Sunday, February 18, 2018

Final Card: Bart Shirley

Bart Shirley (#289) was a career minor-league infielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers, having played for one of their farm teams every season from 1961 to 1970.

Along the way, he played in 18 games for the Dodgers in September 1964 and 12 games in early-1966.


After the 1966 season, the Mets selected him in the Rule 5 draft, which was the sole reason for this appearance:


After playing only 6 games for the Mets in April 1967, he was returned to the Dodgers in mid-May, and was promptly assigned to the minors.

Shirley resurfaced one last time for the Dodgers during the final 2 months of the 1968 season, appearing in 39 games (24 starts) at SS or 2B. It was to be his last major-league action, but was enough to have Topps issue his 1969 card, the only solo card during his career.

Bart played 2 more seasons for the Dodgers’ AAA team, then wrapped up his career in Japan in ’71 and ’72.

2 comments:

Charles said...

Hello everyone, I am looking for information on Bert Shirley , he was my uncle but I lost family connections at a young age. Was Bert Shirley and Bob Shirley related ? I have a signed baseball from Uncle Bert. But I was just looking for more information

Jim from Downingtown said...

Hi Charles,

Bart Shirley played minor-league baseball (primarily as a shortstop) for the Dodgers from 1961-70, along with some time in the major leagues with the Dodgers (mostly in 1964 and 1968).

He later played in Japan. You can find his statistics here:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/shirlba01.shtml

You could also look up pitcher Bob Shirley on the same website. I don't think they are related because relatives are listed at the end of the bio section at the top. (See Felipe Alou's page as an example.)