Frank Shellenback

Frank Victor Shellenback (December 16, 1898 – August 17, 1969) was an American pitcher, pitching coach, and scout in Major League Baseball. As a pitcher, he was famous as an expert spitballer when the pitch was still legal in organized baseball; however, because Shellenback, then 21, was on a minor league roster when "trick pitches" was outlawed after the 1919 season, he was banned from throwing the pitch in the major leagues.

As a result, Shellenback spent 19 years (1920–38) — the remainder of his active career — throwing the spitball legally in the Pacific Coast League. He won a record 296 PCL games and was elected to the Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame in 1943.

Shellenback was a born in Joplin, Missouri, the son of a machinist. When he was 11 years old, his family moved to Los Angeles, Shellenback's long tenure with Los Angeles-based teams even led to a brief movie career; he had roles in the comedies Fireman, Save My Child (1932) and Alibi Ike (1935). Both films starred comedian and baseball enthusiast Joe E. Brown, whose son would become known as a successful baseball executive.

Manager, coach and longtime scout Shellenback had a long career as a manager, coach, and scout as well. In 1935, still an active pitcher, he took over the managerial reins of the Stars and moved with them to San Diego the following season. There, in 1936, he helped discover and groom one of the greatest hitters of all time, Ted Williams, who signed with the Padres as a 17-year-old pitcher-outfielder out of San Diego's Hoover High School. Williams was soon acquired by the Boston Red Sox, while Shellenback remained manager of the Padres through 1938, winning the 1937 PCL championship.

He then became a pitching coach for the St. Louis Browns (1939), Red Sox (1940–44), Detroit Tigers (1946–47), and New York Giants (1950–55), working on two pennant winners and one World Series champion with the Giants of Leo Durocher.

Shellenback overcame serious health setbacks (a heart attack in 1948 and an abdominal infection in 1951) to continue his coaching career. He became a Giants scout and roving minor league pitching instructor in 1956 and continued in that role until his death at age 70 in Newton, Massachusetts. Survivors included six children and 45 grandchildren.