Meet the '59 Senators: Charlie Gorin
Editor's Note: Born in Waco in February of 1928, Charlie Gorin has called Austin home in some form or fashion for more than seven decades. He helped the University of Texas to a pair of championships and gave Austin its first professional baseball championship since the Dead Era. A 1945 graduate of Austin High and a 1950 graduate of Texas, Gorin makes his home in Austin.
AUSTIN - Fifty years ago, Charlie Gorin pitched the Austin Senators to their first Texas League championship since 1911. A decade before that, he pitched the University of Texas to its first College World Series title. The 81-year old lifelong Austin resident obviously knows a few things about winning. Gorin, however, shrugs it all off and says, "I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time."
Gorin was inducted into the Longhorns Hall of Honor in 2005 and with good reason. He was an All-Southwest Conference selection in 1948 when he was responsible for more than one-third of the Longhorns wins, but it was his prominent role in establishing UT's national reputation as a baseball powerhouse that earned him the honor.
Gorin was in the starting rotation of the 1949 team that won the last CWS played in Wichita, Kan. as UT won its first national championship in any sport. In 1950, Gorin was literally unbeatable. He didn't lose a game on the way to the CWS and then totally dominated the championship tournament, winning three games as UT fought its way out of the loser's bracket to become the first school to win back-to-back titles, a feat that wouldn't be repeated for two decades.
After his collegiate success, Gorin was signed by the Boston Braves and immediately reported for minor league duty, pitching in Milwaukee and Atlanta, cities where the Braves would ultimately relocate. He spent the entire 1951 season in Milwaukee, chalking up a dozen wins while making 32 appearances.
Gorin continued the championship streak he started at UT in the winter of 1951 by playing in Puerto Rico, something he did four times during his career. His team, heavily stocked with Major League players, won the pennant that season, sending him home a winner for the third consecutive year.
But then Gorin's path to the big leagues took a detour as he lost two years to military service. "I got home from Puerto Rico and they gave me a Major League contract," he remembered. "I had joined the Navy out of high school and served on a destroyer before enrolling at UT. With the Korean War going on they recalled me to active duty two weeks after I was back in Texas."
Gorin spent most of his second military stint in Pensacola, Fla., and quite often he got to spend some of that time on the pitcher's mound. "Every base had a team and the competition was intense," he said. "All the commanding officers tried to get guys with professional experience and that's why I was assigned to Pensacola. I threw a no-hitter the first game so I was pretty popular with the top brass after that."
When Gorin regained his civilian status and returned to action in Milwaukee in 1954 it was as a big leaguer as the Braves had relocated from Boston the year before. He joined a historic Braves team managed by Charlie Grimm, the legendary Chicago Cubs skipper. It would produce three Hall of Famers in Hank Aaron, then only a 20-year-old rookie, Eddie Mathews, who Gorin had played with in the minors, and fellow southpaw pitcher Warren Spahn. It was just three years away from defeating the Yankees in World Series to give the Milwaukee Braves their first and only championship. It would be 1995 before the Braves, who relocated to Atlanta in 1966, finally got another ring.
The pitching staff was anchored by Spahn and also included All-Star Lew Burdette, the World Series MVP in 1957, and Gene Conley, who also played in the NBA as a member of the Boston Celtics, participating in five championships in that sport. The bullpen workhorse was Ernie Johnson, whose future would be as a beloved Braves broadcaster.
"There were definitely some characters on that team but they were all pretty nice guys," Gorin recalled. "I knew some of them, like Ernie from playing with them in the minors. Conley went to Washington State and was on the team we beat in the 1950 championship game of the College World Series."
Gorin, who says he weighed no more than 150 pounds when he arrived in the big leagues, was the personification of the "crafty lefty" of baseball lore. "I had a fastball but I got batters out with my curve and off-speed stuff," he remembered. "We weren't concerned with strikeouts and all the statistics back then so the pitcher's job was just to keep his team in the game and to pitch as long as possible since we didn't have all the specialized relievers they do today."
Gorin's final championship year came back on his home turf with the Austin Senators in 1959 as he was winding down his professional career. With a 16-7 record and a 2.96 earned run average it was arguably his best professional season. He appeared in 34 games while leading the team to the Texas League title, the last one for Central Texas until the Round Rock Express captured the crown in its inaugural 2000 season.
"That was obviously an exciting season because it was really the first one where my friends and family could see me play on a regular basis," Gorin said. "Of course winning the Texas League championship made it special, too."
Gorin continued playing for three more seasons, making stops in Mobile and Sacramento before closing out his career back in Austin in 1962. While he left the professional ranks he didn't leave baseball.
His friend Toney Burger hired him as the baseball coach at Lanier High School, and he later moved to Anderson High. In 1977, he took the job of Assistant Principal at Reagan High and remained there for 15 years.
Baseball was the driving force of his life for years but Gorin has no regrets that he didn't prolong his playing career or pursue a job in the game after his retirement. "Being in professional baseball means you have to sacrifice your family life and that your family has to make sacrifices, too," he said. "I just didn't want to do that any longer and decided I'd had my fun in the game and that it was time to hang up my gear."