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Cy Blanton
American baseball player (1908–1945) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Darrell Elijah (Cy) Blanton (July 6, 1908 – September 13, 1945) was an American starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies. Blanton batted left-handed and threw right-handed. Blanton was a screwball pitcher.[1]
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Pitching career
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Blanton grew up in Trousdale, Oklahoma, and was living in Shawnee, Oklahoma, playing on sandlot teams. In 1929 he joined the Shawnee Robins, a C Class team in the Western Association. Blanton was a pitcher for the Independence Producers in 1931. The Independence Producers were a Class C minor league team located in Independence, Kansas. Blanton had twelve wins and eight losses for the season.[2]
Blanton was one of the mainstays of the Pittsburgh Pirates rotation in the mid-1930s. He pitched for the Albany Senators in 1934, being promoted to Pittsburgh to pitch one game. Earlier he pitched in the Piedmont League and the Western Association.[3]
In his 1935 rookie season he recorded 18 wins with 142 strikeouts and led the National League in earned run average (2.58) and shutouts (4).[4] He averaged 12.67 wins for the next three years, leading again the league in shutouts in 1936 (4) and starts in 1937 (34). A free agent before the 1940 season, he signed with the Philadelphia Phillies. Although he made the National League All-Star team in 1937 and 1941, he never showed again the brilliance of his first season. He last pitched for the Phillies in 1942,[3] being released after a month long stay in hospital due to kidney problems.[5][6]
In a nine-season career, Blanton posted a 68–71 record with a 3.55 ERA and 611 strikeouts.
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Death
He was suspended by the Hollywood Stars for failure to get in shape in March 1945.[7] He returned to Oklahoma from California where he had been living just before he died. Blanton died in Norman, Oklahoma, at the age of 37, from internal hemorrhaging as a result of cirrhosis.[5][8] His body was taken to Shawnee, Oklahoma, for burial in the nearby Tecumseh Cemetery.[3] He left a wife, Marie, and four children including a son, Zane, who briefly played in the minor leagues with the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies.
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