Clyde Kluttz
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Clyde Franklin Kluttz (December 12, 1917 – May 12, 1979) was an American professional baseball player, scout and front-office executive. In Major League Baseball, Kluttz was a catcher for the Boston Braves (1942–45), New York Giants (1945–46), St. Louis Cardinals (1946), Pittsburgh Pirates (1947–48), St. Louis Browns (1951) and Washington Senators (1951–52). He threw and batted right-handed, stood Script error: No such module "convert". tall and weighed Script error: No such module "convert"..
Born in nearby Rockwell, he was a longtime resident of Salisbury, North Carolina, where he attended Catawba College. His 17-year playing career began in 1938. Kluttz appeared in 52 regular season games as a member of the 1946 world champion Cardinals—and was the starting catcher on October 3 for the flag-clinching Game 2 of the postseason playoff against the Brooklyn Dodgers[1]—but he did not play in the 1946 World Series.
In nine Major League seasons, Kluttz played in 656 games, and had 1,903 at-bats, 172 runs, 510 hits, 90 doubles, 8 triples, 19 home runs, 212 RBI, 5 stolen bases, 132 walks, .268 batting average, .318 on-base percentage, .354 slugging percentage, 673 total bases and 30 sacrifice hits.
Kluttz was a longtime scout after his playing days ended, working with the Kansas City Athletics and New York Yankees. He was credited with signing Baseball Hall of Famer Catfish Hunter, a fellow North Carolinian, for the Athletics in 1964, and, 11 years later, while serving as the Yankees' scouting director (1974–75), he played a key role in convincing free agent Hunter to join the Yankees.[2]
Kluttz resigned from the Yankees and was reunited with friend and Athletics colleague Hank Peters as director of player development with the Baltimore Orioles on 7 January 1976.[3] He was instrumental in the Orioles acquiring Rick Dempsey, Scott McGregor and Tippy Martinez from the Yankees in a five-for-five trade deadline blockbuster five months later on 15 June. The three players became part of a nucleus that enabled the Orioles to continue as perennial contenders for the next decade.[4] Kluttz served in that capacity from 1976 until his 1979 death, in Salisbury, at age 61 from kidney and heart ailments.[5][6]
References
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- ↑ 1946-10-3 box score from Retrosheet
- ↑ Catfish Hunter obituary, Los Angeles Times, September 10, 1999
- ↑ Harvin, Al. "People in Sports," The New York Times, Thursday 8 January 1976. Retrieved 15 June 2021.
- ↑ Chass, Murray. "Players Swap Memories of Yankees-Orioles 10-Player Trade", The New York Times, Sunday 15 June 1986. Retrieved 30 June 2025.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ Associated Press, May 13, 1979
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Sources
- Career statistics from Script error: No such module "String".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
External links
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- Pages with script errors
- 1917 births
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- Baltimore Orioles executives
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