Harvey Branch

Who is Harvey Branch?

Harvey Alfred Branch is a retired American professional baseball player. He was a left-handed pitcher who had a seven-year career in minor league baseball, but whose Major League tenure consisted of a single game in the uniform of the St. Louis Cardinals on September 18, 1962.

Branch attended Alabama State University, stood 6 feet tall and weighed 170 pounds. He originally signed with the Chicago Cubs in 1958 and spent five years in their minor league system. In 1962, after Branch enjoyed a second consecutive successful season with the Double-A San Antonio Missions — recording 216 strikeouts in 237 innings pitched — the Cubs traded him to the Cardinals on September 1 for right-handed pitcher Paul Toth.

Seventeen days later, Branch made his MLB appearance as the Cardinals' starting pitcher — against Toth and the Cubs at Wrigley Field. He yielded a solo home run to Ron Santo in the second inning, walked in a run in the third, and gave up a third run on a triple and a ground ball out in the fifth. He left the game for a pinch hitter, Red Schoendienst, in the top of the sixth inning with St. Louis trailing, 3–1. Branch was the losing pitcher in an eventual 4–3 Redbird defeat.