Salvador Anthony Yvars was a Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

 catcher

Catcher

Catcher is a position for a baseball or softball player. When a batter takes his turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. This is a catcher's primary duty, but he is also called upon to master many other skills in order to...

 who played with the New York Giants

San Francisco Giants

The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the National League West Division....

 from to and the St. Louis Cardinals

St. Louis Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals are a professional baseball team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are members of the Central Division in the National League of Major League Baseball. The Cardinals have won eleven World Series championships, the most of any National League team, and second overall only to...

 from to . Born in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

's Little Italy to a Spanish gravedigger and an Italian laundress, he was a three-sport star at White Plains High School, playing football, basketball, and baseball. He originally signed with the Giants in 1942, and enlisted in the United States Army Air Force shortly afterward. During his time in the Army, Yvars was effectively a test dummy, with him saying of his ability to handle the tests, "I could take six and a half G's without a pressure helmet."

After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Yvars again played for the Giants' farm system. He played for Manchester of the New England League

New England League

The New England League was a mid-level league in American minor league baseball that played sporadically in five of the six New England states between 1886 and 1949. After 1901, it existed in the shadow of two Major League Baseball clubs in Boston and alongside stronger, higher-classification...

 during the 1946 season, and the Jersey City Jerseys

Jersey City Jerseys

The Jersey City Jerseys was a minor league baseball team based in Jersey City, New Jersey that played in the International League for two seasons, 1960 and 1961. It was the AAA affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. The team's home stadium was Roosevelt Stadium. The team began life in Havana, Cuba and...

 of the International League

International League

The International League is a minor league baseball league that operates in the eastern United States. Like the Pacific Coast League and the Mexican League, it plays at the Triple-A level, which is one step below Major League Baseball. It was so named because it had teams in both the United States...

 during the 1947 season. He made his major league debut on September 27, 1947 in the only game he played that season for the Giants. His lone hit of the season came off of Schoolboy Rowe

Schoolboy Rowe

Lynnwood Thomas "Schoolboy" Rowe was an American right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball, primarily for the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies...

, a single to left field. In 1948, Yvars played in 15 games and had a batting average

Batting average

Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...

 of .211. He played three games in 1949 and nine in 1950 for the Giants.

During the 1951 New York Giants season

1951 New York Giants (MLB) season

The New York Giants season saw the Giants finish the regular season in a tie for first place in the National League with a record of 96 wins and 58 losses. This prompted a three-game playoff against the Brooklyn Dodgers, which the Giants won in three games, clinched by Bobby Thomson's walk-off...

, Yvars was the backup catcher behind Wes Westrum

Wes Westrum

Wesley Noreen Westrum was an American professional baseball player, coach, manager, and scout. He played for 11 seasons as a catcher in Major League Baseball for the New York Giants from to . He was known as a superb defensive catcher...

, and played in 25 games, hitting .317 during the season. He is best remembered as the player on the New York Giants who relayed stolen signals to his teammates awaiting in the batters box during the 1951 Pennant-winning season.

After playing for the Giants, Yvars played for two more seasons with the Cardinals.

Sal Yvars died in Valhalla

Valhalla, New York

Valhalla is an unincorporated hamlet and census-designated place that is located within the town of Mount Pleasant, New York, in Westchester County. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 aged 84. He is survived by his wife Anne, his brother Jack, and four children.

External links

• Sal Yvars at Find a Grave
  Find A Grave
  Find a Grave is a commercial website providing free access and input to an online database of cemetery records. It was founded in 1998 as a DBA and incorporated in 2000.-History:...