Specs Toporcer

George Toporcer (born Toporczer; February 9, 1899 – May 17, 1989), nicknamed "Specs", was an American professional baseball infielder and executive. He played eight seasons in Major League Baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1921 to 1928. He batted left-handed and threw right-handed, and was listed as tall and . Toporcer is widely considered as the first major league baseball position player to wear eyeglasses on the playing field.

Early life George Toporczer was obsessed with baseball from childhood, but he was always picked last during childhood games because of his slight build and glasses. He claimed in an interview that for the last 75 years he had thought about the sport nearly daily. He went to school and became friends with Jimmy Cagney, staying in touch into the later portions of their lives. When Toporczer was six he attended the 1905 World Series, and watched the Giants' Christy Mathewson pitch three shutouts. His two older brothers were diehard Giants fans and idolized the players, speaking of little else, influencing him such that he too became a Giants fan. When they lost the pennant to the Chicago Cubs in due to Merkle's Boner, he cried himself to sleep. By the time he was ten he would walk the five miles from his house to the Polo Grounds and find a vantage point spot on Coogan's Bluff, as the one cent allowance provided by his father, a shoe and boot seller, was not enough to purchase a ticket.

Playing career

Major leagues Born and reared in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, he never played high school or college ball and went directly from the sandlots to major league competition in 1921. Now known as George Toporcer, he split his first professional season between the Cardinals and the minor league Syracuse Stars, the Cardinals' top farm team. He played all infield positions for the Cardinals, especially shortstop, and was the club's most-used midfielder in both and . In 1928, Toporcer got into only eight games for the Cardinals, and spent the bulk of the year with their top farm team, the Rochester Red Wings. he was not able to master Braille. He became a motivational speaker and was known as "Baseball's Blind Ambassador."

In 1944, Toporcer wrote an autobiography, Baseball – From Backlots to Big Leagues, still considered one of the best manuals of instruction for coaches and young players. His life story was featured in a network TV show in which he played the lead.

Toporcer died in Huntington Station, New York, at the age of 90 from injuries sustained in a fall at his home. He was the last surviving member of the 1926 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals, as well as the last player profiled in Lawrence Ritter's classic work The Glory of Their Times.