Dick Young

Note: This page is for 1950s infielder Dick Young. For the sportswriter who was active from the 1950s to the 1980s, click here.

Richard Ennis Young

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 175 lb.
• High School Lincoln High School (Seattle)
• Debut September 11, 1951
• Final Game September 28, 1952
• Born June 3, 1928 in Seattle, WA USA
• Died January 7, 2018 in Silverdale, WA USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Dick Young was a second baseman 15 years (1948-1962), all in the minors except for two cups of coffee in the majors in 1951 and 1952). He was born on June 3, 1928, in Seattle, WA. He graduated from high school in 1945 at age 18 and served in the U.S. Armed Forces at the tail end of World War II (WK).

Signed by scout Don McShane of the Philadelphia Phillies as an amateur free agent in 1948, he broke into Organized Baseball at age 19. He played for Klamath Falls in the Far West League (1948); Terre Haute in the Three-I League (1948-1949); Bradford in the PONY League (1949); Wilmington in the Inter-State League (1950); Schenectady in the Eastern League (1951); and the Baltimore Orioles of the International League (IL) (1951).

Young was 23 years old when he broke into the big leagues on September 11, 1951, with the Phillies. He finished the season in Philadelphia but failed to make the team in spring training the next year. Returned to Baltimore in 1952, he was once again called up to Philadelphia where he played his final major league game on September 28, 1952 at age 23.

He returned to the minors with the Birmingham Barons in the Southern Association (SA) (1952); the Louisville Colonels and Charleston Senators of the American Association (AA) (1953).

On March 28, 1954 he was traded by the Phillies with $50,000 to the Brooklyn Dodgers for Bobby Morgan and was sent down to the Montreal Royals (IL). He also played with Mobile (SA) (1955); the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) (1956); the St. Paul Saints (AA) (1957); Nuevo Laredo in the Mexican League (1957); Spokane (PCL) (1958); Mobile (SA) (1959); Mobile, the Chattanooga Lookouts and Birmingham Barons (SA) (1960); Fresno in the California League (1961); Quincy in the Midwest League (1961); and Tri-City in the Northwest League (1962)); ending his baseball career at age 34.

In 1951, his best year in the minors, he had 4 home runs and 56 RBI at .301. Overall in the majors, he had 18 hits, 10 runs, 6 doubles, 0 triples, 0 home runs, 2 RBI and 1 stolen base at (.234/.272/.312) in 20 games. Overall in the minors, he had 61 home runs and 542 RBI.

He celebrated his 80th birthday in 2008 but died a few months short of his 90th birthday in 2018.

Sources

Principal sources for Dick Young 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; The Southern Association in Baseball, 1885-1961 by Marshall D. Wright; The International League: Year-by-year Statistics, 1884-1953 by Marshall D. Wright; The American Association: Year-By-Year Statistics for the Baseball Minor League, 1902-1952 by Marshall D. Wright; and independent research by Walter Kephart (WK) and Frank Russo (FR) and others.

Related Sites

• Dick Young at the Baseball Almanac
• Bio at Baseball Page
• and a full Bibliography from SABR's The Baseball Index (TBI)