Born in Pensacola, Florida, he was an All-America baseball standout at Wake Forest University, Scripture threw and batted right-handed, stood 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) tall and weighed 190 pounds (86 kg) in his playing days.
Scripture signed with the Baltimore Orioles after his matriculation from Wake Forest, but never reached the Major League Baseball level.
Scripture then became a minor league manager and instructor in the Kansas City Royals and Pittsburgh Pirates systems, peaking at the Double-A level and having only one winning season in five years as a skipper.
"[3] "He was tough, maybe the toughest I've ever seen," then-Royals athletic trainer Mickey Cobb told Sports Illustrated for a 1987 profile on Scripture.
"There were people who would complain that he was tough to work with, but there was never any question about his competence as an instructor or manager," then-Pirates farm director Branch Barrett Rickey told SI in 1987.