Джордж Топорцер: Пионер бейсбола в очках

American baseball player

George Toporcer (born Toporczer; February 9, 1899 – May 17, 1989) was an American professional baseball player and executive. He served primarily as a utility infielder during his eight seasons in Major League Baseball, playing for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1921 through 1928. He batted left handed and threw right handed and was listed as 5 feet (2 m) tall and Toporcer is widely considered as the first major league baseball position player to wear eyeglasses on the playing field. The distinction gained Toporcer his nickname, "Specs".

From an early age, like most children at the time, George Toporczer was obsessed with baseball. In an interview, he admitted that for the last 75 years he had thought about the sport nearly daily. He stated that in spite of his obsession he was always picked last during childhood games because of his slight build and glasses. He went to school and became friends with actor Jimmy Cagney, staying in touch into the later portions of their lives. Toporczer said the first thing that hooked him on baseball was when he was six and went to the 1905 World Series. At the World Series he watched the Giants' Christy Mathewson pitch three shutouts. The experience was further reinforced by his two older brothers who, being diehard Giants fans, idolized the players, speaking of little else but the performance of their favorite team. The fanaticism of his older brothers influenced him and he too became a diehard Giants fan. When they lost the pennant to the Chicago Cubs in , due to Merkle's Boner, he cried himself to sleep. By the time he was ten he would walk the five miles from his house to the Polo Grounds. Although the one cent allowance provided by his father, a shoe and boot seller, was not enough to get him a ticket, he found a spot on Coogan's Bluff that he could take advantage of an open space in the roof of the Polo Grounds.

Born and reared in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, he never played high school or college ball and went directly from the sandlots to major league competition in 1921. Now known as George Toporcer, he split his first professional season between the Cardinals and the minor league Syracuse Stars, the Cardinals' top farm team. He played all infield positions for the Cardinals, especially shortstop, and was the club's most used midfielder in both and In 1928, Toporcer got into only eight games for the Cardinals, and spent the bulk of the year with their top farm team, the Rochester Red Wings. he was not able to master Braille. He became a motivational speaker and was known as "Baseball's Blind Ambassador." In 1944, Toporcer wrote an autobiography, Baseball – From Backlots to Big Leagues, still considered one of the best manuals of instruction for coaches and young players. His life story was featured in a network TV show in which he played the lead. Toporcer died in Huntington Station, New York, at the age of 90 from injuries sustained in a fall at his home. He was the last surviving member of the 1926 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals.

Branch Rickey once told this story about Specs Toporcer: "A 19 year old boy who weighed 142 pounds and never had played a game of pro ball came off the field at Orange, New Jersey. I watched this kid and saw him take off his glasses and, with his hands outstretched, grope his way along the wall to the showers. My captain turned to me and said, For God's sake, who sent him up?" Norman L. Macht, baseball writer and statistician