Former Pirates infielder who mastered the violin
Eddie Basinski, an infielder with the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates of the 1940s who, in an unusual combination of abilities, was also a concert violinist, died Jan. 8 at a care facility in Gladstone, Ore., near Portland. He was 99.
His death was announced by his son Dave.
Mr. Basinski had been the second-oldest former major leaguer. George Elder, 100, an outfielder for the 1949 St. Louis Browns, is the oldest.
Mr. Basinski, who had taken classical violin lessons since childhood, played with the University of Buffalo’s symphony orchestra before embarking on his major league career in 1944, a time when baseball rosters had lost many players to service in World War II. (He was deferred from military service because he had poor eyesight.) He played in 39 games for the Dodgers in his rookie season, mostly at second base, and in another 108 games in 1945, filling in at shortstop for the future Hall of Famer Pee Wee Reese, who was in the Navy.
Mr. Basinski was sent to the minors when Reese returned to Brooklyn in 1946. He joined the Pirates in 1947 and played in 56 games, batting .199 with four home runs in 161 at-bats.
He later played in the Pacific Coast League, mostly for the Portland Beavers, and serenaded fans there with his violin. He retired from baseball after the 1959 season.
Mr. Basinski had another brush with the baseball world when he was among about three dozen old-time major leaguers whose names provided the lyrics for jazz pianist and singer Dave Frishberg’s 1969 song “Van Lingle Mungo.” (Its title is the name of a fastball pitcher with the Dodgers and the New York Giants in the 1930s and ’40s.) Mr. Basinski was the last survivor of that group.
The closing stanza goes: John Antonelli, Ferris Fain
Frankie Crosetti, Johnny Sain
Harry Brecheen and Lou Boudreau
Frankie Gustine and Claude Passeau
Eddie Basinski, Ernie Lombardi, Hughie Mulcahy,Van Lingle … Van
Lingle Mungo.
Edwin Frank Basinski was born in Buffalo, N.Y., on Nov. 4, 1922, one of seven children of Walter and Sophie Basinski. His father was a machinist. His mother, who played the piano, encouraged him to take violin lessons when he was a child.
He tried out for his high school baseball team, but he was a skinny boy who wore thick glasses, his eyesight having been damaged by rheumatic fever at age 4, and the coach decided he didn’t fit the profile of a ballplayer.
He received a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Buffalo (now the University at Buffalo), but it didn’t have a baseball team. He worked at the Curtiss-Wright aircraft plant in Buffalo and starred for semipro baseball teams, catching the attention of a Dodgers scout. He received a $5,000 bonus for signing with Brooklyn and made his debut against the Cincinnati Reds on May 20, 1944.