Gus Mancuso watched the seventh game of the World Series from the St. Louis dugout on Oct. 10, 1931 as his Cardinals beat the Philadelphia Athletics for the championship.

The son of Sicilian and German parents was born in Galveston five years after the Great Storm of 1900 nearly blew his birthplace away. In spite of his stern father’s insistence that schoolwork and household chores came first, he always found time to do what he loved most – play baseball.

After high school, August Rodney Mancuso went to work as a teller at an Island bank that hired him for the company baseball team. The 19-year-old catcher caught the eye of the president of the Houston Buffs, a fixture in the Texas League, who immediately signed him to a contract that almost doubled what he made on his day job.

Gus started at the bottom with Mount Pleasant in the Class D East Texas League. He shined so brightly his rookie season that the Cardinals, his parent club, promoted him to the top rung of their minor-league system.

Gus feasted on International League pitching in 1927 batting .371 for the Syracuse Chiefs. The Cardinals rewarded him with an invitation to spring training and a three-month trial in the big leagues. Sent back down to the minors, he spent the rest of 1928 and all of 1929 with a trio of farm teams that included his original ball club the Houston Buffs.

Since the Cardinals in 1930 already had Jimmie Wilson, one of the best catchers in the National League, they offered Gus an extra thousand dollars if he would patiently wait his turn in the minors. The Texan swallowed his disappointment and did as he was asked mainly because his widowed mother needed the money in the deepening Depression.

Gus might have languished in the bush leagues had it not been for Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, baseball’s strong-willed commissioner. He gave the St. Louis front office the choice of playing or trading the prime prospect, and they elected to put Gus in a Cardinal uniform rather than lose him.

As the back-up catcher, he saw limited duty until Wilson hurt his ankle in the last two weeks of a tight pennant race. Gus hit two home runs in a critical win and contributed four singles in another stellar performance to finish the season with a .366 average.

In Game One of the 1930 World Series versus the Philadelphia Athletics, Gus recorded the Cards’ first hit and first run in a losing effort. He also handled the chores behind the plate in Game Two but sat out the rest of the Series, won by the A’s four games to two, following Wilson’s return.

Nineteen thirty-one was a frustrating campaign for Gus as he spent far more time on the bench than on the field. In the World Series rematch with the Athletics that the Cardinals won in seven games he was a spectator going to bat just one time.

In 1932 Gus caught 82 games, seven more than his rival, and posted a .284 batting average 40 points better than Wilson. Told he could expect to split time again the next season, he insisted on being traded.

Bill Terry, the new manager of the New York Giants, welcomed Gus with open arms. He needed a catcher with the Texan’s quickness and agility to handle a pitching staff that threw a challenging array of pitches featuring screwballs, sinkers, wicked curveballs and unpredictable knuckleballs. The Giants’ skipper gave Gus a public vote of confidence by making room for him with an unpopular trade and the declaration “Mancuso is the best catcher in the National League today.”

With Terry’s emphasis on defense and pitching and Gus’ letter-perfect handling of the hurlers, the Giants ended a nine-year drought by capturing their first National League crown in nine years. A sportswriter for the New York World Telegram praised Gus as the “real spark-plug of the Giants. Peppery, smiling, hard worker, timely batsman.”

Over the next four seasons, the Giants added two more pennants with the same philosophy and essentially the same cast. For his part, Gus was honored with selection to the NL All-Star squads in 1935 and again in1937.
At 32 years of age, Gus was beginning to show the wear and tear from squatting behind home plate. Under pressure from a young understudy in 1938. he took more days off. The Giants could read the writing on the wall and traded him to the Chicago Cubs.

The manpower shortage of World War II prolonged Gus’ career as he bounced from club to club. He came out of retirement in 1945 to catch a handful of games for the Phillies and to coach their pitchers before finally calling it quits.

Gus’ playing days were behind him, but he was far from finished with baseball. He managed in the minors for five years before switching to the broadcast booth in 1951 as a play-by-play commentator.

Gus Mancuso’s 36-year love affair with baseball ended in 1960. Cooperstown has never given him the time of day, but he was inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame before his death in 1984.

“Texas Entertainers: Lone Stars in Profile” available at the reduced price of $20.00 by mailing a check to Bartee Haile, P.O. Box 130011, Spring, TX 77393.