Chuck Stevens - Out of The Playing Field

Out of The Playing Field

• Following his playing retirement, Stevens worked for a company that acidized oil wells.

• In early 1960, he served as secretary-treasurer of the Association of Professional Ball Players of America, kept the job for 38 years, until he had reached the age of eighty in 1998. He was instrumental in modernizing the structure of organization, setting up a constitution and bylaws to conform to new tax laws, as his job kept him in a permanent touch with the baseball community.

• The Chuck Stevens Award, created by the APBPA, is presented in honor of the longtime Secretary of the Association. The award is presented to the Southern California resident who had the most outstanding season in the minor leagues. Previous winners of this award, Sean Burroughs, Keith Ginter, Jason Hirsh, Evan Longoria, Ryan Madson, Jerry Owens and Jeremy Reed have all played in the major leagues.

• The Pacific Coast League: A Statistical Record, 1903-1957 is a complete PCL encyclopedia, introduced by Stevens in collaboration with Roger Osenbaugh, which shows complete statistics for every player in the league, presented in year-by-year, team-by-team format, with batting and pitching categories. The book also included leader boards, season and lifetime record holders, league officials, playoff records and attendance.

• Stevens also parlayed his Hollywood prestige into roles in two baseball related films, appearing in The Stratton Story (Sam Wood, 1949), starred by James Stewart and June Allyson, and The Winning Team (Lewis Seiler, 1952), featuring Doris Day and Ronald Reagan.