Baseball: America’s favorite pastime. For Brevard baseball is synonymous with Gil Coan. Gilbert (Gil) Fitzgerald Coan was born May 18, 1922 in Monroe, North Carolina. The second of four children born to devout Methodists George Phifer Coan and Florence Price Coan, Coan grew up on a farm.

When Coan was ten years old he cracked a joint in his left thumb while playing sandlot football. The bone came loose at the middle joint, got infected, and had to be removed. This resulted in the loss of dexterity in most of his left thumb but no visible difference. The lifelong disability didn’t seem to affect his athleticism.

In 1933 the Coan family moved to Mineral Springs in Union County, where George ran a service station and country store. Coan played football, basketball and baseball in Mineral Springs High School. Now at 6 feet tall and 180 pounds, he was fast on his feet, threw right-handed, but hit left-handed. He started as a second baseman.

Coan’s strong Methodist faith led him to enroll in Methodist-affiliated Brevard College. It was a two-year school at the time that had a solid baseball program where he played the 1940 season. At the college he met fellow student Dovie White from Rosman. They were married on September 22,1941.

Coan began working for the Ecusta paper mill. The major employer for Transylvania County had a team in the Western North Carolina Industrial league, the Ecusta Papermakers, which was a semipro league. Pro scout Zinn Beck saw Coan at a game and offered him a contract for Class B/Rookie baseball, but newlywed Coan wanted to stay in Brevard.

Just a year later, Coan was required to register for the draft to serve in World War II, but he received a 4-F deferment due to his thumb. Gil and Dovie Coan made Brevard their home and started a family with the birth of Gilbert Jr., born December 21, 1942.

In early 1944 Coan reached out to Zinn Beck, the scout who previously offered him a contract. Beck was now the general manager of the Class A Chattanooga Lookouts of the Southern Association, which was loosely affiliated with the Washington Senators. Beck signed Coan up for $275 a month (equivalent to about $5000 today), starting with spring training.

When spring training ended, Coan was assigned to Chattanooga’s feeder club, the Kingsport Tennessee Cherokees, in the Class D Appalachian League. Twenty-two-year-old Coan was signed as an infielder but mostly played second base. By July he was promoted to the Lookouts where he played 48 games and was hitting with a .335 average, capping off a successful 1944 season.

Coan played the 1945 season in right field for Chattanooga where he had 201 hits in 540 at-bats (.372), with 40 doubles, 28 triples 16 homers and 37 stolen bases. Coan was named Minor League Player of the Year by The Sporting News Magazine.

In 1946 Gil was sent to the Washington Senators for the season. Now in the majors, his annual salary was $4500 (equivalent to about $77,000 today). Coan made his major league debut at Griffith Stadium on April 27 as an eighth-inning pinch-hitter. His first major league starting call came on June 8, 1946 at a home game against the White Sox. His first major league hit was a lead-off bunt single on June 16 against Detroit. He hit his first major league home run on June 30 at Fenway Park against the Red Sox.

A highlight of the 1946 season came on August 21. In a pre-game attraction, Bill Veeck, the owner of the visiting Cleveland Indians, chose Coan to race a 100-yard sprint against Cleveland’s stolen base champion, George Case. The race was promoted to see who the fastest man in major league baseball was. General Dwight Eisenhower was in attendance. Although Gil (barely) lost the race, he got to meet General Eisenhower and shake his hand.

The 1947 season had Coan playing left field, but he had appendicitis in the spring and ended up spending the summer back at Chattanooga. Coan had an 11-game streak after returning to the Senators, setting an MLB record by hitting .500 in 42 at-bats.

Coan, now 26, was healthy for the 1948 season. He played 138 games as the regular left fielder. He had 7 home runs, drove in 60 runs, and had 23 stolen bases in 32 tries.

Opening Day 1949, President Truman attended the game. Coan met the president and handed a ball to him, and a photo of this made it in the newspapers. He played 111 games as an outfielder and pinch-hitter for the Senators.

Coan hit his first career grand slam playing against the Browns May 3rd in the 1950 season. However, on June 2^nd he suffered a head injury in a collision with a second baseman and was out until July 13.

Coan began the 1951 season strong on April 21, hitting two triples in the same inning. On May 12, he hit three doubles. On July fourth, the first game of a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium, Coan hit two home runs and six RBIs. His batting average was .338 by August, ranking him third in the American League.

Twenty-eight games into the 1952 season Coan fractured his left wrist in a diving catch in left field and was out for a month. Spring training for the 1953 season was going well until April 6 at an exhibition game in Charlotte when Coan fractured his right ankle. He ended up playing 68 games.

Coan was traded to the newly formed Baltimore Orioles for the 1954 season as center fielder. On Opening Day, Coan hit a first-inning single, the first hit in Orioles history.  

In July of the 1955 season, Baltimore sent Coan to the Chicago White Sox. He played 17 games for Chicago and then was traded to the National League’s New York Giants, playing nine games for them by season’s end.

Four games into the 1956 season, the Giants optioned Coan to the Minneapolis Millers, their top farm club. At their Fan Appreciation Night on August 27, Coan participated in a stunt where he raced (on foot) against a local racehorse starting from the right field wall to home plate and, given a head start, he won. The Minneapolis Fire Dept paid him $25 for racing the horse.

The Detroit Tigers drafted Coan as a minor-league free agent over the 1956-1957 offseason, but a contract dispute led 34-year-old Coan to retire from baseball on January 12, 1957. His career spanned 918 major league games over 11 years. His highest salary was $15,000.00 (equivalent to about $178,000 today).

Coan returned to Brevard and bought one-half interest in Brevard Insurance Agency. His second son, Kevin, was born November 4, 1955. In 1962 he purchased the other half interest of the agency, working as an insurance agent until he retired. In the 1970s he purchased farmland in Penrose and went into the cattle business.

Coan was active in the community in many respects. He helped form the Transylvania County Cattlemen’s Association, served terms as President for both the Brevard Chamber of Commerce and the Brevard Board of Realtors, supported the Transylvania Regional Hospital, and was active with the Brevard First United Methodist Church.

Coan also coached baseball there for five years and served on the Board of Trustees at Brevard College. In 1994 the school’s baseball field was officially named Gil Coan Field and Coan was inducted into the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004. Gil Coan passed away February 5, 2020 at the age of 97. He left behind a legacy of dedication, commitment, and achievement that all could recognize.

Special thanks is extended to the Coan family for sharing their photographs and stories with the Transylvania County Library to use in this article.

Photographs and information for this column are provided through personal research and by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library. This article was written by Local History Assistant Helaine Kranz. Sources available upon request. For more information, comments, or suggestions, contact NC Room staff at [email protected] or 828-884-1820.