“We had no high school baseball. I was playing semi-pro ball, working for the gentleman that ran the team. He owned a coal mine and coke oven,” Margoneri said during a December 2012 phone interview. “I was a young guy and I could throw the ball pretty good. I didn’t know how hard I could throw it. The owner got to me after the game and said there was a scout, Nick Shinkoff, from the New York Giants that wanted to see me. My boss sort of kept it hush hush and didn’t want me to see anybody else. It went on from there and that’s how I got signed.”

Joseph Emanuel Margoneri (born January 13, 1930) is a former pitcher who played in the 1956 and 1957 seasons. A native of Somerset, Pennsylvania, Margoneri was signed by the New York Giants in 1950, but he saw his baseball career interrupted by a stint in the Army. While in MiLB, Left-hander Joe led his league in strikeouts three times.

After being discharged from military service, Margoneri pitched for the Navegantes del Magallanes club of the Venezuelan Winter League, and was responsible for the only defeat suffered by the Puerto Rican Cangrejeros de Santurce champion team, 7–2, in the closing game of the 1955 Caribbean Series. He pitched a complete game against a lineup that included future Hall of Famers Roberto Clemente and Willie Mays, as well as Harry Chiti, Buster Clarkson, George Crowe, Luis Olmo and Don Zimmer.

Margoneri was 26 years old when he entered the majors in 1956 with the Giants, playing for them two years. In 1956 he had a 6–6 record with a 3.93 earned run average. The next year he worked almost exclusively as a left-handed specialist out of the bullpen.

After baseball, Margoneri worked from 1962 through 1991 in the corrugated paper business as a supervisor for the International Paper Company and the St. Regis Paper Company in the city of Pittsburgh. He then retired to West Newton, Pennsylvania where he often receives mail requests to sign his 1957 Topps card. As a result, the Topps Company honored him in their 2006 Topps Heritage set.

Interestingly, In his Letters from Home Plate response, Joe does not list a favorite player growing up, as he worked on farms and the railroad and wasn't aware of any MLB players.

(excerpted from Baseball Almanac, BR Bullpen & Wikipedia)