Bob Usher

From BR Bullpen

Robert Royce Usher

Bats Right, Throws Right
Weight 180 lb.

Debut April 16, 1946
Final Game September 19, 1957
Born March 1, 1925 in San Diego, CA USA

[edit] Biographical Information

Outfielder Bob Usher a native of San Diego, who helped lead his hometown team to the American Legion baseball national championship, signed as an amateur free agent with the Cincinnati Reds before the 1943 season and the eighteen year old played one year with the Birmingham Barons where he hit .273 in 129 games before serving two years (1944-45) with the United States Navy during World War II.

Usher was in the outfield for the Reds in 1946 where he appeared in 92 games and hit for a .204 average. He would be with them again in 1947 but got into only nine games and spent the rest of the season with the Rochester Red Wings where he appeared in 119 games and hit .253 with eight homers. Bob would be with the Tulsa Oilers in 1948, hitting .316 and show with the Syracuse Chiefs in 1949 where he hit .287 with 14 homers which would get him back to the Cincinnati Reds in 1950 where he hit for a .259 average but in 1951 he fell to a .208 average in 114 games.

The Reds figured they had had enough of Usher and on October 4, 1951 they traded him along with Johnny Pramesa to the Chicago Cubs for Bob Borkowski and Smoky Burgess. Usher would make one plate appearance for the Cubs in 1952 and spend the next five seasons (1952-57) back in the minors with the Los Angeles Angels in (1952-54) where he had a three year total of 38 round-trippers with a .284 batting average. In 1955 Bob would fall to .225 with 10 homers for the San Diego Padres of the PCL but would pop back in 1956 with 12 home runs and a .350 average (second in the league) for the same San Diego club.

Usher would get one last chance in the majors and would finish his big league career with the Cleveland Indians and the Washington Senators in 1957, hitting a combined .257 and finished with a six year major league career .235 batting average and 18 home runs. In 1958 the 33 year old Usher would give pro baseball one more try, playing 115 games for the Miami Marlins, where he hit for a .275 average with six home runs. This would finish out his minor league career of 10 active seasons (1943-58). He appeared in 1,338 games, hit 94 four-baggers and had a .275 batting average.

Usher, who attended Syracuse University and Miami University of Ohio during his playing days , later graduated from San Diego State University. After baseball in 1959 he returned to San Diego and went into goverment work in the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., as an investigator in the Office of Naval Intelligence and as a safety manager in geological surveillance. Usher is now retired in San Jose, CA.