Wingard carved out a career to remember

Ernie "Doc" Wingard is a name that escapes all but the most ardent baseball historians. He never hit 60 home runs, won 30 games or collected 250 hits in a season. His name won't be found alongside Jigger Statz, Joe Bauman or Joe Hauser in any of the record books, either.

Yet Wingard had one of the most colorful careers in baseball through the first half of the 20th century, having crossed paths with "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and Babe Ruth before carving out a successful niche in the American Association and the Class D leagues along the Georgia-Alabama-Florida border.

Wingard's nephew, Doug Wingard, remains a champion for his late uncle, occasionally contacting folks in the media to remind them of what the former hurler, hitting star and Minor League manager meant to the game. Doc Wingard was a staple throughout the Midwest and the South, helping the game flourish in the '30s despite the suffering caused by the Great Depression.

"I remember meeting him when I was young," Doug Wingard said. "I didn't get to know him well, but I knew he had a pretty long history of baseball in the Minor Leagues. And from what I know of him, his best year in the Majors was his first (1924). He was there for four years.

"I know he tried to get back to the Majors after that, but he never did. I don't remember a whole lot, but he told me he faced Babe Ruth a few times. He pitched for the Browns and gave up five of Ruth's homers. One of those came the year Ruth hit 60."

Wingard's story began much earlier than his encounters with Ruth, though. He starred at the University of Alabama in 1920-21 before leaving school and taking up with a semi-pro club in Bastrop, La. It was there that he met Joe Jackson, who was playing semi-pro ball himself after being banned from organized ball for his suspected part in the Black Sox scandal of 1919.

Jackson's team was destroying the competition, and when he went to Americus, Ga., to play in 1923, he took Wingard and his teammate Verdo Elmore with him. Jackson and Wingard formed a bond, and when Wingard went to St. Louis the following season, Jackson apparently went with him as a friend and adviser.

"Apparently a lot of people didn't want to play those barnstorming teams because Jackson's group was beating the daylights out of them," Doug Wingard said. "John Bell [author of A Shoeless Summer] and Mike Nola [curator of the Shoeless Joe Jackson virtual Hall of Fame] verified a lot of the information about the relationship between my uncle and Jackson.

"I guess Jackson acted as some sort of mentor to my uncle. He traveled with him at the beginning of the '24 season and helped him get acclimated to the big leagues. My uncle was taking a pretty big risk being associated with Joe Jackson because he had already been blackballed. I don't know how my uncle pulled it off, but he was still able to play in the Majors."

Wingard was 13-12 in his rookie season with the Browns and would go on to post a 29-43 record in four seasons with St. Louis. By 1928, he found himself in the Minor Leagues, pitching for Milwaukee of the Double-A American Association, where he went 24-10 and guided the Brewers to a third-place finish. Wingard also hit .331 in 157 at-bats.

He pitched full-time again in 1929, this time for Toledo of the American Association, going 10-15. But Wingard's mound career was winding down. He would pitch sparingly over the next dozen years, going 33-33 between 1930 and 1941. Overall, Wingard finished with a 67-58 mark in 176 Minor League appearances.

Wingard became quite a threat at first base during the nine seasons he played in the American Association, however, hitting .342 for Toledo in 1930 and .343 for Indianapolis in 1932 en route to finishing his Double-A career with a .316 average.

"He could apparently hit the ball," Doug Wingard said. "He had a fair number of home runs, too [89 in Double-A]."

Wingard's career path took him back to the South in 1936, where he would spend the next three seasons playing in the Class D Alabama-Florida League. He hit a combined .349 at Troy and Dothan. He managed Troy to a first-place finish in 1936 and managed Dothan to back-to-back first-place finishes in 1938-39.

He split 1940 between the Class D Alabama State and Class B Southeastern Leagues before returning to the Class D circuits for his final season in 1941. Wingard split that season between Greenville of the Alabama State League (managing that club for half a season) and Thomasville of the Georgia-Florida League, hitting .353 at the age of 41.