Columbia Reds players

Dick_Murphy_(baseball)

Richard Lee Murphy (October 25, 1931 – December 12, 2020) was an American professional baseball player who played for three seasons (1954; 1957–1958) and had a six-game trial with the 1954 Cincinnati Redlegs of Major League Baseball. He threw and batted left-handed, stood 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) tall and weighed 170 pounds (77 kg).
Murphy attended Ohio University, where he was an All-American as an outfielder. He signed with his hometown Redlegs on June 12, 1954, and made his Major League debut the following day against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Crosley Field. In his only MLB plate appearance, he pinch hit for Cincinnati relief pitcher Jackie Collum against Brooklyn lefthander Johnny Podres and struck out. After a short tenure in minor league baseball, Murphy returned to the Redlegs that September and served as a pinch runner in five more games, scoring his only Major League run in his last appearance on September 13. He then spent two seasons in military service before resuming his minor league career in the Redleg farm system in 1957 and 1958. He retired after the latter campaign with a .192 career batting average and four home runs.

Garland_Lawing

Garland Frederick Lawing (August 29, 1918 – September 27, 1996) was an American professional baseball player. He appeared in Major League Baseball as an outfielder and pinch hitter in ten games during the 1946 season for the Cincinnati Reds and New York Giants. Lawing threw and batted right-handed; he stood 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) tall and weighed 180 pounds (82 kg).
Born in Gastonia, North Carolina, Lawing broke into pro baseball in 1938 in the Class D North Carolina State League. He had reached the Class A1 (now Double-A) level in 1943 when, after only 24 games played, he entered the United States Army. Lawing served in the European Theater of Operations during World War II and missed the 1944 and 1945 baseball seasons.
He split 1946 between the Reds and the Giants, going hitless in three at bats with Cincinnati as a centerfielder and pinch hitter in two games played on May 29 and June 6. Then, on June 8, his contract was sold to the Giants, and he collected his first MLB hit, a pinch single, off Johnny Vander Meer and his old teammates from the Reds on June 11. But he played in only eight total games for New York, four as a starting outfielder, and batted only .167 as a Giant. For his MLB career, he hit .133 in 15 at-bats.
Lawing then returned to minor league baseball in 1947, and retired after the 1954 season. He died in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, at the age of 78.