Tennessee native Ed Bailey was born in 1931 in Strawberry Plains and enrolled at the University of Tennessee in 1948 on a basketball and baseball scholarship. But baseball was his true love; he lettered just one year, playing third base and hitting .415 in the spring of 1949. In November of that year, with fifteen of the then sixteen major league clubs bidding for his services, Bailey signed with the Cincinnati Reds. He hit .313 as a catcher with Ogden, Utah, in the Pioneer League. His major league debut for the Reds came in 1952 against the Phillies, the only team not bidding for his services. Manager Rogers Hornsby decided to give him a chance, and the left-handed, power-hitting Bailey hit a home run his first time at bat, a double his second time, another homer his third time, another double his fourth time and finished the game five for five with a single! Not a bad debut. Bailey’s finest year with the Reds was probably 1956, when he hit twenty-eight homers, drove in seventy-five runs and batted .300. He played on four National League all-star Teams, and in 1957, was picked by the Baseball Writers Association of America as All-American for “Look” magazine. After retiring from baseball, Bailey spent twelve years as a field representative for Congressman John Duncan of the Second Congressional District.
