Several basketball standouts were among the 11 inducted into the Tulsa Public Schools Athletics Hall of Fame on Thursday, but Webster graduate Rich Calmus was the only of those with a World Series ring.
Calmus, the Tulsa World’s state basketball player of the year in 1962, achieved a rarer baseball Triple Crown than leading a league in homers, RBIs and batting average in the same season. He won state high school baseball championships in ’61 and ’62, and followed that with a World Series title as pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers at age 19 in ’63.
After a media conference at the TPS Athletic Hall of Fame exhibit at the Education Service Center, Calmus recalled a visit several years ago to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, when he saw on display a team photo of the ’63 Dodgers. Calmus was 3-1 with a 2.66 ERA in 21 games for that team.
