4/26/2007

Know your Appleton Baseball Alumni (4/26)

Really need to come up with a better name for this series of posts.

Lee Stange, 1950's



Unfortunately, I could not fnd any stats on Appleton baseball from the 50's. He would have played in Appleton about the time in which the Wasington Senators were the parent club. Those dates would have been in the late 50's for two reasons. Stange signed with the Senators in January of 1957 and made it to the Majors with the Twins in 1961, their first year in Minnesota.

Stange pitched from 1961 to 1970 for the Twins, Indians, Red Sox, and White Sox.

He was mainly a reliever and appeared in 359 games, 125 as a starting pitcher. His best season with the Twins was 1963. He went 12-5 with a 2.62ERA in 32 games (20 starts). In the middle of the 1964 season, Stange was traded to the Indians along with George Banks for Jim "Mudcat" Grant. So, Stange missed out on the Twins making it to the World Series in 1965.

He spent parts of three seasons with Cleveland before a June 2, 1966 trade sent him and Don McMahon to the Red Sox for Dick Radatz. That meant he was part of the "Impossible Dream" season of the Sox in 1967.

Stange was 8-10 with a save and an ERA of 2.26 in 35 games (24 starts) for the Sox that season. He only appeared in one game of the '67 series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Stange entered in relief in Game Three. Over two innings, he allowed three hits and one unearned run.

The White Sox purchased Stange's contract from the Red Sox in June of 1970 and he finished his playing career going 1-0 in sixteen games for Chicago.

He would go on to be a pitching coach for the Red Sox (1972-1974), the Twins (1975), Oakland (1977-1979), and the Red Sox again (1981-1984).

What is Stange doing now? He is the pitching coach for the Florida Tech Panthers and there was this article about tips for Little League Pitchers HERE.

Baseball Card from BaseballAlmanac.

Lee Stange's Retrosheet Page

Lee Stange's Wikipedia Page

Lee Stange's Baseball Cube Page

Florida Tech Baseball Page

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