March 24, 2008
Jolly had quite a baseball career
By O.C. Stonestreet
In senior English class, once upon a time, we read a poem titled “To an Athlete Dying Young,” by British poet A.E. Housman (1859-1936).
Several of those lines read long ago seem appropriate when referring to the life of baseball’s Dave Jolly:
“The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.”
The right-hander, who is remembered as a relief pitcher, was born on Oct. 14, 1924, in Stony Point.
He graduated in 1942 from Stony Point High School and enlisted in the U.S. Army that same year. He served with the 54th Field Hospital in the European Theatre of Operations and was discharged in December 1945.
After his release from service, Jolly began his baseball career in the minors for the Mooresville Moors in the Class D North Carolina State League for the 1946 season.
Tribune editor, publisher and sports columnist Tom McKnight introduced his readers to the young hurler in June.
“Manager (Bob) Crow has signed another pitcher, Jolly, from Stony Point. Jolly is a big youngster, probably too inexperienced to be of much value to a club trying to come from down under.”
Jolly did limited pitching, but showed up again the next year. McKnight re-introduced Dave to the home folks in May 1947. “The Moors came up with another pitcher Monday, and if he can deliver the goods, he may be just what the club needs to keep it up there. David Jolly, the long and lanky lad from Stony Point who worked with the Moors last season, reported for duty here Tuesday.
“He is about 6 feet 2 inches, weighs around 200, and the Moors have great hopes for him here now. If he comes through - and he has a fine fast ball - he will be the best news that has come out of the Moor camp since the season opened.”
The Moors, with Hoyt Wilhelm, Tommy McCall and Jolly as their main hurlers, won the hotly-contested North Carolina State League Championship in 1947. Jolly won 14 of 21 games for the Moors and had the team’s third-highest batting average, a very respectable .357 for 155 at bats.
Jolly received further seasoning in the minors when he played for major league-affiliated Tulsa, Okla., Oilers, Columbia, S.C., Reds, and Syracuse, N.Y., Chiefs before being called up to play in the majors.
He was then drafted by the Boston Braves - soon to be the Milwaukee Braves. He was a pitcher with the Braves from 1953-57.
Jolly, who didn’t say much and so naturally acquired the nickname “Gabby,” made his big league debut in relief when Milwaukee hosted the Chicago Cubs on Milwaukee’s home field May 9, 1953. He specialized in the knuckleball as had his Moors teammate, Hoyt Wilhelm, who also went on to pitch in the major leagues.
In 1957, with Jolly aboard as a relief pitcher, Milwaukee won National League pennant, their first since moving from Boston in 1953, and then faced the defending world champions, the New York Yankees of the American League. The Braves won the World Series in seven games and although a member of the team, Jolly did not play in any of the seven games. He nevertheless got a $8,924.36 slice of the winnings and a World Series ring.
According to Mooresville sports writer Tex Millard, with his winnings from the World Series, Jolly bought an organ for his church, Stony Point Baptist, where he taught the junior boys Sunday school class.
Jolly made 158 relief appearances in the five seasons he played for the Braves. His best season is generally regarded as 1954 when he ended the season in the National League Top Ten. That year, his stats were 11 to 6, 10 saves and 2.43 ERA in 47 games.
Jolly was purchased from the Braves by the San Francisco Giants in October 1957, but never played again in the majors after Sept. 14, 1957.
In 1958, he was sent to Wichita. The next year found him pitching in Houston. And the following year, 1960, he played in triple-A clubs in Buffalo, Houston and Vancouver, British Columbia (The Mounties).
His last season was 1961 when he did minor league pitching for the Mobile, Ala., Bears, and Portsmouth, Va., Tides ball clubs.
In his relatively short career, he played in 160 games (all but one as a pitcher). For a pitcher, Jolly batted well with a .292 lifetime average that included a home run, 7 RBIs and 8 runs scored.
To play but one season in the major leagues is a goal that many aspiring baseball players never attain. Jolly played five seasons.
Jolly was a member of a major league ball team for five years, a team that won the World Series, and although he didn’t play in the series games themselves, he did play in the games that qualified Milwaukee to play in the series.
He also played for 11 seasons in minor league ball, against players who, on their best days, were every bit as skilled as major leaguers. He signed autographs; his likeness was on baseball cards; and he went to work on an impeccable grass field, throwing or hitting baseballs into an endless blue sky or under the lights in a stadium filled with fans come to watch the Boys of Summer.
During the off-season, Jolly worked at the J.C. Penney Warehouse and at John Boyle and Company in Statesville. He also helped coach Statesville’s Babe Ruth League All-Stars, a team that went on to compete in the state finals championship at the Cherry Point Marine Air Station, in Havelock, in August 1961. The local boys were defeated by an Asheville team, 4 to 3.
Jolly married a Stony Point woman, Doris Hunter, in 1950 and the couple had two sons.
The boys, Mike and Craig, were 10 and 6, respectively, when their father died of a brain tumor in the Veterans Administration Hospital in May 1963 in Durham.
Jolly was just 38 years old. He is buried in the Stony Point Cemetery.
Besides his wife and sons, he was survived by his parents, two sisters, two brothers and a host of baseball fans. At Jolly’s funeral, the Rev. Homer Good, Jolly’s former pastor at Stony Point Baptist, summed up his career.
He said, “Dave Jolly was one of America’s great athletes. He played well the game he loved so much. He played well the Game of Life.”
Those lines by poet Housman written years ago about another athlete brought down in the prime of life still ring true:
“Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.”
