Obituary: John Upham (1940-2024)

The concept of a two-way ballplayer has taken on new life in baseball, thanks to the success of Shohei Ohtani. But before he came along, the two-way player was all but extinct in baseball. John Upham was one of the few players in the latter half of the 20th Century who was allowed to even attempt the feat. Upham died on May 22 at the age of 83. During his playing career, he was a pitcher and outfielder for the Chicago Cubs in 1967-68.

John Leslie Upham was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, on December 29, 1940. He started playing baseball in Ontario when he was 12, and by 1954, the young left-handed pitcher was on a City Bantam Championship team. Upham went to Assumption High School, where the baseball team was coached by Father Roland Cullen. Upham’s father Bert, a local umpire, told his son that if he was serious about baseball, he needed to play for Fr. Cullen, an Ontario legend and a member of the Windsor Essex County Sports Hall of Fame. Cullen produced championship teams at pretty much every sport, and Upham went on to play baseball, hockey and basketball with Assumption

John Upham, fresh out of high school and about to join the Phillies. Source: *The Windsor Star*, July 7, 1959.

Upham, a Windsor Essex County Sports Hall of Famer himself, found great success at all three sports, and he was recognized for being one of Ontario’s best all-around athletes. In 1959, he joined Lundquist Insurance of the Detroit Baseball Federation and had a scoreless innings streak of 67 innings. The Philadelphia Phillies and scout Tony Lucadello signed Upham to a contract on July 8, 1959, after he attended a clinic that the team held in Dearborn, MI. Despite all his pitching success, the Phillies saw Upham as more of an outfielder. He made the move look like a smart one. He hit .277 in his first year of pro ball, with Tampa of the Florida State League in 1960. Then he pounded Class-C California League pitchers in 1961 with a .356 batting average while playing for Bakersfield. He didn’t show a ton of power as a hitter, with 3 home runs in 1961, but he had good speed, scoring 107 runs for Bakersfield and stealing 24 bases. He also made a good adjustment as a full-time outfielder; his strong arm served him well, as he recorded 26 assists in ’61. Upham didn’t even see a pitching mound until 1964, when he threw 2 scoreless innings for Double-A Chattanooga of the Southern Association. By then, Upham’s progress through the Phillies system had stalled somewhat. He played just 5 games in 1962 after breaking his wrist diving for a fly ball. He recovered and was a fair hitter in 1963 and ’64, but he didn’t put up eye-popping numbers and in fact had been demoted to Double-A ball. In 1965, the Phillies sent him down to the Eugene Emeralds of the Class-A Northwest League, where he hit .275 with 19 doubles, no home runs and 35 RBIs. He also pitched in 5 games, earning a 3.46 ERA in 13 innings. He struck out 14 batters and walked 10. That November, the Chicago Cubs decided to take a chance on the versatile Upham and picked him in the annual minor-league draft.

The Cubs assigned Upham to the Dallas-Fort Worth Spurs of the Double-A Texas League, and he did what he always did as the team’s starting center fielder — he hit well, but mostly singles. He batted .284 but slugged just .329. “I sorta saw the handwriting in the wall, as far as going to the majors as an outfielder,” Upham told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “So I asked to pitch.”

Source: *Fort Worth Star-Telegram*, June 23, 1966.

Upham said he wasn’t happy sitting on the bench. “Besides, if I’d never gotten a chance to pitch, I would have been wondering the rest of my life if I could have done it,” he said. Dallas manager Pete Reiser supported the move, and the Cubs went along with it. Upham still made just 3 pitching appearances for Dallas, allowing 2 runs in 5 innings, but he started 11 games for the Cubs’ Arizona Instructional League team in the winter and had a 2-4 record but a fine 2.96 ERA. The performance put him on a new direction with the team.

When Upham joined the Cubs in spring training in 1967, it was as a lefty pitcher. He looked good, too. In one pre-season outing against Cleveland, he retired the final 9 batters of the game, including 4 on strikeouts. “I wish some of our pitchers had the poise of this fellow,” said Cubs manager Leo Durocher. “He’s got a good fastball, slider and change-up. And he hits that strike zone, with most everything low.” The Cubs took a chance to see how the experiment would play out and brought him to the majors when the season started. Upham made his debut in the most dire of circumstances on April 16, 1967. The Cubs were leading 5-2 when reliever Cal Koonce loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning. Upham came into the game to face one batter, pinch-hitter Manny Mota. Mota hit an infield single to bring a run home, and then Upham was lifted for another rookie making his major-league debut, Joe Niekro. Niekro got the second out of the inning on a sacrifice fly by Jim Pagliaroni, but then Matty Alou whacked a triple to clear the bases and bring Mota home with the winning run. Upham faced one batter, gave up the hit and was tagged with the loss. Durocher continued to put the rookie into high-leverage situations. In Upham’s second appearance against the New York Mets on April 20, he entered the game with 2 runners on base, walked Don Shaw but then struck out Cleon Jones to get out of trouble. On April 28, he was asked to save a 1-run lead over Houston with a runner on third base and promptly allowed the tying run to score on a wild pitch.

Durocher didn’t give Upham many pitching opportunities after those games, but he did make use of the player’s other skill — hitting. Upham pinch-hit against Dodgers ace Don Drysdale on May 21 and singled for his first major-league hit. He was given 3 chances to pinch-hit and singled twice. Upham also made two pitching appearances in May. He threw 2/3 of a scoreless inning against the Dodgers, but then on May 26 he gave up 4 runs to the Astros without retiring a batter, capped by a 3-run homer by Rusty Staub. The Cubs sent Upham to Triple-A Tacoma in June with a 33.75 ERA and a .667 batting average. Upham struggled in Tacoma as well but pitched wonderfully in Dallas-Fort Worth. He made 18 appearances for the Spurs, including 5 starts, and had a 3-3 record and a 1.65 ERA.

Upham, as a coach for Team Canada, watches young pitcher Denis Boucher. Source: *The Windsor Star*, July 31, 1986..

Upham’s 1968 season was delayed by injury, so he didn’t play for Tacoma until June and had a 4.88 ERA in 13 relief appearances. He also did some pinch-hitting and hit at a .369 clip, and the Cubs brought him back to the majors in August. He did a little bit of everything with the Cubs in his second stop with the team. He pitched, he pinch-hit, he pinch-ran, he played a couple positions in the outfield. In his two pitching assignments, he threw a total of 7 scoreless innings against Atlanta (2 innings) and St. Louis (5 innings). He allowed just 2 hits, walked 3, struck out 2 and hit a batter. At the plate, he had 10 at-bats and 2 singles. Even with a 0.00 ERA, the Cubs released him back to Tacoma at the end of the season. He trained with the team in the spring of 1969, but a shoulder injury forced him out of the game.

In parts of 2 seasons with the Cubs, Upham appeared in a total of 21 games. His batting slash line is .308/.308/.308, with 4 singles in 13 at-bats. He also scored once. As a pitcher, he had an 0-1 record and a 5.40 ERA in 7 games. In 8-1/3 innings, he allowed 5 runs (all earned) on 6 hits, 4 walks and 4 strikeouts. During his 9-year minor-league career, Upham had a .293 batting average and a 3-5 record with a 3.50 ERA.

Upham returned to Windsor after his professional playing days ended and embarked on a long and successful coaching and teaching career, starting with a 20-year stay at Assumption High School. He also coached at various local amateur programs. “He was a big part of my childhood, learning how to hit and love the game,” said former major-leaguer Stubby Clapp, another Windsor native.

Source: *The Windsor Star*, November 6, 1991.

Upham’s involvement with amateur baseball went all the way up to the Olympic Games. He managed the Windsor Chiefs to the Canadian Senior Baseball championship in 1982 and was the three-time pitching coach of Team Canada in the World Junior Baseball Championships. Upham also was on the coaching staff of Team Canada in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, which featured future major-leaguers Matt Stairs, Dave Wainhouse, Rheal Cormier, Rob Butler and Greg O’Halloran. When the country’s National Senior Baesball Team fell on hard times, Upham was named the head coach in 1992 to turn the program around. “I interviewed a lot of players and Uppy came out with flying colors,” said President Bernie Beckman. “He can relate to players and get to the point, and that’s what the players are looking for.” Health concerns and a planned tournament in Nicaragua led to Upham’s resignation after a year. The last time he had coached a team in the southern hemisphere, he suffered an angina attack during a brawl between Canada and Cuba at the 1991 Pan Am Games and had to be hospitalized in Havana. Upham continued to coach in Canada into the 2000s.

When Upham was inducted into the Windsor-Essex County Sports Hall of Fame in 1995, he told The Windsor Star that coaching brought him the most enjoyment during his long career. “I take great pleasure in watching kids get better… getting better at fundamentals, better at being fine men and women,” he said.

Upham was a cancer survivor and was predeceased by a daughter, Heather. He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Carol, daughter Tracey and an extended family of grandchildren, sisters, nieces, nephews and cousins.