Gene Hayden

Eugene Franklin "Lefty" Hayden (April 14, 1935 – June 13, 2003) was an American professional baseball player who had a brief career in Major League Baseball as a relief pitcher for the Cincinnati Redlegs in 1958. The native of San Francisco, listed at and , threw and batted left-handed.

Biography Hayden, a successful pitcher for Rio Vista High School in California, signed a professional contract in mid-1954 with the Seattle Rainiers of the Pacific Coast League. That season, he played for the Tucson Cowboys in the Arizona–Texas League, then in 1955 played primarily for the Wenatchee Chiefs of the Northwest League.

Hayden was called up from the minor leagues in the middle of the 1958 campaign, and pitched in three games for Cincinnati. He was effective in his first two outings, hurling a total of scoreless innings on June 26 and June 30 against the San Francisco Giants and Milwaukee Braves, respectively. The next day, he was returned to the minor leagues when Cincinnati called up outfielder Danny Morejón. Hayden did not return to the major leagues. He played for the minor league Havana Sugar Kings and Nashville Vols during the 1958 season, his last in professional baseball. In 1960, he was hired as a police officer in Rio Vista; he was still with the department in 1969 as a sergeant. As of November 1992, Hayden was working at a substance abuse treatment center in Herald, California, and noted that he was a recovering alcoholic and had spent 1980 homeless in Los Angeles. Hayden died in Lodi, California, at age 68 in 2003.