Tractor Accident Kills Ex-Pitcher

Joe Hoerner, 60, a former Cardinals reliever, died Friday in a farming accident at a friend’s farm in Hermann, Mo.

Hoerner was planting a field and apparently had gotten off a tractor to move an object, according to his daughter, Jolene Vollmer. He was killed when the tractor ran him over.<

A heart attack he suffered in 1957 turned him into a sidearm, left-handed pitcher.

Hoerner was signed by the Chicago White Sox in 1957 but almost left baseball a year later when he had a heart attack while pitching for Davenport. He spent most of the 1959 season at the University of Iowa hospital.

Doctors found no damage to his heart.