Bill Zinser

William Francis Zinser

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 1", Weight 185 lb.

• Debut August 19, 1944
• Final Game August 26, 1944
• Born January 6, 1918 in Astoria, NY USA
• Died February 16, 1993 in Englewood, FL USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Bill Zinser was a pitcher for three years (1940-1944), two in the minors and a cup of coffee in the majors in 1944, losing two years to the Military (1942-1943). He broke into Organized Baseball in 1940 at age 22 and played with the Kinston Eagles, going 17-9 with a 2.08 ERA. He was tied for third in the Coastal Plain League in wins and led in ERA. In 1941, he moved up to the Greenville Spinners in the South Atlantic League and had a 11-14, 4.41 season. Overall, he was 28-23 in the minor leagues.

Zinser served in the U.S. Coast Guard and the Merchant Marine Corps (sic) during World War II (BN).

Zinser was 26 years old when he broke into the big leagues on August 19, 1944, with the Washington Senators. He pitched two games in middle relief (0-0) and had one strikeout and 5 walks in ⅔ innings pitched with an ERA of 27.00 and a WHIP of 9.000. He played his final MLB game on August 26, 1944, ending his baseball career at age 26.

He was an operating engineer for Grumman Aircraft before retiring to Florida in 1974. He died from a heart attack on February 16, 1993 and was cremated.

Sources

Principal sources for Bill Zinser 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 independent research by Walter Kephart (WK) and Frank Russo (FR) and others.

Related Sites

• Bill Zinser on Retrosheet
• Bill Zinser at the Baseball Almanac
• Bio at Baseball Page
• and a full Bibliography from SABR's The Baseball Index (TBI)