Harvey Gentry

Harvey William Gentry

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 170 lb.

• Debut April 14, 1954
• Final Game April 27, 1954
• Born May 27, 1926 in Winston-Salem, NC USA
• Died July 1, 2018 in Pickerington, OH USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Before the 1947 season Harvey Gentry was signed by the New York Giants as an amateur free agent. He was assigned to the class D Bristol Twins of the Appalachian League and spend the first two years of his career with the Twins, hitting .269 in his first year and following it up with .292 in 1948.

Harvey had three good years (1949-1951) with the class C Fort Smith Giants, class B Knoxville Smokies and AAA Minneapolis Millers and Ottawa Giants, hitting .310 over the three seasons with 20 home runs. Harv would go at about the same speed for the next three years, hitting .265 for Ottawa in 1952, .294 (with 15 home runs) for the Nashville Vols in 1953 and fall a bit to .242 with the AAA Minneapolis Millers in 1954. That year, he got his chance in the majors with the Giants at the start of the seasons, before rosters needed to be trimmed down.

Harvey was a major leaguer for just a brief time for the World Champion New York Giants in 1954. He picked up one base hit in four official pinch-hitting appearances, that hit coming off the Pittsburgh Pirates' Max Surkont. Harvey went back to the minors in the South Atlantic League for the 1955 and 1956 seasons without a lot of success. He called it a career after the 1956 year.

Harvey had been in pro baseball as an outfielder for ten seasons (1947-1956) and his stats show he was an accomplished journeyman player. He appeared in 1,191 games, went to bat 4,598 times, banged out 1,136 base hits (including 66 home runs) and finished his minor league career with a .247 batting average.

Gentry's older brother, Rufe Gentry, was a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers in the 1940s. Harvey later resided in Bristol, TN, after having worked as a foreman for the Raytheon Company.

Sources

Baseball-Reference.com
Baseball Players of the 1950s
SABR MILB Database:page