Cloyd Boyer, 92, Advice to Kids: "Work Hard, Play Hard"

Cloyd Boyer (pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Athletics) recently celebrated his 92nd birthday and lives in Jasper, Missouri. One of eleven children, he was born in Alba, Missouri, and grew up in a big baseball family. Brother Ken had a career with the Cardinals, Mets, White Sox and Dodgers, while another younger brother, "Clete," became a third baseman with the Kansas City Athletics, New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves.

When Pearl Harbor was bombed Cloyd was 14. In 1945, he was pitching in the Cardinals system when he joined the Navy. He was assigned to the USS Iowa in Long Beach, California, sailing to the Pacific where he "grew up" had a lot of fun playing baseball in Japan.

Cloyd wrote that his favorite all-time player is Marine combat pilot Ted Williams.

After his playing career, Boyer worked as a scout, and a minor- and major-league pitching coach—mainly working with the New York Yankees organization. He was the pitching coach during Bobby Cox's first term as manager of the Atlanta Braves and Boyer is credited for grooming Fritz Peterson as a star pitcher.