Apr 18, 2016 By George Von Benko for The 6 min read

Smithton native Joe Margoneri was like a comet bursting on the Major League Baseball scene and then fading because of arm trouble.

The fireballing lefty honed his baseball skills on the sandlots in Western Pennsylvania.

“We didn’t have baseball at South Huntington Township High School,” Margoneri recalled. “I played sandlot baseball when I was like 16 or 17 years old with older players. We had town and patch teams like Hermanie and Madison, just small coal-mining towns. When I was older, like 18 or 19, I worked for Walter King, who owned coal mines and coke ovens in Scottdale. I drive a truck from the coke ovens and he ran a team and I played for his team.”

Margoneri was discovered by the New York Giants and King played a big part in his signing.

“Playing for King, it was semi-pro baseball,” Margoneri said. “I got about five or ten bucks here and there. King called a scout for the New York Giants named Nick Shinkoff. I pitched a game on a Friday night and had a good evening and King came to me and said, ‘Come over here, a scout wants to see you pitch.’ I went up on Saturday morning and just threw on the side with a catcher. Shinkoff brought me back home and I signed a contract that day. I sat down with my mom and dad and he gave me two brand-new baseballs and I signed a Class D contract for $200 a month.”

At age 20, he led the Wisconsin State League in wins (23) & strike outs (288) at Oshkosh. The 288 strikeouts set a new Wisconsin State League record.

“The first year I set the strikeout record,” Margoneri stated. “The fastball was my bread and butter pitch. They didn’t have a radar gun, but I guess I was throwing in the mid 90’s. I had a lot of strikeouts, I threw mostly fastballs and tried to work on a curve and a change up.”

After posting a record of 23-4 at Oshkosh, Margoneri jumped to Class B Sunbury in the Interstate League. In 30 games, 28 starts, he went 18-8 and recorded 212 strikeouts.

“I led the league in strikeouts at Sunbury and then the Army got a hold of me,” Margoneri said.

Margoneri was drafted into the Army during the Korean War.

He spent the next two seasons (1952-53) stationed at Brooke Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.

“I was fortunate, I stayed state-side. I played baseball down in San Antonio, Texas. It was what they called special service. They had football players, basketball players — all types of athletes down there in one section,” he said.

His teammates included some big leaguers.

“Don Newcombe and Bobby Brown were down there,” Margoneri said. “We played semi pro teams and the air bases down there around San Antonio. We were really good. Playing in the service kept me sharp.”

Margoneri returned to the Giants minor league system after his two years in the service and pitched Double-A Nashville and Triple-A Minneapolis. He was 14-10 for the Nashville Volunteers and 1-0 for the Minneapolis Millers. Margoneri led the Southern Association with 184 strikeouts.

Margoneri pitched for the Navegantes del Magallanes club of the Venezuelan Winter League, and was responsible for the only defeat suffered by the Puerto Rican Cangrejeros de Santurce champion team, 7-2, in the closing game of the 1955 Caribbean Series. Notably, Margoneri hurled a complete game against a powerful lineup that included future Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays, as well as Harry Chiti, Buster Clarkson, George Crowe, Luis Olmo and Don Zimmer.

During this period, the Giants signed him to a four-year contract.

Margoneri was on the Giants radar when he came to spring training in 1955.

In the March 7, 1955 issue of the Long Island Star-Journal, Giants manager Leo Durocher raved about Margoneri’s potential: “I like everything about the kid. I like his attitude … his poise … his motion … and, above all, his fastball. He’s firin’ harder than the others because he’s ready. He pitched in one of those winter leagues.”

In 1955, Margoneri pitched for the Giants top farm club at Class AAA Minneapolis. He helped lead the team to the 1955 Junior World Series Championship, defeating the Rochester Red Wings of the International League in the best of a seven-game series.

The non-stop pitching was starting to take a toll on Margoneri. He started to develop arm trouble.

“That’s when my arm trouble started,” Margoneri said. “I was throwing 150 pitches per game and became a bit wild.”

Margoneri was 26 years old when he entered the majors in 1956 with the Giants and was on the team for two years.

His most productive season came in 1956 when he had a 6-6 record with a 3.93 earned run average in a pitching rotation that included Johnny Antonelli (20-13), Rubén Gómez (7-17), Al Worthington (7-14) and Jim Hearn (5-11). The next year he worked almost exclusively as a left-handed specialist out of the bullpen.

“When I was pitching in 1956 my arm was hurting,” Magoneri explained. “In 1957 it got worse and they sent me to New York, but they couldn’t do anything. I was so wild my early years that I would walk 12, and have 14 strikeouts and two hits. I just blew my arm out.”

Margoneri pitched for Triple-A Phoenix in 1958, Double-A San Antonio, Triple-A Toronto and Triple-A Toronto in 1959. He pitched 10 games with Monterey in the Mexican League and two games with Double-A Indianapolis in 1960. Margoneri retired from baseball at the age of 30 after the 1960 season.

In a two-season major league career, Margoneri posted a 7-7 record with a 4.29 ERA in 36 pitching appearances, including 15 starts and three complete games. He gave up 60 earned runs on 132 hits and 70 walks while striking out 67 in 126 innings of work. In nine minor league campaigns, Margoneri compiled a record of 88-52.

After baseball, Margoneri worked from 1962 through 1991 in the corrugated paper business as a supervisor for the International Paper Company and the St. Regis Paper Company in Pittsburgh.

Margoneri, 86, lives in West Newton with his wife of 62 years, Helen. They have five daughters and 13 grandchildren.

“I happy with my career and we had a pretty good life,” Margoneri said. “It was tough on my wife back in those days moving around. Who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t hurt my arm. I see this Tommy John surgery and that’s where mine started in the elbow. Who knows, they might have fixed me and I may have been able to throw 100 miles per hour.”

George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in the Monday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.