Gene Desautels
American baseball player
Eugene Abraham "Red" Desautels (June 13, 1907 – November 5, 1994) was an American professional baseball player. He played most of his Major League Baseball career as a backup catcher with four teams between 1930 and 1946. Desautels was a light-hitting player, but was known for his superior defensive ability as a catcher, and for his handling pitching staffs. After his playing career, he served as a manager in minor league baseball.
Playing career
Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, to French Canadian parents, Desautels was a protégé of Crusaders coach Jack Barry during his playing days at the College of the Holy Cross. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in philosophy, he went directly to the major leagues, making his debut with the Detroit Tigers on June 22, 1930 at the age of 23. He served as a reserve catcher for the Detroit Tigers, playing behind Ray Hayworth and veteran Muddy Ruel. When catcher Mickey Cochrane joined the Tigers as a player-manager in 1934, Desautels was sent to the minor leagues to play for the Toledo Mud Hens. He then spent two seasons in the Pacific Coast League with the Hollywood Stars and San Diego Padres.
Desautels came back to the major leagues in 1937, playing for the Boston Red Sox as a back up to Rick Ferrell.
The public source identifies “Gene Desautels” as american baseball player. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Gene, Desautels and American.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 2, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5531175. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1907, 1994, 1930 and 1946.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gene Desautels” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.