Another Dillinger with gun

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.

He played 12 seasons for a long list of affiliated and independent minor league teams and was in the systems of the Pirates, the Texas Rangers, the Toronto Blue Jays, the New York Yankees and the Anaheim Angels. He finally called it quits after a 2005 season spent with four different Independent League teams - the second time he had played for four Independent teams in one season.

“That’s got to be some kind of record,” John Dillinger the baseball player said.

He finished his career with a 68-70 record, a 4.30 ERA and 787 strikeouts and 598 walks in 1,201 innings pitched.

“I knew it was time to hang it up,” he said.

But he can never retire from being John Dillinger.

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