Tom Burgess

Who was Tom Burgess?

Thomas Roland Burgess was a Canadian baseball player, coach and manager. An outfielder and first baseman, Burgess had two trials in Major League Baseball — a 17-game stint with the 1954 St. Louis Cardinals and a full season with the 1962 Los Angeles Angels. He then forged a long career as a minor league manager and served as a Major League coach with the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves. In his playing days, he threw and batted left-handed and stood 6 feet tall and weighed 180 pounds.

A native of London, Ontario, Burgess attended the University of Western Ontario. He first signed with the Cardinals in 1946, making his debut with the Hamilton Red Wings of the Class D PONY League. Despite compiling a robust .350 batting average in 1947 in the Class C Interstate League, by 1949 Burgess was voluntarily retired and spent three seasons with the London Majors of the Canadian Intercounty Baseball League. He resumed his pro playing career in 1952 in the Class A South Atlantic League and batted .328, then continued his hot hitting in 1953, batting .346 with 22 home runs and 93 runs batted in with the Cards' top farm team, the Rochester Red Wings of the Triple-A International League. That earned him a promotion to St. Louis for the start of the 1954 campaign, but Burgess collected only one hit — a double off Paul LaPalme of the Pittsburgh Pirates on June 13 — in 21 at bats, an .048 batting average, before being sent back to Rochester.