30. Bob Cerv
Baseball, Basketball / Weston / Born: 1926
QUICK FACTS:
Played for: Weston High, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Kansas City Blues, New York Yankees, Kansas City A's, Los Angeles Angels and Houston Colt 45s
Best athlete from Nebraska played with or against: Bus Whitehead, Nebraska's 6-foot-10 center on the Huskers' first two Big Seven Conference champions in 1949 and '50. Cerv was a guard on those teams. "Bus was the top scorer, the big man. There weren't many players his size in those days," said Cerv, an all-state basketball player at Weston High.
Best moment(s) as an athlete: His "self-satisfaction years," from 1957 to '59 in Kansas City when he got to play every day after sitting on the bench with the Yankees for six years
Playing for Tony Sharpe at Nebraska, Bob Cerv was the school's first All-American and led the nation with an .878 slugging percentage while batting .444.
After a stint in the Navy, he signed with the Yankees and pinch-hit 12 home runs in six seasons before being traded to the Kansas City Athletics.
"I was the big dog in Kansas City. Those were my self-satisfaction years," he said.
His breakout year was 1958, when he hit a Kansas City record 38 home runs with a .304 batting average, 104 runs batted in and started in the All-Star Game ahead of Hall-ofFamer Ted Williams.
When he retired in 1962, Cerv had spent 12 years in the major leagues, had 31 at-bats in three World Series, including a home run off the Dodgers' Roger Craig, a .276 lifetime average and 105 homers. The Kansas City experience was more meaningful than the homer in the Series, he said, because he was the team leader.
"The World Series was a fun thing, but we looked at it as an extra paycheck," Cerv said.
-- Tom Ash
QUICK FACTS:
Played for: Weston High, Nebraska Cornhuskers, Kansas City Blues, New York Yankees, Kansas City A's, Los Angeles Angels and Houston Colt 45s
Best athlete from Nebraska played with or against: Bus Whitehead, Nebraska's 6-foot-10 center on the Huskers' first two Big Seven Conference champions in 1949 and '50. Cerv was a guard on those teams. "Bus was the top scorer, the big man. There weren't many players his size in those days," said Cerv, an all-state basketball player at Weston High.
Best moment(s) as an athlete: His "self-satisfaction years," from 1957 to '59 in Kansas City when he got to play every day after sitting on the bench with the Yankees for six years
