Grove native and former Tulsa Oilers outfielder Jim Beauchamp, who won the Texas League's 1963 Player of the Year award before a long career in the major leagues, died of leukemia on Tuesday at a hospice in Union City, Ga., just outside of Atlanta. He was 68.
Beauchamp played for the Oilers from 1959-61, 1963 and in 1974. The Oilers reached the playoffs in all five years he played with them.
"Those were special times for my dad," Beauchamp's son, Kash, said on Wednesday. "He loved coming to Tulsa, playing in front of his friends and family. Tulsa was a special place for him.
In 1960, Beauchamp helped the Oilers win the TL pennant and Pan-American Series.
In 1963, Beauchamp, an outfielder, batted .337 with 105 RBIs to boost the Oilers to another pennant. His 31 homers were the most ever hit in a season by a Tulsa player whose home games were at Oiler Park (1934-80).
After the season, he was called up by the St. Louis Cardinals. During his ML playing career from 1963-73, he also was with Houston, the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati and the New York Mets.
With Houston in 1965, he became the first Astros player to hit a home run in the Astrodome during an exhibition with the New York Yankees. Earlier in the game, Mickey Mantle hit the Astrodome's first homer.
"Who would've thought the first two Astrodome homers would be hit by two players who grew up about 20 miles from each other," Kash Beauchamp said.
Just as was the case with his teammate Willie Mays, their last appearances as players in the majors were with the Mets in the 1973 World Series. Beauchamp batted .279 as a pinch-hitting specialist in 50 games for the Mets that season.
"When Willie came to the Mets, my dad gave him his uniform number, 24," Kash Beauchamp said. "And Willie hit his last major league home run with my dad's bat."
In 1974, Beauchamp ended his playing career as a player-coach with Tulsa. He made a triumphant return to the Oilers with a walkoff homer in the home opener that set the tone for helping Tulsa win the American Association pennant. Kash Beauchamp, who played 14 years in the minors and recently was named the manager of the American Association's new Wichita Wingnuts, was a batboy for the '74 Oilers.
After managing in the minors from 1975-90, Jim Beauchamp was a coach for the Braves from 1991-98, earning a World Series ring in 1995. During the past nine seasons, Beauchamp remained in the Braves' organization, most recently as a minor league outfield coordinator and this past season as a consultant. Last March, he participated in his 50th spring training in pro baseball.
Jim Beauchamp was born August 21, 1939, in Vinita, but grew up in Grove. Although he attended Oklahoma State before signing with St. Louis, Beauchamp was a devoted Oklahoma football fan.
"Doctors were only giving him until October, but my dad was a battler," Kash Beauchamp said. "Two things he wanted to be around long enough to see this fall was the birth of his sixth grandchild and another OU football season -- and he did both. (OU coach) Bob Stoops called and talked with my dad several times this fall and that meant a lot."
Among the baseball notables calling their condolences to the Beauchamp family have been Braves manager Bobby Cox, Atlanta outfielder Jeff Francouer, ex-Braves infielders Jeff Blauser and Mark Lemke, and former slugger Cecil Fielder.
Jim Beauchamp died at Southwest Christian Hospice, which had received about $1 million over the past 15 years from the Jim Beauchamp Celebrity Golf Classic.
Three memorial services are being planned, with the first in Atlanta in mid-January. Others will be held at Phenix City, Ala., and at Grove's Jim Beauchamp Field in the spring.
Survivors include Beauchamp's wife, Pam, two sons and three daughters.
