Ace Adams, who died February 26 at 95, was a pioneering relief specialist for the New York Giants during the 1940s.

Adams was among the league-leaders in saves each season from 1942-45, and led the National League in that statistic in 1944-45.

But pitchers seldom specialized in the relief role in that era, and after his first full year in the majors, 1942, Adams jockeyed for a starter’s job, because the pay was better.

“They called me into the office and said, ‘If we double your salary, will you relieve for us?'” Adams told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1990. “I said, ‘I’ll relieve, and I’ll be the batboy, too.'” His new salary was $4,500, which helps explain why, in 1947, the Associated Press described him as a “Georgia farmer and baseball player” – like many players of that era, he supplemented his baseball earnings with outside work.

Adams grew up on a fruit and nut farm in Willows, Calif., north of Sacramento, and was given a perfect baseball moniker by his parents. After a brief boxing career, he began playing baseball in a San Francisco industrial league, working at a beer garden, and playing on the company team. He was signed to a minor league contract in 1935, age 25. It was a relatively advanced age to start playing baseball, so he lied about his age, shaving off two years. This accounts for confusion about his age, which persists in some official records to this day.

He was initially signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers organization, but was claimed by the Giants in 1937. When he made his major league debut, in 1941 in a game against cross-town rivals, the Dodgers, at Ebbets Field, it was the first time he had ever even seen a major league game.

Adams had an outstanding fastball, and the fortitude to appear in a league-leading 70 games in 1943. He had tremendous control, and once pitched 27 straight innings without issuing a walk. He led the league in games finished from 1942-45, and his total of 50 games finished in 1945 was rarely exceeded until the modern era of relief pitching came along in the 1960s. He appeared in 302 games in all, and logged a total of 49 saves with a 3.47 overall E.R.A. Teammates referred to him as “Rubber Arm.” An old knee injury kept him out of the armed services.

After appearing in just three games in 1946, Adams, along with a score of other major leaguers, jumped to the upstart Mexican League. In Mexico he finally got his chance to be a starter, and formed a battery on the Veracruz Blues with the former Dodger catcher Mickey Owen. Adams’s salary was $50,000, several times more than what he made in New York.

Like the other players who joined the Mexican League, Adams was immediately banned from Major League Baseball. But unlike the others, many of whom ended up in protracted litigation with the league, Adams wasn’t interested in returning. After a single season in Mexico, he decided to move on, despite offers of a new contract.

He took his $50,000 – more than he’d been able to save in six seasons in the majors – and retired to Georgia, where he raised cotton and peanuts on a 500-acre-farm in Iron City, Ga., near Cordele, where he had played minor-league ball for the A’s of the class D Georgia-Florida League. When asked to join lawsuits to sue for reinstatement, Adams replied he was happy where he was, although he did successfully sue when baseball tried to prevent him from managing in the minors.

He managed the Fitzgerald Pioneers of the class D Georgia State League, and eventually owned a restaurant, a liquor store, and a tombstone business. He retired in his early 50s. He took great satisfaction from the long memories of baseball fans, who continued to send him letters and requests for autographs from as far away as South America and Korea. On the day he was buried, a baseball arrived in the mail with a request for a signature, his daughter, Cindy Adams said.

Adams bestowed his remarkable name on his son, who passed it to his son, and on through the generations; Ace Adams, his great-great-grandson, is a toddler.