Pitcher lost an eye but never lost hope

Bobby Slaybaugh always considered himself to be a man of good fortune. That he lost an eye, a potential career and a chance at fame and glory in an instant never seemed to enter into the equation when it came time to discussing what fate had in store for the former Cardinals farmhand.

Slaybaugh, who died last May at the age of 77, made headlines in the early 1950s -- mostly for unfortunate reasons. A pitcher of some promise, the talented southpaw lost his left eye in a tragic on-field incident in 1952. His attempted comeback and subsequent retirement from the game two years later garnered a great deal of attention at the time.

Though the loss of his baseball career left Slaybaugh discouraged, he went on to a successful post-baseball life he never expected to enjoy. In Slaybaugh's mind, what took place on March 24, 1952 in St. Petersburg, Fla., merely sent his life spinning in another direction.

Robert Leroy Slaybaugh had a season to remember in 1951, winning 17 games as a 19-year-old with Goldsboro in the Class D Coastal Plain League. He led the circuit with 223 strikeouts and had a real chance of making the Cardinals staff as Spring Training opened in 1952.

Life was playing out the way Slaybaugh had imagined it would since he was a child. Despite being stricken as a youngster with rheumatic fever, which for a time confined him to a wheelchair, Slaybaugh never gave up hope of playing professional baseball.

That he had already overcome his illness and become a successful pitcher was somewhat of a miracle in itself. The Sporting News labeled him "a little left-hander with unusual control" in its March 12, 1952 issue. The talk around the St. Louis camp was that Slaybaugh had the talent to make an impact in the Major Leagues. But that was before he took the mound on the March 24 to pitch batting practice to the Cardinals' reserves.

Jim Dickey, one of the players taking BP that morning, was the person who changed Slaybaugh's life. He sent a line drive back through the box on one of Slaybaugh's first pitches, connecting with the hurler's skull. The shot cracked Slaybaugh's left cheekbone and forced the eye partially out of the socket.

"I saw it all the way," Slaybaugh told The Sporting News. "And I threw my gloved hand in front of my face for protection. But at the same time I jerked my head. The ball flicked one of my fingers and hit my face."

Slaybaugh collapsed and was rushed to a nearby hospital, where surgery was performed to put his eye back in place, though doctors admitted he probably wouldn't regain his sight.

"That Slaybaugh is a man," Cardinals manager Eddie Stanky told The Sporting News. "In the car on the way to the hospital, he talked about baseball. No whimper out of him, though the pain must have been terrific. He told me that if they had to operate, for me to be sure and tell the surgeons that he had had rheumatic fever when he was young so they could be careful about the effect of anesthetic on the heart."

The operation to save Slaybaugh's eye initially appeared successful. But when a rupture developed near the back of the eye, doctors were forced to remove it on April 3 in St. Louis. Despite his misfortune, Slaybaugh never gave up the thought that he'd be back on the mound again.

His determination was unmatched and before long he was fitted with a glass eye and set about continuing his career. Slaybaugh went to Omaha to join the Cardinals' Western League affiliate. Omaha manager George Kissell worked long and hard with Slaybaugh, eventually getting him some action out of the bullpen. Slaybaugh was effective, throwing 6 2/3 innings of two-hit, shutout ball in relief, prompting Kissell to pencil him in as the starter on June 29 against Des Moines.

Slaybaugh responded with one of the most memorable games of his career, throwing a four-hit shutout and emerging with a 1-0 victory only three months after losing his eye. "He said the toughest part of coming back was his depth perception," said his son, Scott Slaybaugh. "He said teams just started bunting on him and that made it difficult."

The miraculous effort against Des Moines proved to be an exception rather than the norm. Slaybaugh remained in the Western League for the rest of the summer, starting sporadically with mixed results. He split 1953 between Columbus of the South Atlantic League and Winston-Salem of the Carolina League but had no great success in either locale.

Slaybaugh began 1954 back in Columbus, but after sitting on the bench for the first three weeks of the season, the Cards set him to Lynchburg of the Piedmont League. Records indicate he made one start there, suffered a loss and was asked to report to Winnipeg of the Northern League. He refused, though, and returned to Ohio to pitch in a semi-pro league and begin his post-baseball career at a local lumber and supply company. One report indicated he went 2-11 between the time of his accident and his retirement.

"Dad never talked a whole lot about it [losing his eye]," Scott Slaybaugh said. "He did get discouraged with it. It was interesting, though. He only went to seventh grade before he came down with rheumatic fever. He was bedridden for a long time and had to have tutors to finish school.

"After that, they would wheel my dad out in a wheelchair with a little wooden bat and a bucket of rocks. The story goes that he knew every team in the American and National Leagues and as he was hitting rocks with the bat, he would tell people that someday he was going to be a Major League baseball player. He was lucky enough to live that dream to a point."

Bobby Slaybaugh was a deeply religious man, according to his son, and felt fortunate that he lived as long as he did. The younger Slaybaugh said he visited his father a few months before he died and the conversation proved more telling than any the two had ever shared.

"He felt he was lucky enough just to have lived as long as he did," Scott Slaybaugh said. "He said God did that because he felt like he could have ended up dropping dead [had he continued to play ball]. He lived longer than anyone ever thought he would and eventually died of congestive heart failure.

"I don't know if he knew he was dying at the time we spoke, but to come out and say that tells me a lot about what he stood for and what his beliefs were. And he loved the Cardinals until the end."

Slaybaugh also met his first wife, Scott's mother, in the hospital in St. Louis while recovering from his initial surgery, pointing to that as a positive that arose from a horrible situation.

As for losing his eye, there are several anecdotes that prove Slaybaugh was comfortable with his predicament. There was the game in 1953 while pitching for Columbus in which the glass eye actually fell out of the socket. Normally, Slaybaugh pitched with an eye patch, but on May 1 he decided to pitch without it against Jacksonville, instead using a strip of tape.

Perspiration loosened the tape and in the fifth inning, after delivering a pitch, the eye fell from its socket and rolled down the mound. Slaybaugh picked the eye up, placed it in his pocket and continued to pitch, losing a 2-1 affair in 10 innings.

"I never heard that one," Scott Slaybaugh said. "I'll tell you one of the things he used to do, though. There were times when he'd have to leave for work on a Monday or a Tuesday and would come home on Friday. He was an old-school guy who believed in families eating together, that kind of stuff. He'd come down on the day he was supposed to leave and put his spare eye in the middle of the table and tell us 'Remember, I have my eye on you'."

Fate, despite the obvious, also seemed to keep an eye on Bobby Slaybaugh.