but the rest of the year was spent toiling for the team’s Pacific Coast League Triple-A affiliate, the Seattle Rainiers.

He went to the New York Mets after the 1962 season in a multiplayer deal that had Stallard and infielders, Al Moran and Pumpsie Green being swapped for infielder-outfielder Felix Mantilla. With the Mets, Stallard was a regular member of the rotation, but his record reflected the Amazin’ Mets of the era. Indeed, after compiling a 6-17 record in 1963, he lowered his ERA by almost a full run in 1964, only to have the Mets offense leave him stranded as he suffered 20 losses to lead the league in that unenviable category. 

At the end of the 1964 season Stallard was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals. Although the Cards were coming off a World Series victory over the Yankees, Stallard earned himself a regular spot. Despite a stellar 1965 effort, Stallard split the 1966 season between the Cardinals and the Texas League Tulsa Oilers. In what proved to be his final major-league stint.

Stallard pitched in the minors for two different teams in 1967. A stint with the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs in the Double-A Texas League, and a chance to return to Triple-A Tulsa, a Chicago Cubs affiliate. Stallard dropped out of professional baseball for a year before making a final comeback attempt in 1969. Pitching for the High Point-Thomasville Royals in the Class A Carolina League. However, it was not enough to prolong his career, and at 31 he retired from professional baseball and returned to Virginia.

In the early years of his retirement, Stallard seemed to have fun with his notoriety, commenting that he was glad he had given up the historic blast because given the rest of his career he was not the kind of player who would have been remembered were it not for the Maris home run.

Too, while he turned his energies to the business world upon his retirement from baseball, Stallard kept in touch with the game, playing in occasional old-timers contests, and he even put in a couple of appearances at the Roger Maris Golf Tournament in Fargo, North Dakota.

Reflective of his enduring status as a local legend, in 1997, a new baseball field at Stallard’s alma mater, Coeburn High School, was named in his honor. And yet, true to his continuing desire to keep a low profile.

He died at the age of 80 on December 7, 2017 at the Holston Valley Medical Center in Kingsport, TN.