NEW YORK - CIRCA 1969: Coco Laboy #39 of the Montreal Expos dives but is unable to make the catch of the ball against the New York Mets during a Major League Baseball game circa 1969 at Shea Stadium in the Queens borough of New York City. Laboy played for the Expos from 1969-73. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
Helen Callaghan and her son, Casey Candaele, are very, very probably a truly unique duo in professional baseball history.
Father-son MLB duos aren’t quite a dime a dozen, but they might well be a dozen for a quarter. Many fans could probably even name the two sons of very distinguished MLB retirees working their ways through their first seasons this year. Last season I discovered by accident one such duo in Baltimore, when Cam Bedrosian, son of Steve, took the mound for the Angels.
However, how many people can name professional baseball’s only real mother-son duo? Notice: “MLB” changed to “professional baseball” there because there never really was any women’s major league baseball. Or there sort of wasn’t since the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL) did exist, but, well, it was a wartime thing, and it didn’t last long.
As we all know, however, Tom Hanks and Geena Davis starred in a fictionalized film about the league that’s much beloved, and if Tom Hanks goes for it, that “it” is probably pretty major league. And arguably, the highest profile mother-son baseball duo resulting from a player in the AAGPBL comprises Helen Callaghan and her son Casey Candaele, who came into the majors with the Montreal Expos.
You would be hard-pressed, though, to firmly establish the Callaghan-Candaele duo as the only mother-son pro baseball duo to emerge from the AAGPBL. SABR.org’s article on Marge and Helen Callaghan, both AAGPBL players, does not make the claim Helen and Casey were the only mother-son duo. Wikipedia does make the claim – on Casey Candaele’s page.
One Facebook group makes the claim – Baseball in Pics – and other Facebook groups have passed that declaration on. A Twitter feed dedicated to Expos history – @ExposBlog – makes the claim. Is that a consensus? Maybe.
Helen Callaghan Candaele and Casey Candaele are the only mother and son duo to have played professional baseball.
It seems highly probable that other players in the league encouraged sons and daughters to play baseball. Did none of the sons besides Candaele ever go pro? Whatever, Google is “not impressed” with searches for “professional baseball’s only real mother-son duo” or for a “professional baseball mother-son duo.” First-page search returns for such phrases include the Wikipedia article and other pieces on MLB fathers and sons.
Also included is an article about a mother-son duo doing house renovations on HGTV.
That Callaghan and Candaele are likely the most important duo, however, seems unassailable. And this is largely because of Helen’s accomplishments.
Despite her size, 5-foot-1, and 115 pounds, Helen Callaghan came to be referred to as the “Ted Williams of women’s baseball,” a reference used about her by a few historians. SABR notes, however, that older sister Marge was also once called a “feminine Ted Williams” by the South Bend Tribune after one of her long home runs.
Marge actually batted right-handed; Helen batted left, and threw lefty as a center fielder. She was the better hitter, and Marge admitted Helen was the faster runner. The Williams comparison seems to properly belong to the younger sister.
When Helen Callaghan broke into the AAGPBL, she had already had some significant experience in her native Vancouver with higher-level, fast-pitch softball. She and her sister worked for Boeing as the Second World War broke out, but were discovered by the All-American league at a tournament in Detroit.
In her first year with the Minneapolis Millerettes, 1944, Helen posted the second-best batting average in the league, .287, and was third in homers. The following year she posted her best BA, .299. (The league average was .198). The photo of Helen Callaghan on the Millerettes AAGPBL webpage is one of only two player shots that seem to be genuine game-action photos. Her shot shows the diminutive, determined lefty about to unleash a level swing at a pitch in a night game.
What Helen did on the basepaths that season, however, may have pointed to her greatest and perhaps underappreciated skill. She stole a startling 112 bases in the 117-game season. For her entire career (five years), she stole 354 bases in just 388 games.
In 1945 Callaghan’s team moved to Fort Wayne, and following her best season hitting, she married Bobby Candaele, her first husband. In 1946, the newlywed’s BA slipped to .213, possibly in part because the league allowed sidearm pitches about halfway through the season.
She didn’t play at all in 1947 because of illness, but returned to play in 1948, posting her only season below .200 (which seems to have been something like a continuing league average) when she hit .191 following the birth of her first of five sons. She finished out her career in ‘49 with Kenosha, hitting .251.
Helen Callaghan’s son Kelly (b. 1954) eventually created a PBS documentary about his mother’s baseball league, which is credited with inspiring Penny Marshall’s film starring Hanks and Davis, A League of Their Own. Later in life Kelly Candaele wrote about a famous scene in Marshall’s film when Davis’ character seems to drop a ball on purpose to allow her sister to win. Or does she?
People knew Kelly’s mother and aunt played together and thus thought he might know if Marshall’s intention was that the ball was dropped on purpose. So they asked the son of the person who partly inspired the film character about it. Never mind that Davis was a catcher in the film and Helen Callaghan was a centerfielder. Kelly wrote about this debate, “My mother – who passed away the year the film came out [1992] – would never have dropped the ball on purpose to let her sister win.”
Like his mother, Candaele was a smaller, scrappy player, standing 5-foot-9 and weighing in at 160. Unlike his mother, Casey was not exactly pursued by professional teams, and it’s worth asking whether he would have been noticed had he not played high school ball in California. He was signed by Montreal in 1982 as an amateur free agent.
Casey Candaele was a quite promising player early on and finished fourth in the NL Rookie of the Year balloting in his first full season in MLB, 1987, after hitting .272.
Almost immediately, however, he became a utility player and bounced around the infield and outfield. He played mostly at second base (only one inning at first) and committed only 18 errors in 1361 chances over nine years with Montreal, Houston, and Cleveland.
In his final season with Cleveland, in limited action, he broke the .300 mark for the only time in his career. Later, when Casey Candaele was a Mariners coach, he described his mother as “quiet but feisty.” He also said, “She was better than me,” and quoted her as saying, “You don’t have to have any talent to hustle.”
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Helen Callaghan and her middle son are very, very probably unique in the history of baseball. Her entire family is definitely unique.
