George Toporcer (born Toporczer; February 9, 1899 – May 17, 1989) was a professional baseball player and executive. He served primarily as a utility infielder during his eight seasons in Major League Baseball, playing for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1921 through 1928. He batted left-handed and threw right-handed and was listed as tall and . Toporcer is widely considered as the first major league baseball position player to wear eyeglasses on the playing field. The distinction gained Toporcer his nickname, "Specs".
Early life
From an early age, like most children at the time, George Toporczer was obsessed with baseball. In an interview, he admitted that for the last 75 years he had thought about the sport nearly daily. He stated that in spite of his obsession he was always picked last during childhood games because of his slight build and glasses. He went to school and became friends with actor Jimmy Cagney, staying in touch into the later portions of their lives. Toporczer said the first thing that hooked him on baseball was when he was six and went to the 1905 World Series. At the World Series he watched the Giants' Christy Mathewson pitch three shutouts The experience was further reinforced by his two older brothers who, being diehard Giants fans, idolized the players, speaking of little else but the performance of their favorite team. The fanaticism of his older brothers influenced him and he too became a diehard Giants fan. When they lost the pennant to the Chicago Cubs in , due to Merkle's Boner, he cried himself to sleep. By the time he was ten he would walk the five miles from his house to the Polo Grounds. Although the one cent allowance provided by his father, a shoe and boot seller, was not enough to get him a ticket, he found a spot on Coogan's Bluff that he could take advantage of an open space in the roof of the Polo Grounds.
Unlike most of his peers, he was enthralled with what was known then as inside baseball, which were the strategies and tactics of the "dead-ball" era. While still loving the Giants players, Toporczer held a special admiration of the Giants' manager John McGraw, who he considered the best of his time. Out of all of the Giants players, George's favorite was the left fielder, George Burns. When he was thirteen Toporczer got a job at a local saloon as a scorekeeper, writing down the scores of the baseball games in exchange for fifty cents and free meals. While in seventh grade his history teacher formed a school baseball team but he was turned down because of his slight figure and his glasses. Even though he was not on the team, Toporczer still went to all of their games to cheer them on. On one occasion, he was the only one watching, and as the team was short one player he was asked to play centerfield. During that game he made a difficult catch and contributed two hits. Around this time his father died and passed the business on to one of Toporczer's older brothers, and George had to forgo high school and help his brother run the store. Between working at the store and picking up odd jobs on the side, Toporczer was making more than enough to buy tickets and would regularly go to the Polo Grounds.
Playing career
Major leagues
Born and reared in the Yorkville section of Manhattan, he never played high school or college ball and went directly from the sandlots to major league competition in 1921. Now known as George Toporcer, he split his first professional season between the Cardinals and the minor league Syracuse Stars, the Cardinals' top farm team. He played all infield positions for the Cardinals, especially shortstop, and was the club's most-used midfielder in both and . In 1928, Toporcer got into only eight games for the Cardinals, and spent the bulk of the year with their top farm team, the Rochester Red Wings.
In his eight-season major-league career, Toporcer was a .279 hitter with nine home runs and 151 RBI in 546 games. As a fielder, he appeared in 453 games, playing shortstop (249 games), second base (105), third base (95), first base (3) and right field (1).