Old York lefty remembered young Brooks Robinson
When Ken Raffensberger, York County-born former Cincinnati Reds' pitcher, died in 2002, sports editor Chris Otto linked the left-hander with the White Roses.
After a long major-league career that included the hurling of four one-hitters, Raffensberger almost finished as a Baltimore Oriole.
After playing with a team in Havana, Cuba, in 1955, he returned to York and played with the White Roses.
"That was the year Brooks Robinson played here and the Orioles came up for an exhibition game. I pitched and we whupped them something awful (13-1)...," Raffensberger explained in 1986. "I figured that game might earn me a contract with the Orioles but they had committed themselves to a youth movement."
About that exhibition game, The Gazette and Daily wrote that the Roses, “humiliated the so-called big league club.”
Raffensberger was one former player who had no regrets about his lot his life... .
"I can't complain. Baseball's been good to me," he said in 1986. "At my peak I was making top scale wages at the time, was included when the players' pension fund was created, and have been receiving checks regularly since I was 50, with increases every year.
