After an outstanding four years on the baseball team at Chelmsford High School from 1948 to 1951, Bob Carruthers parlayed his semi-pro and military-service baseball experience into tryouts with major-league clubs and in 1955 secured a minor-league contract. His professional baseball career, though, lasted just one day – only one inning – before Bob returned to Chelmsford to marry, raise a family, and pursue a business career.
Robert Arthur Carruthers was born on February 8, 1933, in Lowell, Massachusetts, the son of John and Gladys (Prentiss) Carruthers. The family, which included Bob’s older sister Marguerite, lived in Chelmsford at 4 York Street in a neighborhood near the center of town.[1]
As a young teenager, Carruthers was more prominent on the basketball court than the baseball diamond. In the eighth grade in 1947, Bob played basketball on the McFarlin School team and also for the Central Congregational Church team. In the local grammar-school tournament the Chelmsford Newsweekly wrote that “the best player on the court was Bob Carruthers,” even though his McFarlin team lost in the title game. As a ninth-grader in 1948, Bob received his first sports mention in the Lowell Sun when his church team, undefeated in the Lowell YMCA Church League, lost in the championship game when Bob was sick and unable to play.[2]
Carruthers, six-foot-one and 180 pounds, played forward on the varsity basketball team at Chelmsford High School for three seasons in the winters of 1949 to 1951. In two of those three years, CHS advanced to the final game of the Class C high school tournament, losing in 1949 to Our Lady of Newton (Bob scored seven points) and winning the title in 1951 with a victory over Provincetown at the Boston Garden (Bob scored 27 points).[3]
The Chelmsford High School building that Carruthers attended was on Billerica Road, which today is the Town Hall. He played basketball in the gym at the rear of the building (still in use, recently refurbished). The CHS baseball team played on the adjacent Memorial Field, which was built in 1947 (combination football and baseball field) and was later converted into what is now known as the Chelmsford Youth Baseball Complex or 110 Baseball Fields.
There were no organized youth leagues for baseball in Chelmsford in the 1940s (Little League did not arrive until 1952), so Carruthers learned the game on the sandlot through pickup games and possibly with church-sponsored teams. Adult amateur teams (often called semi-pro, although no money actually changed hands) then dominated baseball in the Lowell area during the spring, with high-school games a distant second in popularity; the semi-pro leagues had exclusive (and extensive) newspaper coverage in the summer. There were two semi-pro teams in Chelmsford. The Varney Athletic Association represented North Chelmsford, while the Chelmsford Athletic Association team was based in Chelmsford Center.
Carruthers played four years of varsity baseball at CHS during the springs of 1948 to 1951. As a freshman and sophomore, Bob was the starting shortstop and alternated on the mound as a right-handed pitcher. The Chelmsford Newsweekly detailed his pitching exploits as a 15-year-old freshman in May 1948, reporting that “Bob Carruthers went to the hill for the [Coach] Callagy men and turned in a brilliant 4-hitter” in a 3-1 victory. As a sophomore in 1949, Bob was the number-one pitcher on the CHS team, earning all-star honors in the Merrimack Valley League.[4]
In the summer of 1949, Bob played for the Chelmsford A.A. team in the semi-pro Village League, which was comprised of teams from the small towns along the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border. He made an immediate splash by pitching a one-hitter in his first mound appearance.[5]
In his junior year at CHS in 1950, Carruthers won nine games as a pitcher, leading Chelmsford to the Merrimack Valley League title and advancing to the quarter-finals of the small-school division of the state high-school tournament. When not on the mound for CHS, he now played in the outfield rather than at shortstop. Bob was named an honorable mention pitcher on the 1950 Boston Globe All-Scholastic Baseball Team.[6]
In 1950 the Chelmsford A.A. team competed in the semi-pro Suburban Twilight League, comprised of Lowell-area teams, where Bob continued to pitch well. The Chelmsford A.A. team reached the semi-finals of the league playoffs, losing the best-two-of-three-games series to its cross-town rival the Varney A.A. team. Carruthers suffered the pitching defeat in the decisive third game, his only Twilight League loss that season.[7]
As a senior at CHS in 1951, Carruthers again led the Chelmsford baseball team to the Merrimack Valley League title. “Carruthers can hit the ball hard, play the outfield, and fill in at shortstop if occasion demands,” the Boston Globe reported in a pre-season article. “But it is as a pitcher that Carruthers shines brightest.” Bob tossed a no-hitter in the team’s opening game of the 1951 season, striking out 17 batters. His last high-school baseball game was on June 4, 1951, when CHS lost in the opening round of the small-school state tournament. Bob was selected as a pitcher on the second team of the Boston Traveler All-Scholastic Team.[8]
Carruthers graduated from Chelmsford High School in June 1951, just a few days after his last appearance in a CHS baseball uniform. His senior-prom date was Lois Brooks, a 1950 graduate of Chelmsford High School, who was then a freshman college student at the University of New Hampshire. In the fall, Bob would also attend UNH. Five years later, Lois would marry Bob.[9]
On July 2, 1951, at Braves Field in Boston, Carruthers pitched batting practice to the Brooklyn Dodgers, the visiting team in town to play the Boston Braves in a National League game. Bill O’Connor, the New England scout for the Dodgers, likely arranged for the pitching opportunity at Braves Field, on the strength of his semi-pro pitching exploits the previous two summers.[10]
During the summer of 1951, Carruthers played for the Auburn Asas (not Aces), an independent semi-pro team based in Maine that was comprised of college baseball players (current and aspiring) who were “paid” via limited-duty summer jobs that maintained their amateur status. “Chelmsford’s Bob Carruthers could tell you a few things about the way young ballplayers are treated at Auburn, Me.,” the Lowell Sun reported after the Asas dropped Bob. “Certain boys who have ‘jobs’ up there suddenly become unemployed when they are no longer needed on the baseball team.” In August Bob returned to Chelmsford and pitched one last time for the Chelmsford A.A. team in the Suburban Twilight League.[11]
After Carruthers matriculated to UNH in September 1951, he made the varsity basketball team that fall. Coming off the bench, Bob played in eight games and scored 20 points in his abbreviated college sports career. In February 1952, UNH put Bob on academic probation and he missed the remainder of the basketball season. He did not play varsity baseball for UNH in the spring; it is unclear if he played on the freshman baseball team.[12]
By 1952 the adult semi-pro baseball leagues in the Lowell area had faded in popularity, in favor of family-oriented activities (especially television) and youth-oriented baseball. Little League arrived in Chelmsford in 1952 for boys aged 9 to 12 and Pony League in 1955 for boys 13 to 15. The Chelmsford A.A. team disbanded after the 1951 season; the Varney A.A. team played its last season in 1952. The Suburban Twilight League itself collapsed in 1953.
During the summer of 1952, Carruthers pitched for the Lowell Sun baseball team, which was a traveling team that competed in the New England Newspaper League. Bob survived a three-day tryout camp in Lowell conducted by Boston Braves scouts to be picked as one of four pitchers on the team. He pitched the championship title game on August 8 at Braves Field, when Lowell lost to Stamford, Connecticut, when fielding lapses (seven errors) offset a good performance by Carruthers. [13]
In March 1953 Carruthers participated in a Brooklyn Dodgers baseball school at the team’s spring training camp in Vero Beach, Florida, at the invitation of Dodgers scout Bill O’Connor. However, the Dodgers did not offer Bob a minor-league contract.[14]
Lacking a student draft deferment from military service since he no longer attended UNH, Carruthers served two years in the U.S. Army beginning in April 1953. During these Korean War years, it is unclear whether Bob enlisted or was drafted. After completing basic training, he was deployed to Germany where he served as a truck driver in the 24th Engineering Group. Bob also played on Army basketball and baseball teams while in Germany, reportedly a top performer in basketball and pitcher on a championship baseball team. “There’s a chance that Carruthers will give professional baseball another whirl when he comes out of the service,” the Lowell Sun reported in February 1955, two months before his official discharge from the Army. “There are a couple of clubs interested in giving him a chance to regain his old form.”[15]
While the Brooklyn Dodgers were no longer interested in Carruthers, the Cincinnati Reds were actively seeking players to staff a brand-new farm team in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, which was a last-minute replacement team in the Class B Piedmont League whose season was to begin just weeks away.
The Lowell Sun reported on April 23, 1955, that “Bob was sought out by Frank McCormick, former Cincinnati and Boston Braves first sacker, who’s scouting this territory for Manager Birdie Tebbetts.” Because Tebbetts was a Nashua native, he had been contacted by Nashua community booster and baseball advocate Mario Vagge, who put in a plug for Carruthers. “Birdie then sent McCormick into action. McCormick met Carruthers in Nashua last Monday, watched him pitch for a while and then signed him to a Class B contract.”[16]
This would be a far-fetched tale without the Army back story. “Bob hopes he can emulate his Army buddy, Johnny Kucks, the young hurler now with the New York Yankees. Kucks also broke into pro ball in the Piedmont League, and after his two-year hitch in the service, vaulted right up to the Yankees after only one year in the pro ranks. Kucks and Carruthers pitched for the same Army team in Germany.” After his two-year absence from pro ball, Kucks had enjoyed immediate pitching success with the Yankees in 1955 (and would go on to be selected AL Rookie of the Year), so the Reds hoped that Carruthers would similarly pan out in the minors.[17]
On May 6, 1955, Carruthers made his professional baseball debut when he pitched the seventh inning of Sunbury’s game at Lancaster. Bob gave up two hits and one run, walked one batter and struck out another, and hit one batter. The Sunbury Daily Item reported that “Curly” Carruthers had been the fourth pitcher that night in Sunbury’s 11-6 loss to Lancaster. The box score botched the spelling of his surname as “Correthers.”[18]
It was the one and only appearance by Carruthers in a pro ball game, as Bob left the team shortly after that Friday night game. “Redlegs have placed Bob Carruthers on the suspended list,” the Sunbury Daily Item reported a few days later, using the correct spelling of his name. “The pitcher departed for his home and hasn’t been heard from up to now.” It is unclear why Bob left the Sunbury team.[19]
Following his suspension from the Sunbury team, Bob’s baseball contract was transferred at the end of the 1955 season to Cincinnati’s Class D farm team at Douglas, Georgia, in the Georgia State League. The Piedmont League disbanded soon thereafter, as did the Sunbury ball club. For the 1956 season, Douglas curiously reserved Carruthers, presumably expecting him to return to minor-league baseball. However, Bob had no further plans to play baseball and add to his one-game minor-league career.[20]
After returning to Chelmsford, Carruthers and Lois Brooks announced their engagement in March 1956. He was now back in school studying at the Bentley School of Accounting (it was not yet called a college). While Bob was serving in the Army, Lois completed her degree at the University of New Hampshire in 1954 and was now employed by a bank.[21]
Bob and Lois were married on June 15, 1956, at the Central Congregational Church in Chelmsford, with the wedding reception held at the Vesper Country Club in Lowell. In August 1957, the Carruthers bought the house at 106 Robin Hill Road in South Chelmsford, which was near the house of Bob’s sister who lived at 4 Proctor Road.[22]
After graduating from Bentley in the spring of 1957, Bob worked as a business manager at the American Motors Corporation office in Needham. AMC was the fourth largest U.S. car manufacturer, the product of the 1954 merger of the Nash and Hudson carmakers. Although AMC’s sales were well below those of the Big Three of Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler (which controlled 96% of U.S. auto sales), AMC by 1959 was making inroads due to its focus on small compact cars, such as its iconic Rambler, while the Big Three continued to produce big, bulky vehicles and controlled only 90% of the U.S. marketplace.[23]
Although Carruthers never played another inning of minor-league baseball after 1955, his baseball contract had a lengthy saga extending into 1960. The Douglas, Georgia, farm team placed Bob on the restricted list for 1956 when he did report that spring. When the Douglas team dissolved after the season, Bob’s contract was transferred to the Cincinnati farm team in Savannah, Georgia, where it remained in abeyance for the 1957, 1958, and 1959 seasons. Presumably, the ball club couldn’t locate Carruthers to officially release him. When the Savannah team relocated to Columbia, South Carolina, for the 1960 season, Carruthers finally was issued his release on February 29, 1960.[24]
In the early 1960s, Bob and his family moved to the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he worked at the AMC regional office there and they raised three sons, Jeffrey, Scott, and Eric.[25]
Bob’s sister Marguerite remained in Chelmsford, where into the 1990s she and her husband George operated Waite’s Farm in South Chelmsford. Their farm stand on Acton Road was located just a half-mile from this author’s home, whose family was a frequent customer to purchase their freshly picked corn-on-the-cob and delicious home-grown vegetables.[26]
Carruthers was inducted into the Chelmsford High School Alumni Association Hall of Fame in 1997.[27]
Bob Carruthers died on August 26, 2005, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He is buried at the Pine Ridge Cemetery in Chelmsford, in the Brooks family plot alongside his wife Lois who died in 2007.[28]
Newspaper Sources
Chelmsford Newsweekly – microfilm at the Chelmsford Public Library; Lowell Sun – Newspaper Archive digital archive available to Boston Public Library cardholders; Sunbury Daily Item – Newspaper.com digital archive available to Society for American Baseball Research members.
Notes
[1] Contract Card for Bob Carruthers, The Sporting News archive, https://digital.la84.org/digital/collection/p17103coll3/id/5487/rec/7 ; federal census records for 1940 and 1950 for John Carruthers, 4 York Avenue, Chelmsford, Middlesex County, Massachusetts.
[2] “Central Congregational Five Setting Pace in Protestant League,” Chelmsford Newsweekly, January 3, 1947; “Westlands Win Grammar School Title, Beat McFarlin in Finals,” Chelmsford Newsweekly, March 21, 1947; “Church Title Is Decided,” Lowell Sun, April 5 1948.
[3] “Chelmsford High Eliminated From Two Tourneys Same Night,” Lowell Sun, March 4, 1949; “Tall Chelmsford Five Hopes for Tech Tourney Chance,” Boston Globe, February 26, 1951; “Chelmsford Cops Crown,” Lowell Sun, March 11, 1951.
[4] “CHS Drops Two Close Tilts,” Chelmsford Newsweekly, May 18, 1948; “CHS Nine Wins Two,” Chelmsford Newsweekly, May 25, 1948; “CHS Beats Wilmington in 6-5 Thriller,” Chelmsford Newsweekly, May 12, 1949; “Howe, Johnson Each Place Three on Valley Star Nine,” Lowell Sun, June 16, 1949.
[5] “A.A. Sweep Twin Bill With Brookline,” Chelmsford Newsweekly, June 30, 1949; “Home Teams Win Village League Games,” Lowell Sun, August 22, 1949.
[6] “Chelmsford, Westford in Tourney Tilt,” Lowell Sun, June 7, 1950; “Westford Turns Back Chelmsford, 10-4,” Lowell Sun, June 8, 1950; “The All-Scholastic Baseball Team,” Boston Globe, June 18, 1950.
[7] “Varney A.A. Gains Birth in Suburban Twi League Finals,” Lowell Sun, August 28, 1950.
[8] “Able Veterans Bolster Chelmsford Nine’s Hopes,” Boston Globe, April 12, 1951; “Carruthers Tosses No-Hitter in Opener,” Chelmsford Newsweekly, April 19, 1951; “Grand Slam Homer Ruins Chelmsford’s Tourney Hopes,” Lowell Sun, June 5, 1951; “In This Corner,” Chelmsford Newsweekly, June 28, 1951.
[9] “78 to Graduate From Chelmsford High School,” Chelmsford Newsweekly, June 14, 1951; “And Have You Heard,” Lowell Sun, May 23, 1951.
[10] “Carruthers Works Out with Dodgers,” Lowell Sun, July 3, 1951.
[11] “In This Corner,” Chelmsford Newsweekly, July 6, 1951; “The Lookout,” Lowell Sun, July 27 and August 12, 1951; “Varneys Defeat Nick’s to Tighten Twi Loop Race,” Lowell Sun, August 11, 1951.
[12] “Wildcat Basketball Squad Trimmed to 18 Players,” Portsmouth Herald, November 27, 1951; “On UNH Squad,” Lowell Sun, January 7, 1952; “Cats Lose Captain in Marking Period,” Portsmouth Herald, February 2, 1952; page for Carruthers, Sports Reference website, https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/_-carruthers-1.html
[13] “Eight Holdovers on Sun Ball Club,” Lowell Sun, June 29, 1952; “Stamford Beats Sun Nine for N.E. Title,” Lowell Sun, August 9, 1952.
[14] “Bob Carruthers Accepts Invite to Dodgers Camp,” Lowell Sun, January 25, 1953.
[15] “The Lookout,” Lowell Sun, February 13 and March 26, 1955.
[16] “Bob Carruthers Signed by Cincinnati Reds,” Chelmsford Newsweekly, April 28, 1955; “The Lookout: Redlegs Sign Bob Carruthers,” Lowell Sun, April 23, 1955.
[17] “Bob Carruthers Signed by Cincinnati Reds.”
[18] “Redlegs Lose at Lancaster, 11-6,” Sunbury Daily Item, May 7, 1955.
[19] “Redlegs Outslug Portsmouth, 10-7,” Sunbury Daily Item, May 10, 1955; page for Carruthers, Baseball Reference website, https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=carrut001rob
[20] Contract Card for Carruthers, The Sporting News archive.
[21] “Lois Brooks To Be June Bride,” Lowell Sun, March 25, 1956; “College Notes,” Lowell Sun, June 6, 1954.
[22] “Miss Brooks Marries Robert A. Carruthers,” Lowell Sun, June 17, 1956; “Property Changes Hands,” Lowell Sun, August 18, 1957.
[23] Chelmsford listings in Lowell Directory, 1959; e-mail from Bentley University archivist, April 3, 2023.
[24] Contract Card for Carruthers, The Sporting News archive.
[25] Obituary of Carruthers, Philadelphia Inquirer, August 28, 2005.
[26] Obituary of Waite, Lowell Sun, December 26, 2006.
[27] Page for Carruthers, Chelmsford High School Alumni Association website, https://chsalumni.org/test-menu/34-1997/129-robert-a-curruthers-1951-d
[28] Obituary of Carruthers, Lowell Sun, August 29, 2005; obituary of his wife, Lowell Sun, January 18, 2007; records at Pine Ridge Cemetery, Chelmsford, Mass., Find a Grave website, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18177598/robert-carruthers
Bevis Baseball Research 