Гус Триадос: Американдық бейсболшының өмірі мен мансабы

American baseball player (1930 2013)

Gus Triandos (July 30, 1930 – March 28, 2013) was an American professional baseball player and scout. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher and a first baseman, most prominently as a member of the Baltimore Orioles where he was a four time All Star player. He also played for the New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, and the Detroit Tigers of the American League (AL) and the Philadelphia Phillies and Houston Astros of the National League (NL). In 1981, he was inducted into the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame.

Born in San Francisco, California, Triandos attended Mission High School and was signed by the New York Yankees as an amateur free agent in 1948. He joined the Yankees' major league roster briefly as a 22 year old in 1953, but was sent back to the minor leagues in 1954. Triandos was traded to the Baltimore Orioles in 1954 where he played mostly as a first baseman for his first two years with the team, before becoming the Orioles' regular catcher in 1957. As the Orioles' catcher, he used an outsized catcher's mitt designed by manager Paul Richards to handle the unpredictable knuckleball of Hoyt Wilhelm. Triandos was behind the plate when Wilhelm threw a no hitter against the New York Yankees on September 20, 1958, the first no hitter in Baltimore Orioles history, and also scored the only run of the game when he hit a home run in the eighth inning. Although perhaps the slowest runner in the league, Triandos once hit an inside the park home run. As of 2021, he also holds the record for the most consecutive games without being caught stealing, 1,206. That accounts for his entire career, in which he had exactly one stolen base. That stolen base came on September 28, 1958, in the 9th inning of the last game of the season, at Yankee Stadium, off rookie pitcher Zach Monroe and catcher Darrell Johnson. Triandos had his best year in 1958, when he hit 16 home runs by mid season to earn the starting catcher's role for the American League in the 1958 All Star Game, breaking Yogi Berra's eight year stranglehold on the position. He ended the season leading all American League catchers in putouts with 698, and tied Berra's American League record of 30 home runs by a catcher. In 1959, he hit 20 home runs by mid season and was again selected to be the starting catcher for the American League in the 1959 All Star Game, However, a hand injury meant that he only had 25 home runs for the entire season. In 1962, he hit .169 in 63 games and was traded to the Detroit Tigers at the end of the year. The following winter, he was traded along with Jim Bunning to the Philadelphia Phillies, where he again shared catching duties, this time with Clay Dalrymple. As the Phillies' catcher, Triandos caught Bunning's perfect game against the New York Mets on June 21, 1964, thus becoming the first catcher in Major League history to catch no hitters in both the American and National Leagues. Over his career, Triandos threw out 46.62% of the base runners who tried to steal a base on him, ranking him 6th on the all time list. Triandos was elected to the American League All Star team for three consecutive years, in 1957, 1958 and 1959. In 1961, the reigning American League stolen base champion, Luis Aparicio, rated Triandos just below Earl Battey as the toughest catcher on which to attempt a stolen base.

Triandos's family origins are from Koroni, Messenia, Greece. He was one of four children of Peter Triandos and Helen Mourgos, Greek immigrants to the U. S. He and wife Evelyn had three children, son Gary Triandos and daughters Lori Luna and Tracey Hook. Triandos served as a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1973 to 1975. In later years, he lived in San Jose, California. Triandos Drive in Timonium, Maryland is named in honor of the popular catcher.

In the second episode of the third season of Baltimore based HBO show The Wire, Triandos is referenced and discussed about by the character Herc, who talks about how Triandos was tasked with the tough job of catching for knuckleball pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm for five years and how Triandos remarked that catching for Wilhelm "nearly ruined me." The reference to Triandos arose when Herc told Carver that if he had to engage in sexual intercourse with any man it would have to be Triandos.