Another Dillinger with gun

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By Thom Loverro

In the recently released film "Public Enemies," Johnny Depp, playing notorious gangster John Dillinger, talks about how much he likes baseball.

So I figured it was worth some research.

Dillinger, the story goes, grew up a baseball player and was playing shortstop on a team in Martinsville, Ind., called the Athletics when he and an umpire, of all people, conspired to rob a grocery store in the summer of 1924.

The robbery went bad, and the umpire, waiting in the getaway car, fled when Dillinger's gun went off during a struggle with the grocer.

The grocer wasn't hurt, but Dillinger was arrested and sentenced to 10 to 20 years in the Indiana State Reformatory, where he played on the prison baseball team and caught the eye of Gov. Harry Leslie.

"That kid ought to be playing major league baseball," the governor declared.

John Dillinger never did play major league baseball. But John Dillinger did play minor league baseball.

Not John Dillinger the gangster but John Dillinger the pitching phenom out of Connellsville, Pa.

This John Dillinger played minor league baseball from 1992 through 2005 - and he could've been with the Washington Nationals.

John Dillinger the baseball player was a big (6-foot-5, 240 pounds), hard-throwing right-hander who was born in Connellsville in 1973 and drafted in the 20th round by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1992.