Bill Outen

William Austin Outen

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 200 lb.
• School North Carolina State University
• High School Mount Holly High School
• Debut April 16, 1933
• Final Game October 1, 1933
• Born June 17, 1905 in Mount Holly, NC USA
• Died September 11, 1961 in Durham, NC USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Bill Outen was a catcher for 13 years (1927-1939), two in college (1927-1928), ten in the minors (1927-1932 and 1934-1939) and the entire 1933 season in MLB. Outen was born on June 17, 1905, in Mount Holly, NC. He entered the U.S. Army and was honorably discharged (VA). He attended North Carolina College of Agriculture and Engineering (now North Carolina State University) in 1927 and 1928, where he played baseball.

He broke into Organized Baseball at age 24 with Asheville in the South Atlantic League. He played for Asheville (1929), Albany in the Eastern League (1930), the Jersey City Giants in the International League (1930); Greenville (1930), Scranton in the New York-Pennsylvania League (1931), and Jersey City again (1931-1932). Outen was 27 years old when he broke into the big leagues on April 16, 1933, with the Brooklyn Dodgers. He hit an inside-the-park home run, unusual for a catcher, on August 26, 1933. He played the entire season for the Dodgers and had 38 hits, 20 runs, 10 doubles, 0 triples, 4 home runs, 17 RBI and 1 stolen base at (.248/.335/.392) in 93 games and played his final MLB game on October 1, 1933 at age 28.

He returned to the minors with the Buffalo Bisons and Montreal Royals (International League) (1934), the San Francisco Missions in the Pacific Coast League (1935-1937), the Hollywood Stars of the same league (1938), Spartanburg (South Atlantic League) (1939), Lexington in the North Carolina State League (1939), and Mayodan in the Bi-State League (1939), ending his baseball career at age 34.

In 1931, his best year in the minors, he had 176 hits, 111 runs, 34 doubles, 12 triples, 12 home runs, 83 RBI and 4 stolen bases at .328 in 147 games. Overall in the minors, had 1,111 hits, 624 runs, 213 doubles, 46 triples, 81 home runs, 615 RBI and 33 stolen bases at .334 in 1,125 games.

He died at age 56 in a VA Hospital in Durham, NC on September 11, 1963 and is buried at Mount Holly Cemetery in Mount Holly, NC. He is somerimes listed under the derogatory nickname "Chink" Outen because he had slightly slanted eyes.

Sources

Principal sources for Bill Outen include newspaper obituaries (OB), government Veteran records (VA,CM,CW), Stars & Stripes (S&S), Sporting Life (SL), The Sporting News (TSN), The Sports Encyclopedia:Baseball 2006 by David Neft & Richard Cohen (N&C), old Who's Who in Baseballs (none) (WW), old Baseball Registers (none) (BR) , old Daguerreotypes by TSN (none) (DAG), Stars&Stripes (S&S), The Baseball Necrology by Bill Lee (BN), Pat Doyle's Professional Ballplayer DataBase (PD), The Baseball Library (BL), Baseball in World War II Europe by Gary Bedingfield (GB) and The Pacific Coast League: A Statistical History, 1903-1957 by Dennis Snelling; SABR's Minor League Baseball Stars, Volume II; and The International League: Year-by-year Statistics, 1884-1953 by Marshall D. Wright and independent research by Walter Kephart (WK) and Frank Russo (FR) and others.

Related Sites

• Chink Outen at the SABR Bio Project
• Chink Outen at the Baseball Almanac
• Bio at Baseball Page
• Chink Outen at the Baseball Encyclopedia of Catchers
• and a full Bibliography from SABR's The Baseball Index (TBI)