Shelby's Rogers Hornsby McKee a major-league star for a day

SHELBY - He was just 17 years old. He was too young to be drafted into the war and just a few months out of Shelby High. But in the middle of World War II, Rogers Hornsby McKee started his first - and only - game in the major leagues for the Philadelphia Phillies.

And he won it, pitching a complete game in an 11-3 victory against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

That happened 68 years ago this week, on Oct. 3, 1943. McKee weighed only 130 pounds at the time. "I barely cast a shadow," he says now.

But the 6-foot left-hander could fire a baseball and the Phillies were so desperate for pitching that they signed him right after his last American Legion game for Shelby Post 82 and sent him straight to the big leagues.

For one single, wonderful day, McKee was a major-league star.

Even now, he holds the record as the youngest pitcher to ever win a game in major league baseball's post-1900 "modern era," eclipsing Bob Feller and many others by winning his lone contest at the age of 17 years and 17 days.

The fact that McKee's father, a textile mill worker from Shelby, named him for baseball hall of famer Rogers Hornsby adds to the tale.

But McKee threw his arm out the next year during an unseasonably cold spring training in Delaware. He would never start another game in the big leagues. His fifth and last major league appearance came on his 18^th birthday.

Does he regret anything?

"In all my time on this earth, I think I've been as fortunate as anyone," McKee says quietly. "I took a good young lady out of the cotton fields, and we've had a great life."

Denice and Rogers McKee have been married 66 years. For 30 of those years, he worked in Shelby as a postal carrier for the U.S. Postal Service.

McKee - most people call him "Roger" and drop the "s" - is 85 now. Diabetes has taken a toll. Neuropathy in both his legs means that a man who used to walk miles delivering the mail now needs a walker to get around in the neatly kept brick home he and Denice share.

But his mind remains sharp and his life is full of grandchildren, books, televised sporting events and history programs. He still cheers for the Phillies, who in 2009 paid for McKee and his entire family to come to Philadelphia for alumni night and honored him on their field.

Also a good hitter, McKee kicked around the minors for another 13 years as a first baseman and outfielder. He once hit 33 home runs in a minor-league season and batted .358 in another, but he never was called up to the majors again.

His shining moment remains that game in 1943, and our newspaper would likely never have heard of it if not for McKee's friend Buzz Biggerstaff. He called to tell us about it and asked if we could put a single line of text in the newspaper about it on the game's anniversary.

We decided to do a little more than that.

"It was a different team almost every year," says McKee, who played briefly for the old Charlotte Hornets baseball team (yes, there was one long before the NBA squad came to town) and also on teams in Terre Haute, Ind., Tampa, Rock Hill, Shreveport, La., Newton-Conover and Topeka, Kan.

He stopped playing in 1957, at age 31. "One rainy night in Topeka, I decided I'd just had enough," McKee says, "and I went home. But in my last minor-league game I did get five hits."

Born in 1926, McKee grew up during the Depression during a time when textiles were king in Shelby. There were a half-dozen mills in the area. Both of McKee's parents worked for Shelby Cotton Mills.

"Every mill had a baseball field and at least a couple of teams - a team for both older and younger players," McKee says. "Baseball was the big draw on Saturdays. People would go to one of the mill ballparks and make a day of it. We played teams like Cleveland Cloth, Dover and South Shelby."

As he grew up, McKee was a standout for Shelby High and in American Legion. There were only 11 grades at Shelby High then, he says, so he finished high school at age 16.

A Phillies scout noticed him and the team offered him a $4,000 signing bonus to join the club midway through the 1943 season.

That was more money than his father was making in a year, and McKee jumped at it.

While still 16, McKee made his major-league debut in relief. Then, on the final day of the 1943 season, the Phillies were in Pittsburgh and already more than 40 games out of the pennant race.

Manager Freddie Fitzsimmons told McKee he would start the second game of a doubleheader if the Phillies won the first, which they did.

"I wasn't too excited or scared," McKee says, "since I had pitched a couple of times already in the majors. I had some excellent fielding that whole game, because I only struck out one."

The game's box score shows that McKee gave up just five hits in the complete-game road victory. McKee got what would be his only major-league hit in the game, too - a single that drove in a run.

He hardly celebrated any of it. The team just went to the train station to take a ride back to Philadelphia.

By the time McKee turned 18, he was old enough to be drafted and joined the Navy. He was stationed in Hawaii for a time, where during off hours he played for a naval baseball team with a number of major leaguers.

McKee says he managed to retire Stan Musial (several times) and Ted Williams (once) in games between teams representing the various armed forces.

In his only time pitching against Williams, in Hawaii, McKee remembers he threw a fast ball and the Splendid Splinter lashed a hard grounder down the first-base line.

"It about knocked the first baseman down," McKee says. "But he managed to field it, and so I had to cover first because he had almost been playing in right field. I barely beat Williams to the bag, took the throw and the umpire called him out.

"Everyone in the stands wanted him to be on base, and I've never been booed like that in all my life."

McKee was still trying to make it as a pitcher then, but even at age 18 his left arm had passed its prime. He could make throws from the outfield and first base, but he just didn't have the same ball speed anymore. He's still not quite sure whether overuse as a youth or the Phillies' wartime spring training in Delaware took the edge off his arm, and by now he doesn't care.

He has Denice and his family. He has his record. He has a 1943 Philadelphia Phillies baseball signed by his teammates that he still gets out and grips occasionally. He has his favorite chair. He has the baseball playoffs to watch.

It is a good life.

Box: Phillies 11, Pirates 3 Oct. 3, 1943, Forbes Field

Philadelphia AB

Avg.

Buster Adams cf

.252

Pinky May 3b

.283

Coaker Triplett lf

.260

Benny Culp c

.208

Ron Northey rf

.278

Jimmy Wasdell 1b

.261

Glen Stewart 2b

.211

Andy Seminick c-lf

.181

Ray Hamrick ss

.200

Rogers McKee p

.200

Totals43

.349

Pittsburgh AB

Avg.

Tony Ordenana ss

.500

Jim Russell 1b

.259

Tommy O'Brien

.309

Vince DiMaggio cf

.248

Bob Elliott 3b

.315

Johnny Barrett lf

.231

Frankie Gustine 2b

.290

Hank Camelli c

.250

Cookie Cuccurullo p0

Pete Coscarat

.242

Bill Brandt p

.143

Totals30

.167

Philadelphia

111

000

422

Pittsburgh

020

010

000

LOB--Philadelphia 8, Pittsburgh 5. 2B--G. Stewart (10), T. O'Brien (12). 3B--B. Adams (7), C. Triplett (4). RBIs--J. Wasdell 2 (68), B. Culp 2 (2), R. Northey 2 (68), B. Adams 2 (40), R. McKee (1), P. May (47), G. Stewart (24), T Ordenana 3 (3). DP--Philadelphia 2, Pittsburgh 1.