Part II There was another player, Steve Bilko, who captured our fancy not so much by his skill, which was considerable, but by his size and power. According to Warren Corbett, “ Baseball encyclopedias list him at 6-foot-1 and 230 pounds, the greatest tonnage that baseball allowed in print in the 1950s until the mammoth Frank Howard came along. When anyone asked Bilko how much he weighed, as so many did, he’d say between 200 and 300. Years later he told writer Gaylon White that his best playing weight was 254, but he sometimes topped 270.” [3] Bilko was up to the majors, and down, for all of his fourteen-year career. He had three great years with the Los Angeles (PCL) Angels from 1955-57, winning the Triple Crown in 1956. Consulting Baseball Reference, I see that he went up to the Majors with two teams in 1958. There is no record of his playing for Portland, and I wonder why he sticks in my memory so. It must have been his reputation,...
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