[GeoPoto]

Alston appeared in four games in the first weeks of the 1957 season, but his behavior had become too erratic to ignore. “I felt people were looking at me funny,” he said later. He had lost 15 pounds, down to about 175. Musial said, “The poor guy is so weak the bat seems to be swinging him.” The club sent him to a doctor, who put him in a hospital for treatment of what was described as “a nervous condition.”

The first time he saw a psychiatrist in the hospital, Alston recalled, “He didn’t ask no questions or nothing, just administered shock treatment.” He rejoined the team in September and went 4-for-13 in five games.

The Cardinals wanted him to stay in St. Louis for additional treatment, but he went home to live with his father. He never returned to baseball. In early 1958 he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and served 30 days on a chain gang before the balance of his sentence was suspended.

After midnight on a September night, Alston went to the New Goshen Methodist Church, splashed kerosene around the sanctuary, and burned it to the ground. He gave several explanations over the years. Once he said the voices told him to burn the church because the congregation needed a new building. Another time he said he had argued with one of his sisters and torched her church out of spite.

When daylight came, police arrested Alston and a judge ordered a psychiatric exam. He was found mentally incompetent to stand trial. Dr. John W. Turner testified that the defendant was schizophrenic and was dangerous during his “paranoiac phase.”

Alston spent the next eight years in a state psychiatric institution. His discharge in 1967 turned out to be premature; two months later he set fire to his apartment and was committed again. Released in 1969, he continued taking medication and making regular visits to a mental health clinic for the rest of his life. In interviews in his later years, Alston was sometimes lucid, sometimes rambling and barely coherent. He never married or held a steady job, subsisting on Social Security disability benefits.

North Carolina A&T inducted Alston into its sports hall of fame in 1972. He occasionally showed up on campus to give batting tips to varsity players. By 1990 the 64-year-old was living in a nursing home when former Cardinal Joe Garagiola heard of his hardships. “When I called Tom Alston, he could hardly believe it,” Garagiola said. “He was so lonely.” Garagiola was one of the founders of the Baseball Assistance Team (B.A.T.), which provides financial aid to needy players and their families. With B.A.T.’s help, Alston was able to move into an apartment of his own.

As a result of Garagiola’s outreach, the Cardinals invited Alston to throw out the first ball at a game in June, recognizing his place in their history. Fans welcomed him with a warm ovation. The club also arranged for him to earn some money at an autograph show. “I had more fun that visit than I ever had when I was playing,” he said.

Alston contracted prostate cancer and spent his final months in hospice care. He died at 67 on December 30, 1993. . . .

. . . Alston never said publicly that he had been mistreated in baseball. His tombstone celebrates his time in the game; it is decorated with two birds on a bat, the Cardinals logo.