John W. "Bill" Dornbusch, a Baltimore legend who played for the minor league Baltimore Orioles during the 1940s, has died. He was 98.
Doctors could not save Dornbusch from chronic heart disease, his hometown newspaper, the Baltimore Sun reported.
The son of a newspaper carrier and housewife, Dornbusch was mentored in baseball by a local priest, Father Philip J. Brown, who later negotiated his minor league contract of $190 a month.
While still in high school at the Polytechnic Institute, his skills caught the attention of legendary Orioles scout John Walter Youse, who sent more than 45 players to the majors.
"Mr. Youse told Bill’s coach at Poly, Willie O’Keefe, ‘We could be looking at the next Joe DiMaggio,'” Dornbusch's daughter Pamela said.
In 1942, while still in high school, Dornbusch was drafted to play outfield and third base in the International League Orioles, a minor league team that operated from 1916 to 1953. The modern major league Baltimore Orioles launched in 1954, ending more than 50 years in which Baltimore did not have a major league team.
When he was still a teenager, Dornbusch enlisted in the Navy to serve in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Unfortunately, he never made it to the majors.
His son, John W. Dornbusch Jr., said his father reflected that he "disappointed a lot of people by not making it to the majors,” but “his time in World War II, not unlike other baseball players returning home after the war, had dampened his desire and perhaps his skills.”
After the war, Dornbusch played for the Orioles farm team, the Centerville Orioles, where he helped the team win the 1946 Eastern Shore League championship.
He eventually got a degree from University of Maryland, College Park on the GI Bill and became a pharmaceutical salesman for Merrill-Dow.
Later in life, he became good friends with the late Baltimore Colts icon Johnny Unitas, his daughter said.
In 2017, then-91-year-old Dornbusch received the honor of a lifetime: the Baltimore Orioles invited him to throw out the first pitch at Camden Yards. It was a day Dornbusch would never forget.
"You have regular days, and then you have days that live in your mind forever,” he told his son. “This is one of those days.”
His wife of 70 years, Betty Ann Deuterman, predeceased him in 2018.
