One Gilbert became two

Baseball reference currently has an unknown "Gilbert" listed as having pitched for the Beavers during the 1921 and 1922 seasons.

The Stats Crew also has an unknown "Gilbert" listed on the rosters for 1921 and 1922, and while they don't implicitly say that it's the same guy, it's easy, especially when combining it with the scant information from Baseball-Reference, for one to assume that it would be. So, with very little to start with, and no one saying anything to the contrary, I went into the research for this attempted identification looking for one "Gilbert", and ended up identifying two; one Gilbert for 1921, and one Gilbert for 1922. 

Let's begin with the 1921 Gilbert...

The San Francisco Examiner 7/25/21

The first mention of "1921 Gilbert" appears on the 25th of July, 1921, recapping his previous days' debut in the second game of a doubleheader with the Seals (both were losses for the good guys). The Oregon papers were more straightforward with their stories, but I've included this clip from the Examiner's pithy wrap-up (one can expect nothing less from the Examiner), if only because it provided the first clue in attempting to identify this Gilbert, namely that he might have been a bit on the older side. It isn't much, but it's something.

Our Gilbert didn't fare so well in his first outing, at least not on the mound, giving up 3 runs (including a HR), and issuing 3 walks in 4 innings of work. He fared a bit better with the stick though, collecting two hits and driving in a run during his two appearances at the plate.

Our next clue(s) comes from the following day:

The Oregon Daily Journal 7/26/21

Finding out that he was once in the Three-I League helped quite a bit. The part about him "attempting to stage a comeback" was useful as well, as it implies that he had either been injured, or that he might've been past his prime. Given the comments from the Examiner's beat writer, and this mention of a comeback, I put all of my eggs in the possibly "past his prime" basket. I know next to nothing about the Three-I League, but switched gears at this point and started looking for him on the team rosters from the previous couple of years of this league; which yielded bupkus, a whole heaping plate of it! So, back to my comfort zone I went, that being the PCL.

The final clue, the lynchpin if you will, in identifying this Gilbert shows up just two days after the previous article:

The Oregon Daily Journal 7/28/21

R.W. Gilbert!!! Huzzah! Initials make all the difference in the world when trying to identify an unknown person from over a hundred years ago. R.W. Gilbert becomes Rufus Wellington Gilbert, who did indeed pitch in the Three-I League some years earlier. Prior to his stint with the Beavers, Mr. Gilbert's last go in the minors had occurred five years previously with Terre Haute of the Central League, who he was also managing at the time.

The Richmond Item 11/30/20

Rufus Gilbert was 36 years old at the time of his attempted comeback, which explains all of the allusions to his age. Unfortunately for him, the one inning of work he got on July 25th, would be his second, and last, game with the Beavers; issuing a walk, and striking out in his only at bat in the team's 17-7 loss to Vernon (Tigers). It appears that this was also his last appearance in baseball, at any level. Why this comeback was attempted, and how it came to be with Portland, when he had never played further west than Denver is unknown, and at this point will likely remain forever unknown. I'd like to think that I might revisit him later on down the line and do a more well-researched piece on him, but I have so many other guys to cover on here that it'll probably be left for someone else to write a more in-depth piece on him. Hopefully someone who knows more about the Midwestern leagues.

Moving on to the second "Gilbert", aka "The 1922 Gilbert".

The Oregon Daily Journal 9/11/22

The 1922 Gilbert was considerably easier to identify, it took all of two minutes, at best to do so. Somebody else should've done this by now.

From what I can gather, the Goshen Giants were an amateur team out of tiny Goshen, OR, and Carl Gilbert was their star pitcher at the time. Given the size of the town at the time, and the fact that there's an article in one of the papers about them seeking out opponents, I hesitate to refer to them as a barnstorming team, but it appears that they didn't mind traveling to find competition. Like seemingly everything else, the Goshen team is in need of some serious research. This however is a blog about the Beavers, so back to the beavers, and young Carl Gilbert; who by the by, would see his first action just one day after signing with the team.

The Oregon Daily Journal 9/12/22

In four innings of work, Carl gave up two runs on four hits, and hit a double in his only at bat in the teams 7-3 loss against the Angels. On an unrelated note, Oregon was in the midst of a heat wave during September of '22. The game time temperature for this one in Portland was 93°.

This article about Carl's first outing appeared the following day:

Morning Register 9/13/22

Three out of four scoreless innings isn't too bad for someone who had never pitched minor league ball at any level before.

Morning Register 9/14/22

Management seems to have been intrigued by Carl's lone appearance that season. This would his one and only game with Portland.

Stockton Evening and Sunday Record 2/14/23

He made it to Spring Training, and made the Spring Training roster...

The Fresno Bee 2/24/22

... but wasn't on the roster once the season got under way, and as of right now, there's no mention of him being released in any of the papers available online. He shows back up with the Goshen team later in '23, and then the trail goes mostly cold. There's mention of a Mrs. Carl Gilbert in Eugene in '33, and another article from Eugene about Carl working with the Boy Scouts in '42, but that seems to be a about it. One can only speculate in an instance like this, but I can't help but wonder if he suffered an injury of some sort in '23 or '24, one that was severe enough to knock him out of baseball. It does seem rather odd that a pitcher who showed some promise in his one minor league would never end up playing in another league again.

I wasn't expecting this mysterious "Gilbert" to turn into two separate Gilbert's, but I guess that's the way it goes sometimes, or at least that's the way that it went this time. Both Gilbert's have been added to the all-time list, and with this name out of the way, the list of unknown players is now down to 21.