José Lizondro

José Lizondro Diaz

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10", Weight 175 lb.

• Born August 27, 1939 in Puerto Armuelles, Chiriquí Panama
• Died c. 2019 in New York, NY USA

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

José Lizondro pitched in the minor leagues from 1957 to 1967, almost exclusively in the Chicago White Sox organization. Born in Panama, he won in double figures a number of times, but never got to pitch in the majors.

After signing with the White Sox, he made his debut with the Dubuque Packers of the Midwest League in 1957, going 10-6, 3.79. Two years later, in 1959, he went 11-5, 3.27 for the Duluth-Superior Dukes of the Northern League, a Class C circuit (the Midwest League was classified as Class D at the time) and in 1960 was sent across the country to another Class C loop, the Pioneer League. He made it three seasons of 10 or more wins in four years with the Idaho Falls Russets, going 13-4, 4.38. In 1961, he moved up to the Class B Three-I League and the Lincoln Chiefs and had yet another good year, finishing at 12-7, 3.58. He was also a durable pitcher, reaching 181 innings that year, and notching over 100 strikeouts for the second time.

The White Sox were a pitching-rich organization at the time, and Lizondro was not the only promising young pitcher not to get a shot with the big league team: Chicago famously lost Denny McLain because they could not find room for him on their major league staff, and had Dave DeBusschere give up baseball for basketball for similar reasons around the same time. For Lizondro, he never even got to see Comiskey Park, as the domino effect of having a loaded minor league system kept him parked at classifications he was clearly dominating. In 1962, he was assigned to the California League, back in Class C, and had another strong season for the Visalia White Sox, going 13-6, 3.57. In 1963 and 1964 he had back-to-back very good seasons in AA, with the Lynchburg White Sox, the first in the South Atlantic League and the second in the Southern League, finishing at 13-10, 2.39 and 15-9, 3.04. Back in Lynchburg in 1965, he went 10-3m 3.27 and finally got a shot at AAA - albeit a very brief one, as he was 0-2, 4.05 in 4 starts for the Indianapolis Indians. That must have convinced the White Sox brass that they had been right all along to hold him back as he was back in AA in 1966, with the Evansville White Sox. He had the first poor season of his professional career that year, finishing at 2-6, 5.49 in 14 games. He played one more season in organized baseball, in 1967, but it did not go well as he failed to register a single win while appearing with three teams. At Lynchburg once more, he went 0-3 in spite of an ERA of 1.64 in 11 games as a reliever, then gave up 6 runs, all unearned, in one inning for the Charlotte Hornets, an affiliate of the Minnesota Twins in the Southern League, and finally he was 0-1, 9.69 in 4 games for the Reynosa Broncos of the Mexican League.

Lizondro was a regular participant in the Panamanian League over the years and on January 8, 1964 became the first pitcher since 1948 to pitch a no-hitter in the circuit, doing so for Marlboro against Novatos in a 3-0 win. It is not known if he continued to pitch in Panama after his career in the U.S. He reportedly moved to New York City and was living for a time in Bronx, NY. He reportedly died in New York around the end of 2019.

Related Sites

• Blog post about Lizondro (in Spanish)