Phil Gagliano would have turned 84 today.
I tell this story because in our little suburban baseball the famous one is/was his brother Paul. Who between 1981 and 1985 played for the national team and won 2 championships and 3 Champions Cups with Parma.
Except that in those days not many things were known about what was happening and had happened in MLB. And so we had no idea that Paul had a famous brother.
Not a champion, but a solid, very solid one. Someone who, despite not being a starter, had won a World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1967. And then he was also there in the World Series lost in 1968. Someone who had learned to recycle himself as a pinch hitter. Everyone knows how difficult it is to be a pinch hitter. And he had to get by. So much so that in his profile on Baseball Reference it is written: pinch hitter role, and only after second and third base.
He did that until 1974, moving on from the Chicago Cubs, the Boston Red Sox and ending his career with the Cincinnati Reds (in 1974, too bad the Big Red Machine’s epic would begin the following year).
That is, it is enough to cross-reference a few lineups and we deduce that he played with Stan Musial, Roger Maris, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Steve Carlton, Orlando Cepeda, and then Ron Santo and Ernie Banks, and Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, and again Carl Yastrzemski, Luis Aparicio. Pure mythology.
It should be added that in addition to him and Paul there is a third Gagliano brother: Ralph, now 79 years old. Which has a rather curious record. In MLB he actually only played one game, and without any time at bat. On September 21, 1965 he was at the Cleveland Indians who were playing the Yankees home that day. In the 9th inning, with one out, he came on as a pinch runner, replacing Larry Brown. The next batter, Richie Scheinblun, could get no better than a double play hit. Ralph would never take the field in MLB again.
