Sid Bream was a baseball standout at Liberty University, but his coach there – former Major League pitcher Al Worthington – never saw him play in high school.
“I did not meet him until I went to school. He called me after the June draft in 1978,” Bream said in a recent phone interview.
A standout at Carlisle High in Pennsylvania, Bream was not selected by a Major League club after his senior season. “I will give you a full scholarship,” said Worthington, according to Bream. “He knew I wanted to play.”
Worthington was the head coach at Liberty for 13 years through 1986 and compiled a record of 343-189-1. He became the athletic director at the school as Bobby Richardson, a former All-Star second baseman for the New York Yankees, took over as the head baseball coach.
Several former Liberty players went to Worthington’s home in Alabama to celebrate his 90th birthday in 2019. “We had a great reunion with everyone,” Bream said.
Worthington still lives in his native Birmingham and turned 97 on Feb. 5. As of early May, he was the fourth-oldest living former MLB player, according to former Liberty pitcher David Schauer.
The three oldest are former Negro League star Bill Greason (born Sept. 3, 1924), who pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1954 and lives in Birmingham; Pennsylvania native Bobby Shantz (Sept. 26, 1925); who pitched for the New York Yankees and several other teams; and Bob Ross (Nov. 2, 1928), who pitched for the Washington Senators and Philadelphia Phillies.
Last fall, a U.S. flag was given to Worthington.
“The flag was presented to Coach Worthington on October 15, 2025 at his retirement community. It was flown over the U.S. Capitol in honor of his contributions to baseball and the many communities in which he has lived – especially Birmingham, Alabama, where he was born 97 years ago,” according to Schauer.
Schauer plans to visit Worthington in Alabama next month and also attend the East-West Classic at historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham.
Worthington is part of another exclusive club – the first three baseball coaches at Liberty each lived to be at least 90.
Richardson, whose MLB career ended 60 years ago, turned 90 on Aug. 19, while Johnny Hunton, the Flames coach from 1991-1997, was 97 when he passed in 2025.
An infielder like Richardson, Hunton played in the minors for the Yankees in the 1950s and is buried at Virginia Memorial Park in Forest, per baseballreference.com.
Worthington pitched in the majors from 1953 to 1969 with several clubs, and threw a complete shutout and allowed just two hits in his MLB debut in a 2-0 win for the New York Giants against the Phillies and slugger Granny Hamner, a native of Richmond.
Worthington was a member of the Giants in 1954 when the club won the World Series over Cleveland, though Worthington did not see any action in the Fall Classic. That was the series where Giants’ center fielder Willie Mays made a great catch on a long drive off the bat of Vic Wertz of Cleveland.
The right-hander did pitch in two games in the 1965 World Series for the Minnesota Twins, and appeared in one game out of the bullpen in the 1969 American League Championship Series against the Baltimore Orioles, who swept the series 3-0.
“The best pitches I had? My fastball slid and sink. It was a natural slider that also sunk. I didn’t have a thing to do with that. Just put my hand on it. God gave me that. It just sunk. Then I had a curveball. Those were my two pitches,” Worthington told the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) in 2014.
In his career, Worthington was 75-82 with an ERA of 3.39 in 602 games, with 69 starts. His 18 saves with the Twins in 1968 led the American League.
“I wish everyone had the opportunity to play under coach Worthington,” said Bream, who lives in western Pennsylvania. “They don’t get any better. What a Godly man.”
Worthington is the member of several sports Hall of Fames, including the Virginia Baseball Coaches Association Class of 2023.
In 2010, Worthington was inducted into the Liberty University Athletics Hall of Fame. In 2012, he was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, according to SABR.
Bream, 65, earned national honors at Liberty in his three seasons there and was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the second round in 1981. The lefty hitting first baseman played in the majors for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Atlanta Braves and Houston Astros from 1983 to 1994.
Schauer was teammates with Bream in college.
“Sid and I have been friends since we met at Liberty in 1979. We’ve stayed in touch over the years through Liberty Baseball group texts, prayer requests, and alumni games,” according to Schauer. “The early 1980s were a special time to play baseball at Liberty with Al Worthington as our coach, and Sid hitting fourth and anchoring the defense at first base. A little-known fact about Sid is that he’s a pretty good singer – road trips on the Liberty bus were always enhanced with Sid and a few of the other veterans leading us in singing a variety of songs.”
Virginia Power
Bream was one of several power-hitting first baseman at Virginia colleges in the early 1980s.
That included Franklin Stubbs, the Virginia Tech product who played in MLB for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Houston Astros, Milwaukee Brewers and Detroit Tigers; and Lorenzo Bundy, the ex-JMU star who reached the Triple-A level as a player and was a coach for the several big-league clubs, including the Dodgers.
Bream was also teammates at Liberty with lefty hurler Lee Guetterman, who pitched in the Majors from 1984-96 after playing for Waynesboro in the Valley Baseball League while in college.
While with the Pirates, Bream was teammates with lefty pitcher Randy Tomlin, who grew up in Madison Heights, went to Amherst County High School and was drafted out of Liberty by the Pirates in 1988. A former pitching coach for the Flames and in the Washington Nationals’ farm system, Tomlin is the long-time coach at Liberty Christian. Tomlin played at Liberty under Worthington and Richardson.
“He stayed at our house,” Bream said of Tomlin, soon after he was brought up to the Pirates in 1990. “We got to know each other. Randy had such a unique delivery, he threw across his body.”
Tomlin was the starting pitcher for the Pirates in the NLCS in 1991 against the Braves. He allowed just two runs in six innings, but the Pirates lost 4-3.
Bream – not a speed demon – had his memorable post-season moment with the Braves in 1992 as he scored the winning run in the seventh game of the NLCS with “The Slide” to beat the Pirates and send Atlanta to the World Series as he just beat the throw from left fielder Barry Bonds of Pittsburgh.
Since his retirement, Bream has been a motivational speaker for several Christian organizations. And he said many of his events have been in the Southeast, since he is remembered fondly by Atlanta fans.
Bream’s son, Tyler, played baseball at Liberty and was drafted in 2011 by the Arizona Diamondbacks and played two years in the minors.
Bream and his wife, Michelle, have four children.
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David Driver
