finalyear bats death_date death_place birth_place debutyear finaldate statvalue position finalteam statlabel debutdate birth_date image article_title debutteam name throws
1966 right 8 january 2008 bradenton , florida yonkers , new york 1950 may 10 39 -- 38 3.79 406 pitcher philadelphia phillies win-loss earned run average strikeouts september 4 29 april 1929 steve ridzik.jpg steve ridzik
 philadelphia phillies steve ridzik right
steve ridzik

stephen george ridzik -lrb- april 29 , 1929 -- january 8 , 2008 -rrb- was an american right-handed pitcher in major league baseball who played for five teams from to , primarily the philadelphia phillies and washington senators .
born in yonkers , new york , ridzik was signed by the phillies at the age of 16 and made his major league debut on september 4 , 1950 , pitching in relief .
in , ridzik started 12 games and relieved in 30 more going 9-6 with an earned run average of 3.77 .
the phillies traded him on april 30 , , along with smoky burgess and stan palys , to the cincinnati redlegs for andy seminick , glen gorbous , and jim greengrass .
after having his contract sold to seattle of the pacific coast league that same year , the new york giants claimed him the next month in the rule 5 draft .
ridzik pitched for the giants from to appearing in 56 games including 5 starts .
on april 8 , 1958 , the giants sold his contract to the cleveland indians where he would pitch in six more games before his contract was sold again to the chicago cubs .
he would not pitch a major league game with the cubs before his contract was sold to the toronto maple leafs of the international league .
ridzik signed with the washington senators three years later in after developing a knuckleball .
he would appear in 132 games , mostly in relief , over the next three years for the senators .
on april 13 , , his contract was sold back to his original team , the phillies .
he would appear in two games with the phillies that year before calling it a career .
after life as a baseball player , ridzik worked in the washington d.c. area for a military food distributor until moving to florida in the late 1980s .
in florida , he helped with the organizing of charity events featuring former major league players .
he also helped establish the major league baseball players alumni association with former senators teammate , chuck hinton .
he died on january 8 , 2008 , after fighting heart disease for several years .
