Canadian baseball Hall of Famer Tom Burgess, whose brief major league career was followed by long service as a coach and manager, has died.
He was 82.
Burgess died this week at his home in Lambeth, Ont., after a battle with cancer.
Burgess, an outfielder and first baseman, spent most of his playing career in the minor leagues but had two short stints in the majors.
In 1954, he batted .048 in only 21 at-bats for the St. Louis Cardinals and in 1962, he hit. .196 with two home runs in 87 games with the Los Angeles Angels.
He then managed at many levels in the St. Louis, Atlanta, the New York Mets, Texas and Detroit organizations. He was third base coach for the Mets under Joe Torre in 1977 and for Atlanta under Bobby Cox in 1978.
Burgess also coached and managed for Baseball Canada and Baseball Ontario.
"Tom could not give enough back to baseball," Tom Valcke, president of the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, said yesterday. "He would teach anyone, anytime, everything he knew, as long as they wanted to learn and to work."
The Canadian Press
