'Catching Up' is a monthly feature by NOVA Baseball Magazine where we connect with a current or former player with Northern Virginia roots for a question and answer session. This month we catch up with Don Kildoo, who is a 1953 graduate of Washington-Lee High School in Arlington who signed a professional contract out of high school with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Kildoo pitched in 272 minor league games, making 143 starts, winning 77 games and compiling a 3.71 ERA in 1,204.1 innings, advancing to the Triple A level for three seasons before retiring in 1961. He pitched a no-hitter for the Double A New Orleans Pelicans on June 26, 1959, and went 15-4 with a 3.39 ERA for the 1954 Waco Pirates, who went 105-42 and were voted as the 25th-best team of the 21st century by Minor League Baseball.
In 1955 and 1956, the 6-foot-1 left-hander was roommates with Bill Mazeroski, a Hall of Famer best known for his walk off home run to win the 1960 World Series – known as the ‘Shot Heard ‘Round the World’ – and then with Earl Weaver, who would later become a Hall of Fame manager after leading the Baltimore Orioles to the World Series four times. In 1957, he pitched against Hall of Famer Satchel Paige three times as a member of the Triple A Columbus Jets.
After working for United Airlines for 29 years, where he retired as the Washington, D.C., region’s Assistant Regional Vice President for Reservation Planning, Customer Service and Ticket Sales, Kildoo joined Tom Hall’s staff as the pitching coach at Oakton High School in 1991, a post he would hold through Scott Rowland’s tenure from 2000-09 and with current coach Justin Janis through the 2013 season. He also coached with Rowland with the Vienna Mustangs of the now-defunct Clark C. Griffith Collegiate Baseball League, and with the Vienna American Legion Post 180 team.
You signed just days after graduating high school and pitching in the 1953 state championship game. How did that chain of events all come together?
“I was pitching in the state tournament at Mount Vernon High School. It was kind of an elite stadium, not a baseball field. The state tournament was after high school ended, and I pitched in the state final and lost to Granby High School, 2-1, in nine innings. I walked out in the parking lot, and scouts from the Dodgers, Cardinals, Pirates, Tigers and one other club were there, and the scouts are there talking. The Brooklyn Dodgers scout, who I really liked, said ‘Don’t do anything, I’ll call you in the morning’.
“So, we left, went back to school, took my girlfriend home from school, and I got home at maybe 12:30, and the two Pirates scouts are sitting in the house with my parents, Rex Bowen and Howie Haak. And it ended up that I signed with the Pirates at about 3 a.m. So I signed the contract on the 12th of June, got on a train on the 13th, got into Brunswich, GA, that night, and the 14th I’m starting. And I had started and pitched maybe 150 pitches in nine innings, probably more than that [in the state finals], and I start against the Albany Cardinals and probably threw another 135-140 pitches. But that’s the mentality, that’s how it was back then. When you got the ball, you were expected to go nine. And I know one of the things that really bothers me, and I’ll pull up my stats every once in awhile, is they’ll give you the games started, but they don’t give you the complete games. But I probably averaged, when you include playoff games after the season, over 200 innings for maybe six seasons.
“To finish out that summer, I threw I think it was 115 innings to the end of the season, and I pitched four games in the playoffs, and three were complete games. So that’s close to 150 innings in half a season. They didn’t do pitch counts, and I think it actually took its toll. Today, if you see a minor league pitcher that has over 125 innings, that’s surprising because they all go five innings one start, then they go four, and then four or five days’ rest. And you do your side work, stuff like that. We very seldom had a chance to do side work, we’d get maybe two days’ rest, and you may pitch an inning as a closer, get a day's’ rest and you’re back out there throwing nine again.”
You had the opportunity to pitch against Satchel Paige three times during the 1957 season. What was that like?
“He was with Miami, this was in the International League, and I was at Columbus. We hooked up twice as starters, and then I faced him once where I came in to relieve and he was relieving. That was one of the highlights of my career. As I got older and learned more about his background, it was quite an honor.
“He claimed to be 54, but they said he was 58. He was born in Mobile, AL, and the records were lost in a courthouse fire or something like that. He was a dynamic guy. At our ballpark in Columbus, which was really a top, Grade A ballpark, the bullpens were out in left field and there was just an anchored fence separating the two. If I wasn’t pitching, I’d go out and sit in the bullpen, and he’d come out to our side and tell stories, and it was fantastic. And even then, he had some gitty-up on his fastball. He had pinpoint control. I think he was like 10-3 that year at Triple A, at that age.
“We were 1-1 [against each other]. I beat him 3-2 or 3-1 down in Miami at Memorial Stadium, and then he beat me up at Columbus, and I think it was like 4-2 or something like that. I went about seven [innings], and he pitched a complete-game. The first time I faced him was the day after I got married. We flew back up there and I pitched the second game of a doubleheader.”
A couple of your experiences as a professional ballplayer included rooming with Bill Mazeroski and Earl Weaver. What was that like, and do any stories stand out from those experiences?
“It was 1955 at New Orleans. I started off at Williamsport and that’s where I roomed with Bill Mazeroski. He started the season at Hollywood in ‘55 and was there for about two weeks, then came over to Williamsport. There was another Class A ballclub in Lincoln, NE, and they were competing for the playoffs. They were having some arm problems, so I went out there and spent the last part of the season in Lincoln, and when our season ended there they sent me down to Double A in New Orleans for the last couple years of their season, and that’s where Earl was. And in 1956 I was there as well, and that may have been my best season. Earl was there, and that was his last season, then went into managing. I think he may have done some managing and playing his first couple years after that, I’m not sure, but that was his final season as just a player.
“Andy Koehn, who was our manager in New Orleans, was a historic figure in his own right. He had a long career coaching at Texas-El Paso and is in the NCAA Hall of Fame. Fantastic guy, the first Jewish player in New York City, played second base for John McGraw. I had just turned 20, and was the youngest guy on the ballclub in ‘56, and he called me in and Earl in, and I think he had already talked to Earl about it. But Earl was one of the senior members, and he said he was going to put Earl in charge of me to keep me out of trouble, and that’s the worst decision he could have made because Earl had quite a reputation. Helluva guy, liked to drink. He was like a Billy Martin; not as feisty as Billy Martin, but feisty enough. If he was your teammate, you loved him. And if you were on the other side, you hated him. But a real good guy, and we had a great summer until he left.
Weaver was known as a very charismatic manager, and often had a tumultuous relationship with umpires. Was that fire there as a player as well?
“He was the same as a ballplayer. Very into the ballgame, and there was really no surprise that he was as successful as a manager because you could see it. He couldn’t stand playing second base and seeing the pitcher taking too long, or not throwing strikes. If he started walking guys, you’d see him with that little step he had walking in and his face would be beet red and veins were popping out, and he’d say, ‘Get the ball over the [bleeping] plate’. Everything he did in the big leagues, pulling up the bags and yelling at the umpires, he did that in the minor leagues. I saw him build a dirt pile at home plate, I saw him kick dirt on the umpire’s shoes.”
What was Mazeroski like, and how long did you room with him?
“It was on road trips, and at home as well because we stayed in a boarding house in downtown Williamsport. Maz and I were basically the same age, I was maybe six or seven months older. And our personalities were similar, we liked to do things similarly. Go down to the drugstore and stand around and look at girls, or go to the movies, things like that.
“We did stay in touch. I’ve got some pictures here from when the Pirates played the Orioles in the World Series, he got tickets for me and I got a chance to get on the field and see him, and got to go over and talk with Earl. And I coached for one year with Shawn Stiffler with the Vienna Mustangs in the Clark Griffith League, and Shawn’s grandfather had pitched for a couple years in the big leagues and lived in Pittsburgh, and he and Mazeroski were golf partners. And I knew he spoke with him quite often, Shawn and his grandad were very close, and so I told him to, ‘tell him Kildoo says ‘hi’. And so we reopened a line of communication.
“He was a straightforward kid; didn’t smoke, didn’t drink. A hard-worker, strong kid, a farm boy from Ohio. And that’s another guy that you could see right away, he had it written all over him that he had it. He had probably the best hands of anybody I’d seen in the time I was playing, just great hands and he could turn a double play like the ball it hit him and it went directly to first base his hands were so quick. And not a bad hitter, he had some pop. I think he hit 12-15 home runs every year, and of course the one he hit in the World Series stands out. And he’d play 160 games, he’d be out there every day.”
What are some other memories from your playing career that stand out?
“The relationships, even more than in-game experience. My greatest game experience, I had a no-hitter when I was with New Orleans. I had a great manager in New Orleans. Well, two really, Andy Koehn and then when I had my arm injury and went back, Mel Parnell. I wish I had met up with him earlier in my career because I learned more from him from a pitching perspective in the short time I was with him in ’59.
“I spent three years in spring training with the Pirates, and I got to pitch maybe 22-23 innings against Major League competition. I beat the Kansas City Athletics, so that was kind of a highlight. Just being around the people: Roberto Clemente, I spent Spring Training with him for three years and what a fantastic person, what an athlete. I mean, you talk about five-tool players. You hear people talk about the best outfielder, the best arm, stuff like that, and you never hear people talk about him, but he was outstanding.
“One day I sat down after my oldest son had asked me, ‘How many guys have you played against that are in the Hall of Fame?’, and I said, ‘Well, I roomed with two that are in the Hall of Fame in Earl Weaver and Bill Mazeroski’. But I started going back, and just a number of people – Willie McCovey, which I always told Scott [Rowland] that all I’d need to do is throw my glove out on the field, and I could get him out. And Roger Maris, I played against him. I pitched against Hank Aaron when I pitched against Milwaukee over in Bradenton, FL. I had a chance - I missed by two batters - pitching against Ted Williams over at Sarasota against the Red Sox. He was due up second the next inning, and when they went out in the field, they put James Stevenson out there to relieve him. So I didn’t get to pitch to him.
“One of the funny experiences. Andy Koehn had a curfew, and it was usually two hours after the game. So if the game was over at 11 o’clock, he wanted you back in the hotel by 1 o’clock. And a lot of times you’d come back in before one o’clock, at like 12:45, and he’d be sitting in the lobby sitting there smoking a cigar and have his piece of paper like he was checking names off. And then there were times where you wouldn’t see him in the lobby for a long period of time. So one night we came in, and it was maybe 1:30, we were a half-hour late. And back in that day, they had elevators that had an operator, and he’d get on and before he closed the door, and he’d say, ‘Would you guys autograph a baseball?’, and he’d pull out a pen. And so everybody would autograph. Well so the next morning, Andy would be sitting down in the lobby, and he’d be calling guys over, and he said, ‘So you guys came in at such-and-such a time’, and he’d pull out the baseball and the elevator operator had put the time where the guys’ signature was.”
How close were you to making the big leagues while with the Pirates’ organization?
“I had a real good spring in ’57, after I had a good season in ’56, when we were a third or fourth place club but I had won 14 games and led the league in shutouts with five. I had a real good shot at making the club in ’57, and right towards the end of camp I had gone north to play in an exhibition game in St. Louis before they went over to open the season in Pittsburgh. And they called me in, Joe E. Brown, who was the GM that came in after Branch Rickey, it had come down to Bob Kuzava, the old left-hander who had come down from the Yankees, at this time he was maybe 35, 36 years old.
“At that time, they had a four-man rotation, and with the inclement weather in the north that they’d have trouble getting through the four-man rotation. So they told me they wanted to go with Kuzava, and get me out and get me innings. So they had given me a 24-hour contract and I thought I was right on the verge, but things didn’t work out that way. And then in 1958, I started feeling some shoulder strain and some elbow strain, and it kind of blew up on me towards the end of ’58. So I was not really the same after that, arm-strength wise. With the exception of the no-hitter in New Orleans, I didn’t accomplish much after that.”
How did your playing career wind down with the Pirates’ system?
“The last two assignments was Asheville in the Carolina League, and I was doing an assistant pitching coach. And I went to Burlington, IA, as an assistant pitching coach and I did very little pitching. The Pirates did make me an offer to get into scouting. But they were talking about territories like Montana and the Dakotas, and I could just see what was developing. I had one child, and another one on the way, and my wife was not that enamored with baseball anymore. And I wasn’t that enamored with getting into scouting, that was definitely for a single guy. You live out of a suitcase, and you just don’t have that much of a life. It was a good move to get out of baseball for a while.
“I always played hard, and I was not a good loser. It would take me awhile to get over it, and that’s why I had to decompress after my playing career. It was just the battles, the struggles, the grinding.”
Throughout your tenure with United, you helped coach your sons, Mike and Tommy, in youth ball. How did you end up getting into coaching at the high school level after you retired?
“We were at Sid Thrift’s wedding, and he had Tommy [Hall, the coach at Oakton from 1965-99) and I and our wives sitting at the same table. And I had mentioned to Tommy that I was going to be retiring, and he says, ‘Well, why don’t you come over and help me coach’. And that’s how it all started.
“I tell everyone I had three careers - as a player, working for United, and my time as a coach. I really probably got more out of coaching. At Oakton, we had a great atmosphere, great families, great kids. We had some team success, really an outstanding experience. I was really fortunate to have been a part of that with Tommy Hall and with Scott [Rowland] and with Justin [Janis].”
What would be the biggest thing you noticed in how the game has changed since your days as a player, throughout your coaching career and now today?
“Players today are better in that skills have improved, and kids are bigger, faster and stronger than when I played. But I’m not sure the appreciation for the game is what it should be with kids. That’s one of the things I’d try to tell them, because kids know very little about baseball, from a historical aspect, really knowing the history of the game, therefore maybe not having a great respect for the game. And I’m not casting that on everybody, because there are some that definitely do, but that’s the biggest difference I think.”
Photos Courtesy of Columbus Citizen-Journal and InsideNova.com
