Joe Horlen: Major League Baseball Pitcher (1937–2022)

Joel Edward “Joe” Horlen, Major League Baseball pitcher, was born in San Antonio on August 14, 1937, to Geneva (Shropshire) and Kermit Marvin Horlen, an insurance adjuster and former semipro catcher who coached his son in the fundamentals of pitching. Horlen began playing baseball with a youth YMCA team. In 1952 he played in the inaugural season of the PONY (Protect Our Nation’s Youth) League, which was comprised of youth players from thirteen to fifteen years old. Horlen’s team defeated a team from Brockton, Massachusetts, to win the first-ever league championship. 

Education and Collegiate Baseball Career

At Luther Burbank High School in San Antonio, Horlen participated in basketball (as a guard), football (as a quarterback) and golf. As the school had no baseball team, he played with an American Legion team through 1956, when he was selected to play for the United States All-Stars against the New York Journal-American All-Stars in the Hearst Sandlot Classic, a nationwide showcase for young players sponsored by Hearst newspapers.

Horlen enrolled at Oklahoma State University (OSU), where in 1958 he led the pitching staff in strikeouts (fifty-two), innings pitched (66.2), and complete games (seven) while fashioning a 6–3 record and a 2.28 earned run average (ERA). In 1959 he led OSU to a College World Series championship with a 9–1 record during the regular season and two complete game victories in the series. During his three years at OSU, he had attracted the attention of Chicago White Sox scout Ted Lyons. Horlen signed with the White Sox soon after the College World Series.

Early Major League Career

Horlen spent the remainder of the 1959 season with the White Sox’s Class B affiliate, the Lincoln Chiefs of the Three I (Illinois-Indiana-Iowa) League, where he did not impress. After being struck in his pitching arm in his first game with the Chiefs, he won just one of ten decisions and posted a 5.64 ERA in ninety-one innings. Nevertheless, Horlen was promoted to the Class A Charleston White Sox of the Sally (South Atlantic) League. There, the results were more encouraging: a 7–5 record and a 2.93 ERA in 120 innings. He also played in the Florida Instructional League following the 1959 and 1960 seasons.

In 1961 Horlen was moved up to the San Diego Padres of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League (PCL). His record there (12–9 with a 2.51 ERA) inspired the White Sox to call him up for five games after the PCL season ended. On September 4 he made his big-league debut with four scoreless innings in a relief role against the Minnesota Twins and garnered his first big league victory. Horlen played in a generic uniform top, as his named and numbered (no. 20) jersey had not arrived at the Twins’ ballpark in Bloomington, Minnesota. After starting four additional games with the White Sox, he pitched a league-leading thirteen victories in the Puerto Rico Winter League.

The White Sox put Horlen in the pitching rotation during his official rookie year (1962). Starting in nineteen games, he notched a 7–6 record, albeit with an inflated 4.89 ERA. After a disappointing start in 1963, he was sent down to the Triple-A Indianapolis Indians. After just four games, he returned to the White Sox for good and posted a record of 11–7 with a 3.27 ERA.

"Hard Luck" with the Chicago White Sox

In 1964 Horlen hit his stride at age twenty-six. Though his record was only 13–9, his ERA was 1.88, the second lowest in the American League behind Dean Chance of the Los Angeles Angels. Horlen’s WHIP (walks plus hits per innings pitched) was a league-leading 0.935, and his record of 6.07 hits per nine innings was the best in Major League Baseball. American League hitters hit just .190 against Horlen. His season ended on a downbeat when the White Sox finished one game behind the pennant-winning Yankees.

Horlen continued to pitch well and peak at age twenty-nine in 1967, when he won nineteen games, including a league-leading six shutouts, while also leading the league in ERA (2.06) and again in WHIP with 0.953. He hurled 258 innings, a career high. For good measure, he threw a no-hitter against the Detroit Tigers. Though named to the American League squad for the All-Star game in Anaheim, he did not pitch in the game.

After 1967 Horlen’s ERA began to rise, and he never again had a winning major league record. In 1971, at age thirty-three, his 8–9 record with a 4.26 ERA rendered him expendable. His age, injuries, and drop-off in performance surely played a part, but so did friction with the front office. The 1972 season was delayed by the first players’ strike in Major League Baseball history. Horlen, who had been the White Sox player representative, was released on April 2, one day after the strike began. He was not unemployed for long. He was signed by the Oakland Athletics (A’s) when the strike-delayed 1972 season got underway and worked as a reliever and spot starter.

When Horlen began his big-league career with the White Sox in 1961, they had the misfortune of competing against the New York Yankees, who won American League pennants from 1960 through 1964. The White Sox had two outstanding seasons during this stretch—they won ninety-four games in 1963 and ninety-eight games in 1964—but could finish no better than second. In 1965 they won ninety-five games but finished second to the Minnesota Twins.

In 1967 the White Sox were in a tight pennant race but ultimately finished fourth, three games behind the Boston Red Sox. The White Sox pitching staff led the league with a 2.45 ERA, far below the 3.14 registered by the runner-up Minnesota Twins, but had a .225 team batting average, just two points above the worst-hitting team, the Washington Senators. Above-average pitching and below-average hitting was typical of Horlen’s tenure with the White Sox. Considered the ace of the White Sox pitching staff for most of the 1960s, he earned the nickname “Hard Luck Horlen.” For the last four years of Horlen’s career in Chicago (1968–71), he battled various injuries while the White Sox were non-contenders. 

Oakland Athletics and the 1972 World Series

After eleven seasons with the White Sox, Horlen’s final season with the A’s provided him with something his White Sox tenure never did: a post-season. His 1972 season with the A’s was the first of the team’s three consecutive World Series championships. In his first post-season appearance, facing the Detroit Tigers in the American League Championship Series, he was tagged with the loss after walking a batter in the tenth inning. His second post-season appearance was a relief appearance in Game 6 of the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds.

That World Series appearance was Horlen’s last in the major leagues, as the A’s released him in the off-season. Receiving a World Series ring was an ironic ending to the career of a pitcher nicknamed Hard Luck. Also, it gave him the distinction of being the only man in baseball history to play for championship teams in the Pony League, the College World Series, and the major league World Series. Although the right-hander was never a twenty-game winner, during a five-year stretch (1964 to 1968) his composite ERA of 2.32 was the lowest in the American League. His career record (116–117), however, did not reflect his effectiveness.

Post-Major League Career and Legacy

Throughout his big-league career, Horlen continued to make San Antonio his permanent home. He interrupted his retirement in 1973 when his hometown team, the San Antonio Brewers of the Texas League, invited him to join them mid-season. In just nine games he had a 6–1 record in forty-seven innings and a 2.87 ERA. After his 1973 encore, Horlen served as a minor league pitching instructor for the Cleveland Indians for two years. His main occupation, however, was owning and operating construction and roofing companies. An avid golfer, he helped start the golf program at the University of Texas at San Antonio and served as a coach. In 1987 he returned to tutoring minor league pitchers, this time for the New York Mets, the Kansas City Royals, the San Francisco Giants, and the San Diego Padres.

As of 2017 Horlen lived at a San Antonio assisted living center after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. He died on April 10, 2022, and was buried in San Antonio’s Agudas Achim Memorial Gardens, a Jewish cemetery. Horlen had converted to Judaism after marrying his second wife, Lois Rochelle (Eisenstein) Horlen, in 1981. He had fathered a son (Jeff) and a daughter (Melinda) by his first wife, Catherine Louise “Kitty Lou” (Zinsmeister) Horlen, whom he married in 1959 and divorced in 1979.

Horlen was inducted into the Oklahoma State University Cowboy Baseball Hall of Fame in 1993, the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame in 2017, and the San Antonio Independent School District Athletic Hall of Fame in 2017.