The following was told by Don Gutteridge during an interview at his home in October, 2000. Gutteridge is a retired professional baseball player and coach who was born, raised, and continues to live in Pittsburg, Kansas. During his extensive career he has played for the St. Louis Browns, the Boston Red Soxs, and coached the Chicago White Soxs and four different All-Star teams.I always wanted to be a baseball player. That’s what my ambition was, to play professional baseball. I never was real big, so I never played football in high school; I never wanted to play football or basketball anyway. I didn’t even play in high school though. None of the high schools around here, when I went to school, had high school baseball. But we would all play semi-pro ball in the summertime. I played with a Kansas City Southern team, and that is where I really started. At that time, Pittsburg had what they called a city league. There were four teams, KCS, Menghini’s in Frontenac, and two others. That was my last two years in high school, but when I graduated I still played with them. No one cared what age you were. Anyone in the city could play.

Probably, my high school coach [influenced me]* more than anyone else. Charley Morgan, he was my high school coach. He kind of started me on my career. I never played in college though. Again, we didn’t even have a team where I went to college. They started it up after I left, but I kept on playing in semi-pro leagues. Being from a small town, we played every chance we got, of course. It didn’t make it harder, it made it easier. No, I don’t think a small town hurt me at all because I was lucky enough to have this scout see me, and liked the way I played I guess. A fellow from Joplin by the name Joe Becker, he saw me play and he was a scout at that time, and he signed me and sent me to Nebraska, to Lincoln, Nebraska. In that city league, that is where I started professionally. I never got to play around here again because the baseball season was over when I got back.

I started playing in 1932. That’s a long time ago, isn’t it? I was lucky enough to be in baseball all my life. After I was done playing, I was a coach in the minor leagues; and later on when I couldn’t coach anymore, I did scouting. So I spent all my life in baseball. Sixty-two years in baseball, either a scout, or manager, or coach, or whatever job I could get in baseball. I played in the World Series in 1944, in 1946, and I was coach in the World Series in 1959. I played with the St. Louis Browns in 1944, Boston Red Soxs in 1946, and coach of the White Soxs in 1959. The funny thing about it, we got beat in all three series. I played with the Cardinals for five years but when I played against them they beat us. That was kind of hard; I would have liked to beat them. It was really a thrill to play in the World Series. I was also coach of the All Star teams in ’55, ’60, ’61, and ’66 and I was a coach of the American League team. I’ve had quite a career. My last year that I actually played was 1951, after that I became minor league manager, pro-scout, coach, but I never played again.

After I became professional and started playing, two of my real heroes were Lou Gehrig, who played for the Yankees at that time, and Pepper Martin, who played with the Cardinals. I tried to play like Pepper Martin. I played for the Cardinals too, but I was in the minor leagues then. I played with Pepper Martin for three years after I came up to the Cardinals. I played against [Lou Gehrig]* only in spring training, we were with the Cardinals and he was with the Yankees. Of course, both teams would be in spring training in Florida; and when we went down there, we’d both see each other play.

I played with Ray Mueller, who was my cousin, same age I am. He and I played together of course in the town teams. He went to play with, later on, with the Boston Braves, the old Boston Braves and the Pittsburgh Pirates; and I went on to play with the Cardinals. But the first time we ever played against each other was in the major leagues. Also from this area was Jim Loller, a catcher; he was a catcher for the White Sox when I was a coach for the White Soxs. So, I never played with him, but I was a coach for him.

I was lucky enough to have a lot of fans from around here that kept in contact with me. I’d have to go every summer and play, but I’d always come back here. My family was railroad people. My father, he was a foreman over on KCS, the railroad. My son played for a while with the University of Kansas. He played little league too, but never professional ball. He played only university baseball when he went up to KU. My grandson wanted to play, too; he had a pretty good high school career, but that was about as far as he went.

*Text in brackets was added by the editor to facilitate understanding.