World champion reliever turned team doctor Ron Taylor passes away
Ron Taylor, a two-time World Series champion pitcher who went to medical school following his playing career, earning the nickname “Dr. Baseball,” passed away on Monday in Toronto after a lengthy illness. He was 87.
A 6-foot-1 right-hander, Taylor won World Series titles with the 1964 Cardinals and 1969 Miracle Mets. In six games across those two postseasons, he pitched 10 1/3 innings without allowing a run. He yielded only three hits and two walks and struck out nine, with a record of 3-0 with three saves.
“Ron was the only guy on our staff with postseason experience,” Mets teammate Art Shamsky said in a statement put out by the team. “He had won a championship with the Cardinals in 1964 and brought a winning mentality. We don’t win the title without Ron Taylor.”
Ronald Wesley Taylor was born on Dec. 13, 1937, in Toronto, the younger of two children to Wesley and Maude (Evans) Taylor. A natural lefty, Taylor learned to throw with his right arm because his mother was afraid he might develop cardiovascular issues if he threw with his left arm. “Insist?” Taylor said in an interview for his SABR biography. “She tied my left hand behind my back!”
Signed by Cleveland at the age of 18, Taylor won a career-high (for any professional level) 17 games with Class D Daytona Beach in 1956. He spent six seasons climbing the Minor League ladder before making his debut on April 11, 1962, appearing in eight games that season, starting four. The rest of that season was spent with Triple-A Jacksonville, where he went 12-4 with a 2.62 ERA. Across seven Minor League seasons, Taylor went 79-60 with a 3.38 ERA in 183 games, 153 of them starts.
