Mickey Owen

Arnold Malcolm "Mickey" Owen (April 4, 1916 – July 13, 2005) was an American professional baseball player, coach and scout.

He played as a catcher for 13 seasons in Major League Baseball between 1937 and 1954 for the St. Louis Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox.

Considered an outstanding defensive catcher,[1] his career was nonetheless marred by a crucial error[a] that he committed during the 1941 World Series.

From 1941 to 1944, Owen averaged 46 runs batted in per season for the Dodgers and played for the Brooklyn team which faced the New York Yankees in the 1941 World Series.

Yet, ironically, Owen is most remembered in baseball lore today for a costly mistake that he committed during that year's World Series.

After his discharge from the military in 1946, Owen expected to return to Brooklyn, but he failed to reach an agreement with the Dodgers and signed a contract to be a player-manager with Unión Laguna de Torreón in the Mexican League, which was then outside of organized baseball and offering major league players constrained by the reserve clause higher pay to "jump" their contracts.

Other big leaguers who fled to Mexico included Alex Carrasquel, Danny Gardella, Max Lanier, Sal Maglie, Luis Olmo, Fred Martin, and (briefly) Vern Stephens, attracted by very good salaries.

However, his appeals to general manager Branch Rickey fell on deaf ears, and Owen returned to Mexico, this time with the Azules de Veracruz, owned by league president Jorge Pasquel.

[4] Owen left Mexico on August 5 and applied for reinstatement in MLB, alleging that Pasquel had voided his original contract with Torreón.

Starting at catcher, he went hitless in three at bats — ironically, against Lanier and Martin, whose suspensions had also been lifted the month before, and who pitched for St. Louis that day.

Following his retirement as a player, Owen spent two seasons (1955–56) as a Red Sox coach, managed the Jacksonville Braves of the Sally League for part of the 1957 campaign, then worked for the Cubs as a scout.

Owen during the 1942 season