LOCAL LEGENDS: Coeburn High School’s Tracy Stallard

BY TIM HAYES
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

It’s both unfair and unfortunate that Tracy Stallard’s baseball career has come to be defined by one moment.

He never lost a game while pitching at Coeburn High School and his exploits are the stuff of legend in Wise County.

He put together a respectable seven-season career in the major leagues with the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals.

Yet, despite all those accomplishments, Stallard is still remembered most for one moment. One pitch. One game.

It occurred on the final day of the 1961 regular season at Yankee Stadium. Stallard was 23-years-old and in his second season in the big leagues with Boston. He appeared in 43 games that summer for
the Red Sox, shuffling between the bullpen and the starting rotation.

Boston manager Pinky Higgins decided to start the young right-hander in the final game of the season against a potent New York Yankees lineup.

He was solid through three innings and started the fourth inning by striking out Tony Kubek. Then Roger Maris stepped into the batter’s box.

Maris had tied Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record of 60, and this game represented his final chance to surpass a mark that had stood for 34 years.

In the fourth, he blasted a Stallard pitch down the right-field line. The ball soared into the stands, Maris placed his name in the record book and Stallard forever became the answer to a trivia question.

While Stallard and Maris will be eternally linked because of that pitch, there’s more to the Stallard story. Much more.

The native son

Carroll Dale was a standout athlete in high school during the mid-1950s. The Wise native was so good, in fact, that he went on to play football at Virginia Tech and eventually earned two Super Bowl titles as a wide receiver with the Green Bay Packers.

But there was a pitcher at rival Coeburn that Dale and many others just couldn’t solve.

“I know every time we played Coeburn, he would have 16 or 17 strikeouts and that was it,” Dale said. “I don’t think anybody was very competitive when he was pitching.”

That pitcher was Stallard, and many players went down swinging at his fastball for four unbeaten years. His best season with the Blue Knights came as a senior, when he went 8-0 and tossed two no-hitters.

Those numbers earned him a spot in the Virginia High School League Hall of Fame in 2005.

His performance also attracted major-league scouts. He signed with the Red Sox in 1956, thus beginning his professional career.

Stallard starred in the minor leagues and made his big league debut on Sept. 24, 1960, at Cleveland Stadium. In the ninth inning of Boston’s 11-7 loss to the Cleveland Indians, Stallard entered and worked a scoreless inning.

He registered his first major-league strikeout during that outing, fanning Woodie Held for the second out. Back in Coeburn, it was a big deal.

“It was a very proud town,” Coeburn resident Steve Hubbard Sr. recalled.

Stallard also saw a familiar face when he arrived in Boston. Scott County native Dave Hillman was also a pitcher for Boston, and the duo gave the Red Sox the distinction of having two Southwest Virginia natives on the roster at the same time.

“He was a great teammate,” Hillman said. “We had quite a few conversations in the bullpen and everywhere else in Boston about pitching … He could pitch, and he had good stuff.”

The moment

Stallard appeared in four games for Boston in 1960. The next year he compiled a 2-7 record and a 4.88 ERA and allowed 15 home runs, including the one on Oct. 1 that proved to be historically significant.

But there are some things that many people forget or simply don’t know about his encounter with Maris. Maris’ solo blast was the only run Stallard allowed in seven innings that day in Boston’s 1-0 loss.

It was also the only hit Maris had in seven career at-bats against Stallard.

Stallard also played five more seasons in the majors after that fateful day at Yankee Stadium. After pitching in just one game for the Red Sox in 1962, Stallard was traded to the New York Mets, along
with Al Moran and Pumpsie Green, for Felix Mantilla.

Stallard’s stats weren’t too impressive during those two seasons in New York – he went 6-17 with a 4.71 ERA in 1963 and 10-20 with a 3.79 ERA in 1964 – but keep in mind that the Mets lost a combined 220 games those two seasons, so he didn’t have much run support.

For instance, in a August 4, 1964 game against the San Francisco Giants, Stallard allowed just one earned run in 10 1/3 innings. Yet, he settled for no decision, and the Mets eventually lost 4-3 in 14 innings.

Earlier that season in a game at Shea Stadium, Stallard was again on the wrong side of history. He was the losing pitcher on June 21, when Philadelphia’s Jim Bunning tossed a perfect game against the Mets.

Stallard would be on the move again in 1964 as he and Elio Chacon were dealt to the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for Gordie Richardson and Johnny Lewis.

Stallard had his best season in the summer of 1964, going 11-8 with a 3.38 ERA in 40 games (26 starts) for the Cardinals. He was in the same rotation as Bob Gibson, and his battery mates included Tim McCarver and Bob Uecker.

One year later, Stallard went 1-5 with a 5.68 ERA for the Cardinals. It was his final season in the majors.

His final tally was a 30-57 record with four saves and a 4.17 ERA in 183 major league games. He also fared well against some of the league’s greatest hitters.

Willie Mays hit just .200 and struck out six times in 30 at-bats against the kid from Coeburn, while Harmon Killebrew, Mickey Mantle and Ernie Banks were also among his strikeout victims.

These days

The 71-year-old Stallard keeps a low profile these days. In fact, numerous attempts to reach him for this story were unsuccessful.

He is still competitive, as evidenced by the fact he competes in several area golf tournaments. This summer, he won the super seniors division at a prestigious tournament at Lonesome Pine Country Club in Big Stone Gap.

Maris’ record was broken in 1998 and now ranks just seventh all-time on the single-season home run list.

Still, Maris and Stallard will be forever linked in baseball history because of that one moment in 1961.

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