New Jersey: They Also Say "Not For Nothing" A Lot Over There
We were perusing the Newark Star-Ledger obituary section, as you do, when we came across the following death note for Ted Del Guercio, a Newark native who in 1945 signed a $19,000 contract with the Boston Red Sox, but never made it to the Big Leagues. It's not necessarily an uncommon story, but it wasn't until about five paragraphs in that we realized the obituary offers a fairly precise point of comparison , should you need one, of the differences between this side of the river and the other. After the jump, Ted Del Guercio remembered.
In 1945, Newark's own Ted Del Guercio signed an eye-popping $19,000 contract with the Boston Red Sox.
The 17-year-old pitcher and slugger from the North Ward seemed like he was on deck for the big leagues.
Mr. Del Guercio, a handsome, strapping 6-foot-1 Central High School prodigy, would hit .300 for the better part of the next decade in the minor leagues, playing against the likes of Hank Aaron, family members said. Aaron, baseball's future home run king, even bested him one year for a minor league batting title.
Some hard luck, though, stopped Mr. Del Guercio from making the majors. In the end, he was left with only salty stories from a decade in the scruffier rungs of professional baseball — and a glimpse of what might have been.
"It hurt him a little bit," said his son, Ted Del Guercio Jr., 53, of Newton. "But we talked baseball every day. He would have you laughing all night. He was a pisser."
