by David M. Jordan

On Wednesday May 22, 2002, Joseph Thomas Cascarella, a pitcher for the Athletics in 1934 and 1935, died of pneumonia in a Baltimore hospital. He was 94, having been born June 28, 1907, in Philadelphia.

The righthanded Cascarella was noted for a sharp curve ball. Once Babe Ruth, after being fanned by Cascarella, said, “Why, that little Italian can bend a pitch around a lamp post.”

Joe Cascarella began his professional career at Pittsfield, Mass., in the Eastern League, moved up to the Baltimore Orioles in the International League, and came to the Athletics in 1934. He pitched in 42 games that season for Connie Mack, 22 as a starter, and compiled a win-loss record of 12 and 15, with a 4.68 earned run average.

After the season Cascarella was chosen for the team of American League stars that Connie Mack took to Japan; he often spoke of the huge and adoring crowds which followed Ruth wherever he went in Japan.

Somewhere along the way Cascarella suffered an injury to his pitching arm, and the 1935 season would not be a good one for him. He was one and six in nine games with the A’s, and on May 29, after he walked two hitters with the bases loaded in a brief relief effort, Mack fired him as he came off the field. “Take that uniform off and don’t ever put it on again,” the angry manager told him. Cascarella was soon on his way to Syracuse

He was shortly back in the American League, however, going 0-3 for the Red Sox. Cascarella pitched three more seasons in the majors, winning fourteen games and losing 24 with the Red Sox, Senators, and Reds, before being let go after the 1938 campaign.

A man of varied talents, Cascarella became vice-president of Laurel Race Course after his baseball career ended as well as a singer on nationwide radio, earning the nickname “Crooner Joe.” A widely-recognized man about town in his hometown of Baltimore and in Washington, Cascarella wore bowler hats, tailored suits, and velvet-collared Chesterfield overcoats. He fit in well mingling with the diplomatic set at embassy parties in the nation’s capital.

“He could be pretty formal but had a million stories and was always welcome in the racing press box,” recalled a veteran racing writer.

Joe Cascarella’s wife Gertrude died last year, and the couple had no children. The A’s Society honors in remembrance the life and career of Joseph Thomas Cascarella.