Barney Mc Cosky - Early Years

Early Years

McCosky was born in Coal Run, Pennsylvania, the last of nine children. His mother died when he was one year old, and McCosky moved to Detroit at age 4 with his older brother Tony McCosky. McCosky grew up in Detroit in the midst of the Great Depression. He later recalled: "Nobody had any money. We took mustard sandwiches and ketchup sandwiches to school." (Richard Bak, "Cobb Would Have Caught It: The Golden Age of Baseball in Detroit" (Wayne State 1991), p. 285.) McCosky attended Southwestern High School in Detroit, Michigan, where he was All-City and captain in both baseball and basketball. McCosky had a .727 batting average his senior year—a Detroit public school record.

In 1936, McCosky was signed out of high school by scout Wish Egan. In 1936, he hit .400 for Charleston, West Virginia and led the Mid-Atlantic League his first year in professional baseball. He played next for Beaumont, Texas, and in 1939 the Tigers invited him to spring training in Lakeland, Florida. A photograph of McCosky as a rookie in spring training can be seen on the Lakeland Public Library web site. McCosky made the team and was the Tigers' starting center fielder on Opening Day in Detroit.

Read more about this topic:  Barney Mc Cosky

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:

    Humanity has passed through a long history of one-sidedness and of a social condition that has always contained the potential of destruction, despite its creative achievements in technology. The great project of our time must be to open the other eye: to see all-sidedly and wholly, to heal and transcend the cleavage between humanity and nature that came with early wisdom.
    Murray Bookchin (b. 1941)

    Not so many years ago there there was no simpler or more intelligible notion than that of going on a journey. Travel—movement through space—provided the universal metaphor for change.... One of the subtle confusions—perhaps one of the secret terrors—of modern life is that we have lost this refuge. No longer do we move through space as we once did.
    Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)