Obituary: John Oldham (1932-2024)

You can never be certain of how your major-league baseball career will play out. John Oldham is proof of that. Signed as a pitcher and used exclusively as a pitcher throughout his 5-year minor league career, his only experience in the majors came in one game… as a pinch-runner for the Cincinnati Reds in 1956. Oldham died in San Jose, CA, on February 24 at the age of 91. Fortunately, his baseball career didn’t end after that one game, because he went on to become a very successful college coach.

John Hardin Oldham was born in Salinas, CA, on November 6, 1932. At least, Baseball Reference says he was born in Salinas. His family-placed obituary states that he was born in Gilroy and grew up in Salinas, Vallejo and Santa Criz before the family finally settled in Campbell. Oldham came by his pitching talent honestly. His father Frank pitched for the amateur Salinas Colts in the 1930s. Oldham had considerable success as a pitcher at Campbell High School. In 1950, the left-hander was named the Player of the Year in the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League. He then won a college scholarship for his performance in the North-South game of California All-Stars. Pitching for the South team, Oldham got the win in the second game of a doubleheader, throwing 4 hitless innings with 10 strikeouts. Upon graduating from Campbell, Oldham bypassed the overtures of several pro teams and went to San Jose State University.

“If someone had offered me a bonus of, say $25,000, I guess I would have taken it. But I didn’t feel that I was ready for the pros. And I did want a college education,” Oldham said in a 1954 interview.

Oldham pitched on San Jose’s freshman baseball team and delivered some electric performances on the mound, though his control could be an issue. In one game against the University of California, he threw a complete game 2-hitter on 11 strikeouts — and 14 walks. Oldham proved to be his own worst enemy. Other teams could hardly make contact with his pitches, and in the few times he lost, it was because of his control. In his college career, he had a 28-17 record and struck out 545 batters in 55 games. He graduated in 1954 and started pitching for an amateur team in Santa Cruz while he met with scouts. He took trips to Cincinnati and Philadelphia and ultimately signed with the Reds.

Oldham was assigned to Columbia of the Sally League in 1954, though a sore arm limited him to just 3 games. He won twice, striking out 10 and walking 15. The Reds released Oldham to the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League at the end of the season. Oldham was used as a reliever by the Rainiers and picked up a couple of wins at the start of 1956, leading the Reds to re-purchase him. Oldham stayed with Seattle for the entire year and appeared in 35 games, including 11 starts, to finish with a 9-6 record and a 3.84 ERA. He struck out 53 batters in 122 innings and walked 82. Fred Hutchinson, who managed Oldham in Seattle before moving to the majors as skipper of the Cardinals, wrote in an Associated Press article that the pitcher was one of the Pacific Coast League players expected to reach the majors in 1956.

“He’s got good stuff. He may be a year or two away because he needs work on his control. But his live fastball impresses me,” wrote Hutchinson (or a ghostwriter writing as Hutchinson).

When Cincinnati bought Oldham’s contract in 1955, he was allowed to remain with Seattle for the rest of the season but was to join the Reds in 1956. Before the Reds could get him, Oldham was enlisted into the U.S. Navy in spring training. He was discharged from the armed forces in August and went straight to the Reds. Cincinnati at the time was in the middle of a battle with Brooklyn and Milwaukee for first place, so there wasn’t much of an opportunity to use an untested pitcher who hadn’t played professional baseball all year long. But Oldham, having come from the military, had been placed on the national defense service list. Players who had served in the military did not count against a team’s 25-man roster limit, so Cincinnati didn’t lose anything by keeping Oldham around. The defense list created some inequality problems in the majors. The New York Yankees, who won the AL pennant, were able to keep 27 men on the roster because both Billy Martin and Norm Siebern were on the defense list. Cincinnati had 26 players on the roster, counting Oldham, and Milwaukee had 26 players with the addition of Taylor Phillips. Brooklyn, the eventual NL pennant winner, was the only pennant contender that had a 25-man roster.

Oldham never pitched for Cincinnati, though he was on the major-league roster for more than a month. His one chance in a major-league game came on September 2, 1956, with the Reds facing the Cubs. The team began the day 3-1/2 games out of first place, and manager Birdie Tebbetts was playing for keeps. Chicago took an early 1-0 lead thanks to a Hobie Landrith RBI single off Joe Nuxhall in the second inning. In the bottom of the third, with one out, the Reds put runners on base with a Frank Robinson single and a Gus Bell walk. George Crowe singled in the tying run, and with two outs, Ed Bailey walked to load the bases. Tebbetts took out Alex Grammas, the third baseman, and replaced him with pinch-hitter Ted Kluszewski, the slugging first baseman who had the day off. Kluszewski singled in 2 runs, and Tebbetts replaced him with pinch-runner Oldham. It was a futile move, as the next batter, Roy McMillan popped to the second baseman to end the inning. Oldham was replaced in the lineup by Rocky Bridges. Though he didn’t know it at the time, his major-league career was over.

“I was just sitting on the bench and [Tebbetts] says, ‘You go in and pinch-run.’ I was certainly excited,” Oldham told the Mercury News in a 2017 interview. “I don’t remember what kind of a lead I got, but I know I was scared to death. I know I wasn’t going to get picked off.”

Oldham said that he made several trips to the bullpen over the course of his time in the majors, but Tebbetts never brought him into a game. “Every time I went down there I thought I was going in. The reason I think I didn’t ever go in was because somebody would hit a home run and put us back in the game, so when the game was close, he would go to a guy that had experience,” Oldham said.

John Oldham has a discussion with a Southern Association umpire. Source: *The Atlanta Journal*, April 26, 1957.

Cincinnati could have kept Oldham on its major-league roster as a free player until August 1957. Instead, the team sent him back to the minors to start the ’57 season, and he pitched for Nashville and Savannah that year. He didn’t see much success at either stop and ended the season with a combined 4-7 record and 5.90 ERA. Control continued to be his biggest problem, as he walked a total of 102 batters in 122 innings, against 74 strikeouts. That October, Cincinnati traded Oldham, pitcher John Brechin and shortstop Bobby Durnbaugh to the Seattle Rainiers for outfielder Stan Palys and pitcher Bob Kelly. Oldham lasted with Seattle for less than a month in 1958 before he was demoted to Yakima of the Class-A Northwest League. He only pitched in 4 games for Yakima, though. The Columbus Enquirer reported that Oldham ended up back in Nashville at some point, where he had words with manager Dick Sisler and then headed back home to California. He pitched briefly for Columbus and Asheville of the Sally League in 1959. The statistics for that season are incomplete, but from what Baseball Reference has available, Oldham allowed 17 earned runs in 34 innings for a 4.50 ERA, with 7 home runs allowed. It was Oldham’s final year of professional baseball. Oldham had a 17-13 record in 5 minor-league seasons with a 4.86 ERA.

Oldham, in his family-placed obituary, explained what led to the end of his playing career and the beginning of his coaching career: “It was 1960, and my arm was done. I was married and had a kid, so I had to make a business decision. I walked out of that ballpark and saw my wife and my child sitting in the car and I said, ‘This is it, we’re going home’. I got my teaching credential and when I got home, I discovered that Campbell High School had an opening and they hired me. In five years at Campbell High, we won the league four times and finished second once. My best player during that time was Craig Morton, who went on to be a star quarterback for Cal, the Dallas Cowboys and Denver Broncos.”

From Campbell High School, Oldham moved to Westmont High School in 1964, where he was the head of the physical education department. Then in 1966, he was hired by San Jose City College to lead the physical education department and serve as head baseball coach. He spent 18 years there and won 390 games, as well as five conference titles. During that time, he coached future major-league players like Dave Stieb, Dave Righetti, Roger Samuels and Randy Kramer. Oldham then led the Santa Clara University Broncos from 1985 until 1997. The school won the West Coast Conference championship in 1994, 1996 and 1997, reaching the NCAA tournament in those seasons as well as in 1988. Randy Winn, Adam Melhuse, Mike Macfarlane and Scott Chiamparino are among Oldham’s players who reached the major leagues. He was named WCC Coach of the Year four times and left Santa Clara with a 433-326-6 record. He was, at the time of his departure, the second-winningest baseball coach in school history. Oldham was inducted into the San Jose Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.

Oldham is survived by his wife Maryann, children Terryl, Kilene and Cindy, and their families.