Former Baseball Player Beauchamp Dies

Thursday, December 27th 2007, 12:37 pm

By: News On 6

TULSA, Okla. (AP) _ Former major league baseball player and Oklahoma native Jim Beauchamp has died at a hospice in suburban Atlanta. Beauchamp was 68 and died of leukemia. Beauchamp was born in Vinita and grew up in Grove before signing a professional contract with the St. Louis Cardinals.

He played from 1963 through '73 with St. Louis, Houston, the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati and the New York Mets.

He also spent five seasons with the Tulsa Oilers playing in 1959, 1960, 1961, 1963 and ending his career as a player-coach with Tulsa in 1974. He managed in the minor leagues from 1975 through 1990 when he joined the Braves organization and worked as a coach, minor league outfield coordinator and a consultant.

Three memorial services are planned with one in Atlanta, one in Phenix City, Alabama, and one this spring in Grove at Jim Beauchamp Field.