Real Work - Offseason Jobs of Vintage Ballplayers

[Brian Van Horn]

Originally Posted by packs

King Kelly, John McGraw and Rube Marquard performed on vaudeville during their careers.

Mordecai Brown was a miner in his early career.

During his first few years with the Yanks Yogi worked at Sears.

Roy Campanella lucked into a weird deal with Nashua while in the New England League. A farmer said he'd give him 100 chickens for every homer. So when he hit 14 homers and ended up with 1,400 chickens, he started a farm. Later he opened a liquor store in Harlem.

Lefty Gomez was offered a try out by the Yanks while working at Universal Studios and pitching for a Hollywood Hills team.

Don't forget Mike Donlin left baseball for vaudeville. Also, Wes Ferrell had a Hollywood screen test and Lew Fonseca, who sang professionally during the off season in the 1920s and won a batting title in 1929:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Lew_Fonseca

Waite Hoyt was also a noted singer.