Frank Timothy Parr, a retired Westinghouse engineer who pitched as a college baseball player against several well-known big leaguers, died Wednesday of a dementia-related condition, Lewy Body Disease, at Charlestown Retirement Community. The lifelong Catonsville resident was 78.
A senior advisory materials engineer, Mr. Parr worked for Westinghouse Electric Corp. in Linthicum from 1953 until retiring in 1994. He held patents in materials engineering and was author of scholarly papers in his field.
Born in Catonsville, he attended St. Mark Parochial School and was a member of Mount St. Joseph High School's Class of 1942.
World War II interrupted Mr. Parr's education at Loyola College.
He graduated from the Northwestern University Midshipman School and became a Navy lieutenant, serving at Saipan and in the Marianna Islands in the Pacific.
Returning to Loyola, where he graduated in 1947, Mr. Parr played varsity baseball and matched skills with several professional players of the era who were in the area during and immediately after the war. He pitched to such players as Dixie Howell, Joe Becker, Red Schoendienst and Al Cihocki. Cihocki, of the 1945 Cleveland Indians, smashed a pitch by Mr. Parr over the Loyola gymnasium.
"He wasn't a big guy but he was crafty," Patrick James Parr of Cortlandt Manor, N.Y., said of his father. "He was not the kind of pitcher who would overpower a hitter. So he used his smarts."
While at Loyola, he was sports editor of the student newspaper, The Greyhound. He was inducted into the school's Athletic Hall of Fame in 1996. Mr. Parr also earned a master's degree in chemistry from Fordham University.
He later managed many championship youth baseball teams for the Catonsville Recreation League and St. Mark's Catholic Youth Organization.
He was a 50-year member of the American Chemical Society and was a past president of its Maryland chapter.
A Mass of Christian burial will be offered at 10 a.m. tomorrow at St. Mark Roman Catholic Church, 29 Melvin Ave., Catonsville.
Survivors also include his wife of 54 years, the former June Gregory; two other sons, F. Timothy Parr Jr. of Pawleys Island, S.C., and Mark Gregory Parr of Westborough, Mass.; a daughter, Mary Lee Busick of Catonsville; eight grandchildren; and a great-grandson.