Wayne Osborne

Wayne Harold Osborne

• BatsLeft, Throws Right
• Height 6' 2½", Weight 172 lb.
• Debut April 18, 1935
• Last Game May 6, 1936
• Born October 11, 1912 in Watsonville, CA USA
• Died March 13, 1987 in Vancouver, WA USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Wayne Osborne was a pitcher for 13 years (1931-1943), all in the Pacific Coast League except for two cups of coffee in the majors in 1935 and 1936. He graduated from high school in 1929 at age 17 and broke into Organized Baseball in 1931 at age 18 with the Portland Beavers, going 1-0 with a 5.63 ERA.

He spent the next three seasons with the San Francisco Missions. He was 2-6, 5.32 the first year, then 2-7, 5.25 and finally 16-19, 3.65.

Osborne broke into the big leagues on April 18, 1935 with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He finished the season with Mission and had his best year in the PCL: he was 18-11 with 101 strikeouts, 75 walks and 5 shutouts in 253 innings pitched with an ERA of 3.56 and a WHIP of 1.324 in 41 games. He led the Pacific Coast League in wild pitches and tied for the lead in shutouts in 1935. He then resurfaced with the Boston Bees in 1936 where he played his final major league game on May 6, 1936 at age 23.

He returned to the PCL with Mission, going 12-9, 3.98 in 1936 and 3-9, 5.25 in 1937. He moved to the Hollywood Stars in 1938 and went 12-18, 5.01, then 16-17, 4.61, 18-17, 4.06 and 12-12, 4.02. In 1942, he was 10-14, 5.40 for Hollywood and the Portland Beavers then went 9-5, 2.48 for 1943 Portland, ending his baseball playing career at age 30. He then turned to broadcasting until 1981, ending his baseball career at age 69.

Overall in MLB, he was 1-1 in 3 games started, with 9 strikeouts, and 9 walks in 21 1/3 innings pitched with an ERA of 5.91 and a WHIP of 1.922 in 7 games. Overall in the PCL, he was 131-144 with 782 strikeouts, 850 walks and 14 shutouts in 2,374 innings pitched with an ERA of 4.33and a WHIP of 1.50 in 421 games.

He served in the U.S. Armed Forces in World War II (WK). He was a color announcer for the Chicago Cubs on WIND in the 1940s, and in public relations for WOPA in Illinois, retiring in 1981. While at WOPA (1490 AM) during the early 1950s, he was the disk jockey on a nightly show called, "The 1490 Club", and he would accept and announce song dedications from teenage listeners. Moving to Vancouver, he would visit nursing homes, playing recorded music of an earlier era for the patients. He died at age 74 in Vancouver, WA on March 13, 1987 and was cremated.

Sources

Principal sources for Wayne Osborne 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; and independent research by Walter Kephart (WK) and Frank Russo (FR) and others.

Related Sites

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