Bio: Buker, Cy (30 Jun 1966)

Contact: Stan

Email: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Buker

----Source: Greenwood Gleaner (Greenwood, Clark Co., Wis.)   06/30/1966

(Editor’s note -- Starting this week this newspaper is printing a series about our own Cy Buker which was gathered and written by Jess W. Scott of Neillsville.  We are sure, when this series is completed, you will know much more about another local man who made good in the sports world.)

A Clark County, Wis. Major league baseball pitcher and longtime successful athletic coach, celebrated his 48^th birthday Feb. 8, 1966, but he is still going strong in coaching and lives of athletics every hour of the day.

Cy Buker, who was born Feb. 5, 1918 in Greenwood, (the crucial year of World War I), to Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Buker, has been playing baseball, football and basketball since he was big enough to walk.  He has just signed to serve as athletic director and football and baseball coach in Loyal High School for his third year.

Cy pitched his first baseball game for Greenwood City Team in 1929, while still in eighth grade, and since that time, he pitched for 13 professional baseball clubs, including the Brooklyn Dodgers (now the Los Angeles Dodgers) and had the pleasure of finishing with a .500 percent or better every year.  He had a few outstanding seasons, and for his lifetime pitching record he won three games for everyone he lost.

Cy’s best percentage year in pitching was with the St. Paul team of the American Association, 13 wins and 3 losses.  The next year he was called up to Brooklyn, in the early 1940’s, where he finished with a 7 and 2 record, saved 23 games and appeared in 45 games.

In commenting on his pitching years, Cy said: "I pitched for many fine baseball clubs throughout America and am proud of my winning record.  I traveled so much, as I moved upward, that it looks as though I migh have mad more money had I been paid by the mile."

Cy pitched four years for the Greenwood city team, when his age was 11 to 15.  Then he moved up to the Medford team which was a strong team in the Central Association, which had Al Long as manager.  He pitched for the Medford team until he was graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1940.