San Antonio Missions players

Robert Rudolph Balcena (August 1, 1925 – January 5, 1990) was an American professional baseball player. He played as an outfielder in Major League Baseball for the Cincinnati Redlegs during the 1956 season. He had two at-bats and scored two runs as a pinch runner.
Listed at 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m), 160 pounds (73 kg), Balcena batted right-handed and threw left-handed. He was born in San Pedro, California.
Prior to playing professional baseball, Balcena served in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II with the United States Navy.Balcena became the first player of Asian American and Filipino ancestry to appear in a major league game. He had a long distinguished Triple-A career with the Seattle Rainiers as a center fielder in the 1950s; one paper described him as a "popular miniature dynamo of almost infallible perpetual motion" after his Rainier team won the 1955 Pacific Coast League title.He also played from 1952 through 1962 in the Minor Leagues, including stints with the Leones del Caracas and the Industriales de Valencia in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League.
He batted .284 with 134 home run and 441 runs batted in in 1948 minor league games. In a VPBL two-season career, he posted a .306 average with five homers and 44 RBI in 87 games.
After his baseball career ended, he worked as a longshoreman in Seattle where he had played parts of four seasons in the minor leagues.Despite being the first Filipino-American to play in the major leagues, Balcena kept company with Slavs during his life. His union president told the Los Angeles Times that he was an "honorary Slav. He always r[a]n around with the San Pedro Slavs. He speaks Slav. He sings Slav." Outside of his professional career, he also played baseball with an amateur team of Yugoslav Americans.Balcena died in his hometown of San Pedro, California at the age of 64.

Floyd Wilson Baker (October 10, 1916 – November 17, 2004) was an American professional baseball third baseman, who played Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Browns (1943–1944), Chicago White Sox (1945–1951), Washington Senators (1952–1953), Boston Red Sox (1953–1954), and Philadelphia Phillies (1954–1955). During a 13-season career, Baker posted a .251 batting average, with one home run, and 196 RBI, in 874 games played.

Glenn Richard McQuillen (April 19, 1915 – June 8, 1989), known also as "Red", was an American professional baseball player. During a 210-game, five-season career in Major League Baseball, all with the St. Louis Browns, he was a reserve outfielder, playing mainly in left field. He was listed at 6 feet (1.8 m), 198 pounds (90 kg) and batted and threw right-handed.
A native of Strasburg, Virginia, McQuillen attended what is now McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland, and reported immediately to the Browns upon signing with them in 1938. In his first professional and Major League game, he hit a double as a pinch hitter off Johnny Marcum of the Boston Red Sox, collecting his first run batted in during a 12–8 loss at Sportsman's Park. McQullen batted an MLB career-high .284 that season, collecting 33 hits in 43 games with St. Louis. He then spent 1939, 1940 and most of 1941 in minor league baseball at the upper levels of the Browns' farm system. After a seven-game recall to the Browns during September 1941, McQuillen spent all of 1942 on the St. Louis roster, when he posted career highs in games (100), runs (40), hits( 96), and RBI (47), while hitting for a .283 average.
McQuillen enlisted in the United States Navy before the 1943 season, serving on the destroyer USS Bennett in the Pacific Theater of Operations for three years before rejoining the Browns during the 1946 and 1947 seasons. In 1946, he again spent a full season with the Browns, but he could not crack their starting outfield and his batting mark fell to .241.
In a five-season MLB career, McQuillen was a .274 hitter (176-for-643) with four home runs and 75 RBI in 210 games. Following his major league stint, he spent 10 years playing and managing in the minors, leaving baseball after the 1956 season.
McQuillen died in Gardenville, Maryland, at the age of 74.

Stanley Ernest Hollmig (January 2, 1926 – December 4, 1981) was an American professional baseball player and scout. Born in Fredericksburg, Texas, he was an outfielder who played in 94 games over all or parts of three seasons (1949–51) in Major League Baseball for the Philadelphia Phillies.Nicknamed "Hondo", Hollmig was listed as 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) tall and 190 pounds (86 kg); he threw and batted right-handed. He signed with the Phillies after attending Texas A&M University, where he was an All-Conference football player.

John Lucadello (February 22, 1919 – October 30, 2001) was an American professional baseball player. Primarily a second baseman, he appeared in 239 Major League games for the St. Louis Browns (1938–1941; 1946) and New York Yankees (1947). The 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m), 160 lb (73 kg) native of Thurber, Texas, threw and batted right-handed. He served in the United States Navy during World War II. He was the brother of longtime MLB scout Tony Lucadello.
Johnny Lucadello's pro career lasted from 1936 to 1955, with four seasons (1942–1945) missed because of his wartime service. In six Major League seasons, he had 686 at bats, 95 runs scored, 181 hits, 36 doubles, 7 triples, and 5 home runs. He had 60 RBIs, 6 stolen bases, 93 walks, a .264 batting average, a .353 on-base percentage, a .359 slugging percentage, 246 total bases and 5 sacrifice hits.
He died in San Antonio, Texas at the age of 82.

Melvin Nicholas Held (born April 12, 1929) is an American former professional baseball player. He appeared in four Major League Baseball games as a relief pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles at the outset of the 1956 season, and had a 13-year career in minor league baseball. He threw and batted right-handed, stood 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) tall and weighed 178 pounds (81 kg).
Held, nicknamed "Country", was a nine-year minor league veteran when he pitched for the Orioles in 1956, having signed with the team when it was the St. Louis Browns in 1947. His performance during the 1955 season for the San Antonio Missions of the Class AA Texas League — he posted a 24–7 won-lost record and a 2.87 earned run average — earned him a call-up to Baltimore the following year.
In his first two MLB games, on April 27–28, Held pitched a total of three innings of scoreless relief against the Washington Senators. In his next two appearances, however, in May against the first-division Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees, Held surrendered four earned runs and five hits in four innings. Altogether, Held gave up seven hits in seven innings pitched in MLB, with three walks and four strikeouts. Held was sent back to the minor leagues for good at the May cutdown. His career continued through 1959, and he won 131 minor-league games.

Gordon Richard Massa (September 2, 1935 – July 16, 2016) was an American professional baseball player who appeared in eight games as a catcher and pinch hitter for the 1957–1958 Chicago Cubs of Major League Baseball. A left-handed batter who threw right-handed, he stood 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighed 210 pounds (95 kg).
After graduating from Elder High School in Cincinnati, Massa attended The College of the Holy Cross, where he starred in baseball and football. In 1955 he led the Crusaders in home runs and runs batted in as the team posted a 13–4 record and qualified for the NCAA Division I College baseball tournament. Overall, Holy Cross won 42 of 53 games during Massa's time on the varsity. In football, he played center and linebacker and was selected by the New York Giants in the tenth round of the 1957 National Football League Draft.
But Massa chose professional baseball as his destination and signed with the Cubs on June 24, 1957. Three months later, after prepping with the Des Moines Bruins of the Class A Western League, Massa made his MLB debut, starting at catcher and notching two hits, both singles, in four at bats with one run batted in against Hal Jeffcoat of the Cincinnati Redlegs. All told, Massa collected seven hits in 15 at-bats with three RBI during his first trial with the Cubs. The following year, he was sent to the Class B Illinois–Indiana–Iowa League for further minor league seasoning, and he batted .316 to earn his second late-season call-up to the Cubs. He went hitless in two at-bats.
Massa returned to the minors for good in 1959, and retired in late 1963 after seven seasons in the Cub farm system, pitching in 24 games as well as handling catching chores.He was elected to the Holy Cross Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005.Massa died July 16, 2016, aged 80, in Cincinnati.

William Cordes "Rudy" Schlesinger (November 5, 1941 – August 13, 2023) was an American professional baseball player who had only one at bat in Major League Baseball as a pinch hitter for the 1965 Boston Red Sox.
Listed at 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m), 175 pounds (79 kg), Schlesinger batted and threw right-handed.
He spent much of his seven-year (1964–70) professional career in the Red Sox organization, although Boston would lose him on waivers once, trade him twice, and reacquire him twice in the space of four seasons.