Above: Delaware’s Bill Bruton. Photo courtesy DSMHoF.
By Chuck Durante
A five-tool player with graceful demeanor, work ethic and distinguished military record would seem a logical candidate for a baseball scout. Yet, the scouts had to lie about the player’s age to be certain that the Boston Braves would sign Bill Bruton.
Bruton, an Alabama native who settled in Delaware after World War II, would become the center fielder of the Milwaukee Braves’ greatest teams. Yet, the sport would never have known him except that Negro League veteran Bill Yancey told Braves scout John Ogden that Bruton was 21, not 23, after they watched him dominate Florida exhibitions. By the time the contract was signed, Bruton was listed as 19. In his first season, Bruton was the Northern League’s rookie of the year. Within three years, Bruton was leading off for Braves as they opened their new chapter in Milwaukee.
Over eight seasons, he led the National League twice in triples, three times in steals and often in fielding categories. Flanked in the outfield by Hank Aaron and Wes Covington, he twice went to the World Series. Traded to Detroit, he joined Delaware State’s Jake Wood on a team that won 101 games and nearly overtook one of the Yankees’ greatest teams.
After homering in his final week in 1964, when at age 38 he led the Tigers in stolen bases, he joined Chrysler. Bruton worked in sales, customer service, promotion and financing, while he and his wife,Loretta, raised their four children. He later owned a dealership and finished his career as a special assistant to Lee Iacocca.
After retiring in 1988, he returned to Delaware to live his final years in the Marshallton home where Loretta, the daughter of Judy Johnson (Delaware’s Hall of Fame player), was raised. He was lauded in the baseball community and beyond, and would wear a Braves cap in the Jaycees Thanksgiving parade. Inducted into the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame in 1991, Bruton died in 1995.
— Founded in 1976, the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame is located on the Wilmington Riverfront at 801 Shipyard Drive on the first base side of Frawley Stadium. Sports fans can tour the museum for free each Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and for two hours before every Blue Rocks home game.
