Ex-Marines pitcher Serafini joins infamous list with arrest for murder

TOKYO — Not many MLB or NPB players have ever been arrested for murder. Ralph Schwamb, a one-time pitcher for the St. Louis Browns, committed a murder in 1948 in Long Beach, California, as a way of paying off a gambling debt to a mobster. He served 10 years in prison before being paroled.

In Japan, there was Hiroshi Ogawa, a former pitcher for the Lotte Orions. In 2004, he was convicted by a Saitama Court of murdering a 67-year-old woman and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Now you can add Dan Serafini to the list.

Serafini, a former first-round draft pick of the Minnesota Twins, who pitched for seven years in MLB, was arrested by authorities in October of this year in Winnemucca, Nevada, in connection with the June 2021 murder of 70-year-old Robert Gary Spohr, and the attempted murder of 68-year-old Wendy Wood, Spohr’s wife,  They were Serafini’s father and mother-in-law, respectively.