Art Schallock, who held the title of oldest living Major League Baseball player, has died, the league announced Saturday. He was 100.
We are saddened to learn of the passing of Art Schallock, who we celebrated last year on his 100th birthday. Mr. Schallock pitched for the Yankees and Orioles from 1951-55. He was MLB’s oldest-living player and would have turned 101 next month. pic.twitter.com/pkUR30mkCS
— MLB (@MLB) March 9, 2025
In five major league seasons with the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles, Schallock appeared in 59 games, including one in the 1953 World Series. A left-handed pitcher, Shallock’s Yankees teams won the World Series in each of his first three major league seasons (1951-53).
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Schallock’s only postseason appearance came in Game 4 of the 1953 World Series. The Yankees lost that game 7-3, as Schallock allowed one run in two innings against the Brooklyn Dodgers. The Yankees won the World Series in six games, the last of their five consecutive World Series victories.
A native of Mill Valley, California, just north of San Francisco, Schallock was a star at Tamalpais High School. Before his major league career could begin, Schallock served in the Navy during World War II as a radio operator.
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“I was two weeks out of high school when they drafted me,” he told Bill Nowlin of the Society for American Baseball Research. “I went in the Navy and I didn’t see a baseball for three years.”
Schallock was decorated for his role in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa, earning 11 battle stars.
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Schallock played semi-pro ball after the war before signing with the Dodgers at age 22 in 1946. He pitched in the Dodgers’ system until 1951, when the Yankees purchased his contract.
Schallock got his first call-up to the Bronx in July 1951. Future Hall of Fame outfielder Mickey Mantle, then a 19-year-old rookie, was sent down to Triple-A in a corresponding roster move.
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Schallock made 11 appearances, including six starts, during his rookie season of 1951. The Yankees beat the Giants in the 1951 World Series, but Schallock saw no action.
Over the next three seasons, Schallock pitched sparingly for the Yankees. He was 3-2 with a 3.90 ERA in 28 appearances as a Yankee when he was claimed off waivers by the Baltimore Orioles in May 1955.
Schallock saw action in 30 games — more than he had in four seasons with the Yankees — and went 3-5 with a 4.15 ERA in his only season with the Orioles.
Schallock retired as a player in 1957. According to Nowlin, he and his wife Donna won a number of amateur golf championships in the Bay Area through the 1960s and into the 1970s, and Art Schallock occasionally attended old-timers baseball events in the Bay Area.
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