HOF Plaque- Joe Gillstrom

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HOF Plaque- Joe Gillstrom

Post by recte44 » Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:47 pm

Born March 5, 1945 in the USA
Drafted in the 1st round, 24th overall pick by Calgary in the 1973 MBBA Dispersal Draft
Debut April, 1973


Was selected to the 1974, 1979 All-Star Games
Won OCA Hitter of the Year in 1974, 1975
Won Landis Memorial Series with New Orleans in 1974

Was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1989 with 21 of 27 ballots (77.8%) cast in favor of his induction.

Joe Gillstrom was born in the final days of World War II on a farm outside of St. Louis, Missouri. His early days were filled with farmwork, school and baseball. His father instilled a love of the game in Joe at a young age and they of course like their friends and neighbors rooted for the hometown St. Louis Cardinals. Joe dreamed of playing pro baseball, but expected to spend his days farming his family's land. In the end he would get to do both.

In high school, Joe was a gifted outfielder with a cannon of an arm and excellent range for a boy of his stature. At the plate he was a terror, with power to all fields and the uncanny ability to draw a free pass from the stingiest of pitchers. He was an All-State player as a senior, and earned himself a baseball scholarship from Missouri State University for his efforts. He moved from centerfield as a high schooler to leftfield in college, but the move didn't affect his hitting. He continued to slug homers against NCAA pitching, and somehow continued to draw walks despite striking out at an equally prodigious rate.

Given his success in college, Joe was hopeful that he'd get a look from Major League Baseball, but the sparkplug-shaped slugger got basically zero interest from any club despite being an honorable mention All-American as a senior. He returned to rural Missouri, taking over the bulk of the farmwork and managing to play semi-pro baseball on the side. This continued for years, seven in fact. Gillstrom mashed semi-pro records and helped his team win a quartet of league championships between threshing grain and tending to cattle herds.

Then in 1973 everything changed for Joe. He was drafted in the initial talent draft of a new baseball league, the MBBA. He didn't know much about the league, but he did know that the Calgary Marauders acquired his rights by drafting him in the first round (24th overall) and he knew that they offered him a contract worth 17.97 million dollars for the next three years. Needless to say Joe was excited about the chance to play professional baseball, and getting paid that way was the very sweet icing on the cake. He promptly brought in hired help for the farm and headed off to training camp. Despite the ability he displayed in camp, the 28 year-old was dealt only a few weeks into his tenure as a Marauder. His rights were traded to the New Orleans Crawdads, where he would spend the next two and a half seasons.

His tenure in New Orleans began with a 32-homer inaugeral campaign with Gillstrom drawing an impressive 115 walks. That helped prop up his OBP (.367), as he registered just 131 hits that season, struggling a bit to put the ball in play against professional level pitching. He struggled similarly with making contact in the playoffs that first season, despite drawing 16 walks in 14 games. '74 was the real coming out party for the midwest native as he led the league in OBP (.426), slugging (.623) and OPS (1.049) while hammering 51 homers, driving in 125 runs and scoring 123 himself. He posted 32.8 OWS for the Crawdads as he helped lead them to a second straight FLM title, winning Batter of the Year in the process. He was a force of nature on offense and arguably the most feared hitter in all of baseball. Inexplicably he really struggled in the playoffs, managing only a .309 OBP despite 5 homers and 13 RBI as the Crawdads avenged their LMS loss in '73 by winning the league championship.

1975 saw Gillstrom reach his 30th birthday, and it also saw him traded to the Marquette Suns in a blockbuster deal. Ironically, the Suns were the same club that his Crawdads had defeated in the previous LMS and now Gillstrom was being asked to help Marquette achieve that same goal of winning a championship. He didn't disappoint early on, clubbing 28 homers in 93 games with the Suns that season while hitting .319. All in all he slammed 43 homers with 117 RBI and hit .305. He collected his second straight Batter of the Year award, this time in the Johnson League. Come playoff time he struggled again, with the Suns being dumped in the first round of post-season play. Despite those struggles he cashed in on his production with a new contract extension, which payed him 8.5 million per season and would run through the 1979 season.

1976 saw him drop off sharply at the plate, hitting just .258 with only 20 homers. He still tallied 110 walks to help him post a .391 OBP and pick up 21.7 OWS, but that's hardly the production one hopes for from a reigning league Batter of the Year. The team won their third straight JL Wildcard, but was ousted in the first round for the second straight year as Gillstrom had another ineffective post-season. '77 saw Joe's power numbers rebound as he slugged 31 homers along with 10 triples. His OBP dropped slightly to .384 but he raised his OWS to 22.8 and helped Marquette to their first ever JLM division crown. Sadly that didn't improve their playoff fate, as they were dumped in the first round for the third straight season with Gillstrom struggling to even draw a walk.

Gillstrom would have his last great season in 1978, putting up a .419 OBP with a career-high 127 walks while driving in 103 runs. His 24.4 OWS were amoung the leagues best totals and he helped the Suns to a second straight division title. They even managed to find some playoff success, making it to the second round before being ousted. Gillstrom himself put together a .409 OBP in the playoffs despite not being able to put the ball in play. The Suns dropped from the playoff picture in '79, finishing third in the JLM with their first sub-.500 record since the inaugural season of the league. Gillstrom himself played pretty well, putting up 24 homers and 106 walks , scoring 90 or more runs for the sixth time in his career. The years of hard farm work and baseball were really beginning to catch up with Joe at this point. Though he almost never missed time with injury, he was rarely at one hundred percent. The decay was evident in 1980 where he hit just .204 and posted career lows across the board. He managed 21 homers but was clearly on the downside of his career at the age of 35. He hung around Marquette for one more season in 1981 when the team finished a dreadful 48-114 and Gillstrom managed 24 homers and 103 walks despite hitting just .209. Despite signing free agent contracts with Buffalo and Washington in '82 and '83 respectively, that was the last gasp of his short career, as he tallied only 74 at-bats in those two seasons and hit not a single homer.

Joe Gillstrom was one of only four players in MBBA history to win back-to-back Batter of the Year titles and is the only player in history to win the award in both the Frick and the Johnson Leagues. He currently ranks 5th in career walks (1013), 17th in all-time OBP (.385), 27th in career OPS (.866) and 30th in career homeruns (268). Although he had a relatively short career by some standards, he was one of the most feared hitters in the league in the mid-to-late '70s and was one of the big reasons Marquette kept its franchise as long as it did. Overlooked even during his own time, Gillstrom was finally recognized in 1989 and enshrined in the MBBA Hall of Fame.

Plaque written by Ryan Scott

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