Here today and then what?

January 31, 2022 William A. Gralnick

William Gralnick. Photo courtesy of William Gralnick

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This month’s birthday article presented a problem. I had four choices. About two, what could I say other than Happy Birthday that hasn’t been said a million times. They are Jackie Robinson and Ralph Branca. The other two are virtually unknown—almost. I was a fan of one. Both had “here today and gone tomorrow” careers. They were Mal Malette and Chris Van Cyuk. I thought the latter two just because of their near anonymity would be a more interesting read.

There is very little written about Mal Malette, probably because there was little to write about. He had a one-year career if that word can be accurately applied. We know he broke in with the Dodgers in 1950. He was 6’2”, weighed in at over 200lbs.. He was a lefty. He hit better than his peers, batting .333. He committed no errors and threw more strikes than balls. All of that is meaningless because by the next season, he was history. It’s also meaningless because he only pitched two games, losing to the Giants, or “Gints” as we said in Brooklyn, 4-3 going the full nine innings. He came back to beat the Boston Braves 7-5 again doing the full nine innings.

Then comes the what or why. I found nothing about an injury, a trade. Either someone told him, at 28, “You ain’t going nowhere, kid,” or he said it to himself. There was no fire in his belly for pitching, but there was for baseball. Malette became a sports broadcaster and then a journalist. For journalism he had talent. He was elected to the NC Journalism Hall of Fame. For that, he certainly deserves to be remembered with a “Happy Birthday, Mal!”

Chris Van Cyuk is a different can of baseballs for me, because for some reason I was a fan of his. I have no idea why. It was a while into his career before I saw that the end of his name wasn’t spelled “kike” but spelled as the Dutch would Cyuk. Another interesting factoid was that he had an older brother, Johnny, also a lefty, a reliever who had a two-year career also with the Dodgers, from ’47-49. He managed no saves. Selling things, not throwing things, was his gig. Real estate and cars were his thing.

Chris though was a strapping boy. He was 6’6”, and weighed 215. The Lord presented him to the world on Jan 3 1927 in a freezing cold day in Wisconsin. July 15, 1950, was his big day; he was a Dodger after 11 years with multiple teams in the minors. He didn’t do much with it. On a hot August day in Brooklyn, NY, year 1952, he threw in his glove. He checked out for good in Florida in 1992 at age 75.

In the years he pitched, he had seven wins and eleven losses. His career spanned 44 games, 160 innings. His ERA was slightly worse than a mediocre 5.16. One thing he was pretty good at was plunking opposing batters, some years 11th in the league, others 15th. He was also good at throwing strikes. He cut down 5.5 batters on average per game while surrendering only 3.5 base-on-balls. He only gave up roughly nine homers a year. He was known as a “flame thrower,” just not a consistently accurate one.

I don’t know what it was about Van Cyuk but he was my guy, amongst others. I had his card, which was great lookin’. I was fixated on how tall he was—6’6’’ is one thing, but then he stood on the mound and looked a little like the Empire State Building. He threw downhill—and fast. He wasn’t flashy, having a mid-western temperament and a “do your job” attitude. In sum, he was a tall, hard-throwing, good looking, not much good pitching pitcher.

His retirement holds more fascination than his career. Virtually nothing is known about it other than he, at some point, moved to Hudson, Florida, lived a long life, and died. This drove me crazy. I shook google by the neck and grabbed everything it spit out about Van Cyuk. It was precious little, and what there was of it didn’t cover what I wanted. Then came the brainstorm. An obituary. They usually have all that stuff.

There wasn’t one. I begin to wonder if maybe he was a spy. ‘could be, maybe.

In came another brainstorm. I contacted the Baseball Almanac. It has about anything you’d want to know about a ballplayer except maybe if he filed or clipped his nails. Did they have a bio or obituary? I was amazed, and grateful, that I got an answer before the day was out. To sum up their response, the answer was “no.” I was told they had done a search of 1,000 digital newspapers and periodicals and ended up knowing as much about Christian Gerald Van Cyuk as I did. They even searched a site called Baseball Necrology (really!) Nothing. Drat! Maybe he didn’t die…

So, there you have that. If you know more than I do, please share. If you’re ever in Hudson, Fl. ask around. For now, I end with, “Hey Chris. I was a fan of yours and wish you a happy birthday.”