off the leash

The Best Books I Read in 2020

Posted on January 3, 2021 by Ken Dowell

As always this list has nothing to do with when these books were written or published. I just happened to read them in 2020, a year when, like most of us, I had plenty of time available to read. Was going to do a top five, but couldn’t decide which to these six to cut. I tried to list them in order, starting with the best, but they are all books that I would highly recommend.

Deacon King Kong, James McBride

A fun and lively read. That may seem like a strange statement considering the book is set in the 1960’s in a housing project in Brooklyn. African-Americans from the south have moved in. The Italian and Irish-Americans who proceeded them onto this surf are shipping out. There’s poverty and racism, housing discrimination, official corruption, mobsters and drugs, lots of them. So why is it fun and lively? Because James McBride has injected all of his characters with an overdose of humanity.

The Deacon part of the title refers to an old drunk named Sportcoat who is a deacon at the small, dilapidated Baptist Church which serves the residents of the housing project where he lives. Sportcoat is described as “a walking genius, a human disaster, a sod, a medical miracle, and the greatest baseball umpire that the Cause Houses had ever seen.” The King Kong part is the rotgut that his best friend Hot Sausage keeps him supplied with. It’s what keeps this old drunk drunk.

The plot revolves around one incident. Sportcoat, carrying some sort of ancient, rusted firearm, moseys on out to the main square and plugs the 19-year old who has been ruthlessly dominating the local drug distribution scene. Several subplots spin off from that. There’s even a couple of unlikely love stories, live the one between the near retired cop and the church matriarch who avoids answering his questions when he comes to investigate the shooting.

This is a unique and original story skillfully told. McBride has concocted a heart-warming tale out of heart-wrenching circumstances.

The City Game: Triumph, Scandal and a Legendary Basketball Team, Mathew Goodman

On the surface this is a piece of New York City college basketball history. It’s 1949. City College of New York (CCNY) is the best basketball team in the city. Madison Square Garden is on 49th Street and 8th Avenue. The NIT is the most important championship tournament. And Marty Glickman is calling the games on the radio.

But it’s a story that goes beyond basketball. It’s an historical portrait of New York City. It’s about immigrants and race, housing segregation and educational opportunity, bookies and gangsters, crooked cops and crooked politicians.

The CCNY basketball team was a fitting representative of its city and its time. The 15-member team included 11 Jews and 4 blacks. They were not pampered prep school prima donnas, they take the subway home after practice to row houses and tenements. Their parents were truck drivers, janitors, house painters and domestics. This at a time when there was still not a single black player in the NBA and when no NCAA championship team had ever included a black player.

My favorite basketball moment in the book is the 1950 NIT quarterfinal game between CCNY and the much more heralded University of Kentucky. Kentucky is a state that at the time still had a law on the books enforcing segregation in education. Adoph Rupp’s team not only didn’t have a black basketball player, the university didn’t have a black student. When they took the court against a CCNY team with three black starters, the Kentucky players refused to shake the hands of the black CCNY players. You know what happened next? The CCNY kids blew the racists off the court and out of the tournament, 89-50. Sixteen years later in the 1966 NCAA championship final Kentucky was still all white and when they faced an unfancied Texas Western team with five black starters, they again came out losers.

For the 1949-50 season, CCNY became the only team to win both the NIT and NCAA championships in the same year. It was an amazing accomplishment that elicited euphoria on campus and in the city. It didn’t last. That’s the other half of this story. One year later, seven CCNY players were arrested for taking money to shave points. That’s the practice whereby a team assures that, even if they win, it will be by less than the point spread, thus making winners of the gamblers who bet on the other team. They were not alone. Players from NYU, LIU and Manhattan were also involved. None would ever really have big-time programs again.

This was a time when college recruiters offered players packages that included weekly spending money. One of the City players had received an offer from the University of Cincinnati that included full scholarships for him and his brother, $50 a month spending money, a rent-free apartment and free use of a car. It was also a time when some of the players, before a big game at Madison Square Garden, would throw their coats on and go out in the street to scalp their two free tickets.

These scandals and others that were to follow resulted in decades of no tolerance by the NCAA for either gambling or for under-the-table payments of any kind, however selectively the rules were enforced. It begs a question which is still an issue for college sports. It is the players that the fans want to see, the players who are ultimately responsible for the enormous amount of money that is produced by big-time college basketball and football. It seems as though everyone gets a piece of that pie, everyone but the players who baked it. While all of the City players who took the bribes later regretted it (some even before they got caught), the pitch the set up men gave them was all about “why shouldn’t you get a piece of the action?”

While I’m an avid sports fan, I don’t often read sports books. Unbridled adulation and manufactured controversy are outside my realm of interest. But every now and then there’s a sports book that transcends the usual sport talk. Hoop Dreams and The Blind Side are two that come to mind. The City Game belongs in the same category. Goodman seems to not only have discovered what all the key players said, but also what they were thinking and how they felt. He can write about basketball with the verve of a play-by-play announcer while also presenting legal issues with the meticulousness of a DA. And put it all in context, the context of New York City at the mid-point of the 20th century. A terrific book.

Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides

This is a big American history of a novel. Three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family moves through Ellis Island, survives Prohibition, the Depression and war; is touched by the 60’s counter-culture, the Detroit riots, white flight, the Nation of Islam and more war.

It’s also the story of Cal, nee Calliope, Stephanides. Spending the first 14 years of life as a girl, at that age she finds that while her friends have grown breasts and had their first period, she’s growing something akin to male genitalia. And hence the name Middlesex, which also happens to be the name of the home where Calliope grew up in Grosse Pointe, Mich. Cal’s condition, apparently resulting from a mutant gene, relates back to the family history. Grandma and grandpa were brother and sister, mother and father were cousins.

At some point the story stops being about the events that shaped the country and the Stephanides family and becomes the personal story of Calliope/Cal. Given the usual angst of being a teen, and particularly a socially awkward one, it is hard to imagine someone so young also dealing with being of indeterminate gender. Don’t imagine it would be easy for an author to research the sensitivities and emotions of a hermaphrodite, but Eugenides surely seems to have captured them. Not to mention the attendant parental anxiety.

While this book is now closing in on being 20 years old, it remains current in its consideration of questions of gender identity. Ultimately it is a story about humanity. This person with this rare and unusual condition, a monster to some, a freak to others, has the same highs and lows, the same worries and desires as the rest of us. Middlesex is thoughtful, engaging and interesting. Reading it makes you feel rewarded.

California, Edan Lepucki

A story that begins near the end. Earthquakes have destroyed California. Colorado and Utah were consumed by wildfires. Snowstorms took out the Midwest and the East Coast. As one of Lepucki’s characters notes, even IKEA “took their meatballs and headed back to Sweden.” And if climate change hasn’t made things bad enough, income inequality is off the charts. The well off live in isolated and guarded “communities,” enjoying some semblance of their previous lives luxuries. Everyone else is in the woods.

As in almost every other dystopian novel I’ve read, a charismatic leader emerges who turns out to be at best deceptive if not outright evil. That’s not all. There’s a group of bomb making terrorists with big plans and a commune making a go of it in the wild. Pirates make life even riskier.

Having said all that you might be surprised when I say this is a story about marriage. Cal and Frida leave a ruined LA and head into the unknown to build a new life together. This is a couple that loves each other and depends on each other. Yet we learn their secrets, how they misread each other’s intent, their mistrust and their conflicts between spouse and family. It’s a lot tougher than just being home together because of a pandemic, as there seems no end in sight for the maladies afflicting this post-apocalyptic world

This is a great story well told. Full of interesting characters, there seems to be a surprise at every turn, most of which I’ve tried to avoiding mentioning here.

The Yellow House, Sarah M. Broom

Ivory Mae Soule (or Webb or Broom) bought the yellow house before it was yellow. It was in a section of New Orleans that they left off the tourist maps. She paid $3,200 for it in 1961. It was rendered uninhabitable 44 years later by Hurricane Katrina.

In between, Ivory Mae saw her second husband die, as did the first. She raised 12 kids, the twelfth of which was the author Sarah Broom. Sarah has a sister who tried not to make friends because she was afraid they would want to visit the house she was ashamed of. She had a drug-addicted brother who broke into the house and stole everything from his mother’s wedding ring to the microwave. Her older brothers went to a school where the teachers would call students niggers. And two of them were in the backyard grilling while much of the rest of the city was evacuating in the face of the impending storm. Yet it was a home lacking neither love nor warmth.

The Yellow House is Sarah Broom’s personal memoir of her and her family. It’s also a book about New Orleans, about racism and about Hurricane Katrina. Broom’s account of the days and nights of the storm is compelling reading as she describes it through the eyes of each of her family members, some in New Orleans and some outside. For the most part Broom recounts her family history with neither sentiment nor resentment. Rather it is written much like the journalist she was trained as. But that changes in the aftermath of Katrina when her emotions become part of the narrative. She realizes that the house she left when she headed off to college never expecting to turn back would in fact always remain a part of her.

This is one of the most interesting and well-written memoirs I’ve read. It is Broom’s first book and you get the feeling she’s put everything she has into it. Having read it, I was left with the feeling that I know a little more about the world and what matters than I did before.

The Plotters, Un-su Kim

“Ironically, the overthrow of three decades of military dictatorships and a return to democratically elected civilian presidencies, and the brisk advent of democratization led to a major boom in the assassination industry.” And so we have a story about the assassination industry in Korea. Plotters are secretive blokes who get orders from their clients, maybe government or corporations, and put together detailed plans that they micromanage an assassin to execute. Un-su Kim’s story is also populated with targets, self explanatory, and trackers, a kind of private detective supplying the plotters with data.

Is the author suggesting that this is how Korean society works? The orders come from up high to a group of enablers who then set up the folks at the bottom of the pyramid to do the dirty work, assume the risks, take the blame and pay the price.

This is a book of many mysteries. Assassins become targets, as do some plotters. And there’s territorial warfare at the top rungs of the industry. Nary a chapter goes by without raising a new question about who killed who and who’s on whose list.

This is a novel about violence, but the author focuses more on the psychological than the brutal. There’s even one or two empowered women working their way into this field and the suggestion that maybe killers have feelings too. It all makes for a fast-paced, engaging read.

Posted in Book reviews | Tagged Book reviews, books, California, Deacon King Kong, Edan Lepucki, fiction, James McBride, Jeffrey Eugenides, Mathew Goodman, Middlesex, non-fiction, Sarah M. Broom, The City Game, The Plotters, The Yellow House, Un-su Kim | 5 Comments

Hear a Book, See a Country

Posted on December 27, 2020 by Ken Dowell

When it comes to books, I’m pretty much a traditionalist. No Kindle for me. I’ve maybe read two or three books digitally because that was the only way they were available, but for the most part I want a printed book in hand.

I had never tried listening to a book, but the idea occurred to me as during the pandemic my eyes have sometimes felt strained or tired. Sitting at home I’m reading from a screen or book for a good part of my day. So I decided to try Audible. They offer a low cost subscription with a limited number of choices which is a good way to try it out. Those choices include a lot of classics and I chose as my first audiobook Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton.

This is perhaps the most famous novel ever to come out of South Africa. It is, of course, about race. It’s also about the disintegration of tribal society, urbanization, exploitation of the country’s national resources and its human resources. It’s about income inequality, housing inequality, educational inequality and just about any other type of inequality you can think of.

The book was written in 1948. That is before apartheid, but certainly not before racism and segregation. That seems to have arrived with the first Europeans. Paton, who is a white man, does a pretty good job of expressing the viewpoint of different races, social groups and generations.

The story is told through the eyes of two men from a rural area whose sons find their way to Johannesburg. One is a Zulu pastor. His son is involved in a botched house robbery during which he accidentally shoots the son of the other man, who is literally the white man who lives up on the hill. Without spoiling the story, I can say that both of these men overcome their adversity and rise above their situation.

Having listened to this book, rather than read it, you’ll notice I make no attempt to spell the names of the people or places. Perhaps one advantage of having a book read to you is you don’t have to struggle with pronunciations while you are reading.

Cry, the Beloved Country is old, more than 70 years now. The language is a bit dated and somewhat formal. But Paton’s book has remained relevant through all these decades because it’s a history that still helps to understand South Africa. I was only in the country for about 10 days several years ago but it was the most interesting places I’ve ever been. It is also beautiful and full of warm, friendly people. I am, however, afraid that some of the issues in Cry, the Beloved Country are not so different today.

As for Audible, it surpassed my expectations. I originally thought of it as something I would listen to for an hour or so before going to bed. I did that. My concentration wasn’t as good as it would be if I were reading, I did find my thoughts drifting off from time to time and once I nodded out and had to backtrack a chapter. But I also listened on headphones at the gym and it made my workout time seem to go faster. Also listened in the car and found it surprisingly engaging, to the point where one time I sat in my driveway continuing to listen for a bit. So I’m ready to try another.

Posted in Book reviews | Tagged Alan Paton, Audible, book review, books, Cry the Beloved Country, historical fiction, novel, novels, South Africa | 5 Comments

History of the Minors: El Comandante on the Mound

Posted on December 20, 2020 by Ken Dowell

When the Rochester Red Wings headed to Havana for a four game series against the homestanding Sugar Kings, July 24-26, 1959, they had every reason to expect a raucous crowd. July 26 was an important holiday in revolutionary Cuba. It marked the anniversary of the attack on the Moncada Barracks, the start of the insurrection. Before the Red Wings even took the field on Friday night they got a taste of what the atmosphere would be like. There was a pre-game exhibition between Los Barbudos (the bearded ones) and a military police team. Camilo Cienfuegos, a revolutionary leader who later became head of the armed forces, was the beardos shortstop. On the mound was El Comandante himself.

Here’s how the Chicago Tribune described the scene:

Castro and Cienfuegos — Cienfuegos and Castro take the field for Los Barbudos

“HAVANA, Cuba, July 24 — Fidel Castro made his debut as a revolutionary pitcher Friday night before a crowd of 23,000 at Havana stadium. He pitched to three men, striking out two. The third hit to the first baseman.

“The crowd, which included President Osvaldo Dorticos, arose and sang the 26th of July victory march as Castro went to the mound in the third inning. In the second half of the inning, Castro hit to the shortstop and was thrown out at first base.

“He was presented a check for the proceeds of the game receipts by Bobby Maduro, manager of the Havana Cuban Sugar Kings, for his agrarian reform fund. Several Cuban firms also gave him checks for the fund.”

The Havana Sugar Kings got their start in 1946 when they were called the Havana Cubans and were members of the Class C Florida International League. Maduro bought the team in 1954, changed the name to the Sugar Kings and brought them into the Class AAA International League. They became an affiliate of the Cincinnati Redlegs.

The Batista government was ousted in January 1959. Castro was a Sugar Kings fan and it didn’t take long for him to arrange a meeting with Maduro. Castro supported Maduro’s plans to bring Major League Baseball to Cuba. He guaranteed the Sugar Kings a home in Havana and offered the franchise a $70,000 cash injection to help get their finances in order.

It turns out raucous was an understatement of what the Red Wings would encounter in Havana. The Saturday night game extended into extra innings and, as the clock ticked past midnight marking the beginning of the anniversary celebration, all hell broke loose. A United Press International wire dispatch recounted the scene:

“A Red Wing spokesman said more the 500 Rebel soldiers poured onto the playing field at the stroke of midnight Saturday, signalling the beginning of a July 26th celebration commemorating the attack on Moncada Army Headquarters that launched the revolution in 1953. He said the soldiers fired machine guns, rifles and pistols into the air and ‘everything was in a terrible state of confusion.’

”Police reported that 17 people were treated for bullet wounds in Havana early Sunday morning.”

Leo Cardenas 15 years later with the Texas Rangers

The Red Wings third base coach Frank Verdi took a stray bullet, as did the Sugar Kings shortstop Leonardo Cardenas. Neither was seriously injured. That was the end of the Saturday night game and the Sunday doubleheader was cancelled as well. The UPI report suggests that the Sugar Kings thought the Red Wings had ‘chickened out.’ “They accused the Red Wings of using an ‘unimportant incident’ to get out of playing yesterday’s double-header ‘because we are hot and they are cold.’ They pointed out Cardenas, one of their own players, also was hit by a bullet ‘and didn’t complain.’”

It was not the last time that the Sugar Kings would get hot during the 1959 season. They ended up finishing third with a 80-73 record. In the playoffs they swept second-place Columbus in four straight, then beat Richmond four games to two for the International League title. That put them in what was called the Junior World Series against the champions of the American Association, the Minneapolis Millers, a team that included future Red Sox great Carl Yastrzemski.

When the series moved to Havana, 35,000 fans were in the stands, Fidel threw out the first ball, and Che Guevara watched from his box seat. When the Sugar Kings won on a walk off in game seven, the Gran Stadium field was again flooded with celebrating players, fans and soldiers. This time, nobody got shot.

The 1959 Sugar Kings had no less than 22 players who would go on to make the majors. Ted Wieand was ace of the pitching staff, winning 16 games. He was not that successful at the next level, making six appearances as a relief pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds and suffering an ERA of 9.95. Rogelio Alvarez led the Havana squad with 22 home runs. He also met with limited success in Cincinnati, playing parts of two seasons and accumulating a .211 batting average.

But several other Sugar Kings has long and successful major league careers including:

MIke Cuellar, who was Cuban, pitched in the major league for 18 years and was a member of the 1970 Baltimore Orioles championship team. He won 20 or more games four times and was the co-Cy Young Award winner in 1969. With the ‘59 Sugar Kings he had a 10-11 record and a .476 ERA.
Leo Cardenas, also from Cuba, had a 15-year major league career. The first eight years were with Cincinnati. He was a five-time all-star, a Gold Glove winner and was inducted into the Cincinnati Red Hall of Fame.
Luis Arroyo has an eight year major league career, the last four with the New York Yankees. He was the first Puerto Rican Yankee. The two-time all-star was a member of the 1961 World Champion Yankees. He led the American League in saves that year.
Another Cuban player Cookie Rojas had a 15 year major league career, including extended stints with the Philadelphia Phillies and Kansas City Royals. He was a five-time all star and is a member of the Royals Hall of Fame. He later went on to become a major league manager with the California Angels and Florida Marlins. He currently is a color commentator for the Marlins.

Despite their success on the field, politics caught up with the Sugar Kings. The following year, Castro began to nationalize U.S. owned businesses in Cuba. Under pressure from the State Department, Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick arranged a mid-season move of the franchise to Jersey City where they became a short-lived team called the Jersey City Jerseys.

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History of the Minors: Rochester Fans Step Up to the Plate

Posted on December 13, 2020 by Ken Dowell

If there is such a thing as a storied franchise in minor league baseball, it’s the Rochester Red Wings. In operation since 1899 they are considered to be the oldest continuously operating sports franchise in the United States. While others have seen a steady churn in affiliate agreements, the Red Wings have been uniquely stable. They were a Cardinals affiliate for 32 years, followed by 42 years with the Orioles and 18 with the Twins. A member of the International League since 1912, they have appeared in the league championship series 21 times, winning 10.

The 1956 season concluded with the Red Wings winning their second straight title. They had finished second in the regular season with a record of 83-67. They beat the Miami Marlins four games to one in the playoff semifinals, then went on to best the Toronto Maple Leafs in a seven-game championship series.

Off the field the outlook was not as rosy. Despite their winning ways, Rochester posted the second lowest attendance in the league. In his column in the local Democrat and Chronicle on Oct. 8, sportswriter George Beahon warned of trouble on the horizon: “Top brass of St. Louis Cardinal organization pulled out of this baseball capital (dateline New York) yesterday. High level meetings with brewery owners are scheduled this week in St. Louis. Biggest decision on docks is whether to drop Rochester Red Wings (and real estate) from list of farm affiliates. As matters stand now, Rochester figues to be guillotined along with Fresno (Class C), Peoria (B) and Allentown (A). Cardinal chieftains hope to keep the verdict a secret until December winter meetings. Right now the odds are 10-1 St. Louis will quit on Rochester.”

Like many other major league teams in the 1950’s, the Cardinals owned their minor league affiliates. They owned both the Red Wings and their home ballpark, Red Wing Stadium. But the mid-50’s were troubled times for minor league baseball. The growth of television and the availability of major league baseball games on TV resulted in a precipitous drop in attendance at minor league parks. Many major league teams were divesting of their farm system properties. In mid-November Cardinals general manager Frank Lane, noting that “the Rochester club has operated at a great deficit for the past several years,” made the announcement Rochester fans had been dreading.

The Cardinals did not pack up their bags and disappear. To their credit they left some time for a potential buyer to emerge and promised to maintain the affiliation agreement if a buyer was found. Beahon wrote in the Nov. 20 Democrat and Chronicle: “The fact remains, however, that if no Rochester individuals step into the picture, the only remaining hope is a public stock sale, which in recent experiments in other communities has had varying degrees of success — and failure.”

It is at that point that a Rochester native named Morrie Silver stepped into the picture. Silver was the president of M.E. Silver Corp., a local appliance distributorship. Rochester Mayor Peter Barry named Silver the head of Rochester Community Baseball Inc. The Nov. 20 Democrat and Chronicle quoted Silver announcing his intent: “I think Rochester can make baseball history by not only coming up with the $200,000 originally announced as the goal, but can go all the way and raise all the money needed to go into this project without a mortgage.” The cost of going ‘all the way’ was half a million.

Frontier Field statue — Statue of Morrie Silver outside Frontier Field, current home of the Red Wings.

In February 1957, Rochester Community Baseball placed the following ad in the Democrat and Chronicle with the headline “Rochester Writes Baseball History.” It read: “On Wednesday Feb. 27, the Rochester Red Wings officially become a ‘home-owned’ baseball club. Your splendid support has written a new chapter in sports history. Our hats are off to each and every one of you stockholders in Rochester and all of the area towns and villages who have made this home-owned team a reality.”

In what has been dubbed the “72 day miracle,” 8,222 shareholders bought shares priced at $10 per. Red Wings fans bought both their team and their stadium. The Cardinals would maintain their affiliation with the Red Wings until 1960.

The Rochester franchise would continue to be publicly owned. There are currently 5,100 shareholders and the $10 shares are now worth $90. The Red Wings franchise that the Cardinals sold for $500,000 was valued in 2016 at $27.5 million (Forbes).

After the sale Morrie Silver became president of the Red Wings in 1957 and later became general manager. Red Wing Stadium was renamed Silver Stadium and the team retired Silver’s number…8,222.

The franchise faced another potential crisis just last month when the Minnesota Twins announced they were dropping Rochester as an affiliate. But that crisis was quickly averted when the Washington Nationals added the Red Wings as their AAA team.

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More History of the Minors:

There’s No Equal Rights in Baseball

When the Mighty Babe Struck Out in Chattanooga

Was This the Worst Team Ever?

Ty Cobb’s Side Hustle

Posted in Baseball, History, Sports | Tagged 72 day miracle, baseball, International League, minor league baseball, Morrie Silver, Red Wing Stadium, Rochester, Rochester Community Baseball, Rochester Red Wings, Silver Stadium, St. Louis Cardinals | 3 Comments

History of the Minors: There’s No Equal Rights in Baseball

Posted on December 6, 2020 by Ken Dowell

As the summer of 1952 approached in Harrisburg, Pa., it looked like it was going to be a long season for local baseball fans. The current iteration of the Harrisburg Senators, one of several teams to adopt that name over the years, were on their way to a 26-94 season, good for dead last in the Interstate League. That Class B league itself would not survive beyond the ‘52 season. The Senators were averaging just over 400 fans a game and would see their attendance drop from 90,000 in 1947 to 30,000 in 1952.

But in June, Senators president Dr. Jay Smith had an idea. He decided that the person to turn things around for his sagging team was a 26-year old Pennsylvania Utilities Commission stenographer by the name of Eleanor Engle. The Senators signed Engle to a contract on June 21. She had been a softball and basketball player in high school and team general manager Howard Gorden claimed she had tried out for the Senators. Smith commented that she could “hit the ball a lot better than some of the fellas on the club.”

She never got to demonstrate that as along came a former Ohio State University basketball coach George Trautman, who at the time was head of the governing association of minor league baseball. Engle suited up and took part in pre-game workouts before the Senators June 22 game against Lancaster, but in her words, “I guess Trautman threw me a curve and I struck out.”

An AP story on June 23 had the details: “Trautman, in a telephone conversation from San Francisco, said today that ‘such travesties’ as the signing of women players will not be tolerated, and that clubs signing, or attempting to sign, women players will be subject to severe penalties.”

Likewise, the male enclave of minor league baseball reacted in a less than egalitarian manner. The same AP story quotes Senators manager Buck Etchinson, he who guided the Senators to a last place finish and in nearly-dead league, as saying “I won’t have a girl playing for me. This is no-woman’s land and believe me, I mean it.”

Umpire Bill Angstadt said, “If I was umpiring at the plate and she walked up to bat, I’d quit umpiring. That’s all. I’d quit.”

The AP also interviewed Engle. “I’m sure I would have been able to remain as a player with the Senators,” she said. “Why, women are good for a lot of things, like golf, politics, track and all other sports. Why not baseball? After all there has to be a first time for everything, doesn’t there?”

Not all the men were so unenlightened. Oscar Fraley, author of the syndicated UP column, Sports Parade, offered a different perspective:

“Baseball is agog today over the fungo fable of ‘Beauty and the Beasts’–and Fearless Fraley has just got to say that the baseball boys seem to be a bit stuffy.

“Times, as any reinstated recluse will tell you, have changed. The ladies came out of the pantry a few years back and frozen food stock has been jumping ever since. We have women welders, curvaceous cops and lassies who tool taxicabs with all the reckless abandon which marks the male of the species.”

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch interviewed fans to find out how they felt about women in baseball. They got a mixed reaction. Howard McColley of Wichita, said, “Of course women should be allowed to play. It would be good for baseball crowds and therefore good for baseball.”

Not so in the eyes of a dude from Oakland, Calif., named Dirk Schwartz. “I don’t pay to see a bunch of powder puffs,” he declared.

One might have thought Engle would get some support from Jackie Mitchell, the 17-year old Tennessee girl whose career with the Chattanooga Lookouts included a three batter appearance against the New York Yankees in 1931 (see History of the Minors: When the Mighty Babe Struck Out in Chattanooga). But alas, in an interview with UP, Mitchell lamented, ”Baseball is really too hard for a girl.”

Eleanor Engle baseball card — Eleanor Engle said of the image that was used for her baseball card, “I look like a skunk at a picnic.”

Engle went back to her stenographer job. In 1963 she got a job with IBM and stayed there for 27 years until her retirement in 1990. She generally shied away from publicity and avoided interview seekers for decades, although she did allow Topps to make a baseball card and was usually generous with those who sought to have their’s autographed. She passed away in 2012 at age 86.

And as for the Senators, they trotted their exclusively male entourage onto the field on June 22, 1952, and, true to form, got thumped by Lancaster 9-4.

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History of the Minors: When the Mighty Babe Struck Out in Chattanooga

Posted on November 29, 2020 by Ken Dowell

The Chattanooga Lookouts, a Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, got their name in 1909 after a fan contest resulted in naming the team after nearby Lookout Mountain. The Lookouts have played in four different leagues, have been affiliated with seven different major league teams in addition to the Reds. They have called three different ballparks their home, Andrews Field, Engel Stadium (opened in 1930) and the current AT&T Field (opened in 2000).

The Lookouts have won seven Southern League division titles and three league championships, the most recent being in 2017. But the most famous night in Lookout history occurred during a pre-season exhibition game on April 2, 1931. That was the night when a 17-year-old local girl who signed with the minor league team as a way to earn money for college pitched in an exhibition game against the New York Yankees. Jackie Mitchell only faced three batters. The first two were Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Both struckout.

Baseball historians will scratch their heads over whether to take this seriously. There is no doubt that it happened. Here’s how it was described the next day in the Chattanooga Daily Times:

“Jackie Mitchell hied (sic) herself to the hill, while the crowd arose with deafening applause. Babe Ruth, the Bambino himself, was at the plate. After warming up, Jackie shot one over with all disdain for the mighty slugger, but it was inside and was called a ball. While most girls would have been so excited that they would have thrown the ball in the stands, Jackie was 4 degrees cooler than the proverbial cucumber.

“Second pitch came with a quick hop and the Babe swung and missed. Another ball, then Babe cut under another. Babe waited, looking for another inside and Jackie breezed one straight through the middle. A perfect strike. Babe threw down his bat in disgust and stalked into the dugout.

“Lou Gehrig did the same thing except different. He went down swinging.”

MItchell walked the third batter she faced, then was pulled from the game.

MItchell herself wrote the following description of the fateful strike three for the United News: “I thought he would look for another one close and high, so I threw the next one straight down the alley with all the smoke I could put on it. The Babe let this one go, but the umpire called it for the third strike. Mr. Ruth was pretty mad, but I am sure he was mad at the umpire and not me.” (Pittsburgh Post Gazette, April 4, 1931).

While Chattanoogans were likely pretty proud of their local hero. They weren’t buying it in Brooklyn.

“Jackie Mitchell has struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and now she can go home and tend to her knitting.

“The 17-year-old girl pitcher who so impressed Joe Engel, president of the Chattanooga Lookouts of the Southern Association, that he signed her up for his ball team, was given her chance against the Yankees here yesterday and she ‘made good,’ with a little assistance from the Messrs. Ruth and Gehrig.

“Ruth did his act perfectly, calling for an examination of the ball after he ‘struck out.’ For this fine piece of showmanship he was given a Chattanooga version of the Bronx cheer.” (Brooklyn Times Union, April 3, 1931)

And there was no shortage of snide comments. This one came in a column called “Fodder for Sports from the Press Box” in the Bluefield (W.Va.) Daily Telegraph. “They tell me you may as well forget Miss Jackie Mitchell, the woman pitcher of Chattanooga, as far as pitching is concerned. She couldn’t throw a ball hard enough for a hop, nor spin it enough for a curve. It takes curves to pitch baseball and Jackie’s aren’t that kind.” Probably best for the author that there is no byline on this story.

A couple weeks after the Yankee game, Engel, a guy who once traded his shortstop for a 25-lb. turkey, had second thoughts. He announced that Mitchell would not be accompanying the team on their season-opening road trip and that perhaps she would be in a position to contribute further next year. There was no next year as Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, the racist commissioner of baseball known for keeping the game segregated, voided Mitchell’s contract, suggesting that women weren’t tough enough to play baseball. In an interview with the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Mitchell commented, “I believe I could qualify and might be signed by a major league team and might someday get to play in a World Series if Judge Landis hadn’t ruled against my playing in major league ball. He doesn’t give any reason for his ruling either.”

But there was also a lot of publicity and a lot of people bought tickets. Recognizing this the Joplin Miners of the Western Association signed a female catcher Vada Corbus, though it seems that Corbus never actually took the field for the Miners.

Mitchell went on to have a successful season for the Chattanooga Junior Lookouts, drawing crowds wherever she played. Later she joined the barnstorming House of David team.

As for the Lookouts, they finished the 1931 season 79-74. The following year they won the Southern Association championship with a record of 98-51. They then won the only Dixie Series title in their history beating the Beaumont Explorers of the Texas League four games to two.

Joe Engel remained with the Lookouts for 34 years and in 1960 was presented the ‘King of Baseball’ award by Minor League Baseball.

Sadly the Lookouts, despite their long and storied history, are rumored to be on the MLB’s list of minor league teams that will be cut before the 2021 season.

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History of the Minors: Was This the Worst Team Ever?

Posted on November 22, 2020 by Ken Dowell

The 1926 baseball season in Reading, Pa., started like this:

“Well, your Reading Keystones, 1926 edition, stepped out into Lauer’s Park yesterday afternoon to open the International League season against the Toronto Leafs.

“It was an occasion! It was the inaugurating of the eighth International League season for Reading!

“Just then the game started. All the rooting after that was done by visiting rooters, for blime if those Cannucks (sic) didn’t sock the Keys right on the nose for an 8 to 2 verdict.”

Those were the words of Shandy Hill of the Reading Times, who had the misfortune of being the beat writer for the Reading Keystones 1926 season. Six months after that opening day, and three managers later, the Keystones would finish 75 games behind the Toronto Maple Leafs, an organized baseball record. They won 31 games, They lost 129.

The Reading Keystones played in the International League, at the time a AA league, but still in existence as a AAA league. The Keystones got their start in 1923 as the new name for the Reading Aces. In that first year they finished third. It was the best they would ever do. They only had one other winning season, in 1928 (84-83). But none of the other losing campaigns were quite as bad as 1926.

In 1927 the team was purchased by William Wrigley and became an affiliate of the Chicago Cubs.

The Keystones best player was Frank Sigafoos. He started the season as the second baseman but was moved around the infield. He didn’t create a very good first impression, at least not with Shandy Hill:

““Master Frank Sigafoos, who was given the second base assignment, fielded and batted with the enthusiasm of an oyster meeting a squirt of lemon juice, and possessed about as much color as a quart of dishwater.”

What Hill apparently did not anticipate was that Sigafoos was a pretty good hitter. He led the team in batting with a .321 average. That led to a September call-up with the Philadelphia Athletics where he hit .256 in 13 games. Not enough to get an invite for the following season.

Sigafoos ended as a career minor league and a good one at that. He had a lifetime batting average of .313, playing is some 1,700 games over 13 seasons. Some of his best years were with the Indianapolis Indians and he was inducted into that team’s Hall of Fame.

The ace of the pitching staff was Charles “Moose” Sweeney. He lost an astounding 29 games, finishing with a record of 10-29 and a 4.75 ERA, the best on the team. Sweeney led the league in complete games with 28, possibly because none of the Keystones three managers wanted to put the ball in the hands of the other pitchers: Jim Marquis, 8-23, 5.83; John Beard, 4-15, 7.25; and Red Shea, 2-12, 5.50.

Sweeney also was a career minor leaguer who bounced around Hartford, Newark, Scranton, Buffalo and Binghamton among others. He had 120 career wins and if you take the 1926 season out of his stats, his career record was a more than respectable 110-83.

By the time September rolled around it has been a long season and Shandy Hill’s Sept. 7 game report in the Reading Times reflected that:

“The business of losing ball games is taken quite seriously by those Reading Keystones. Yesterday they returned from a very encouraging road tour, when 13 games were lost in a row, and took up the losing streak right where they left it.

“Those Keys dropped the first game of a scheduled double-header to the Baltimore Orioles, 6 to 1. A shower prevented them from losing the second game, as the nightcap tilt never did get under way.”

One suspects Hill was happy to get out of there after one game. He was not alone. The Keystones drew a total of 32,000 fans for their entire 80 game home season, an average of a paltry 400 fans per game. By 1932, they packed their bats and balls and moved to Albany.

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History of the Minors: Ty Cobb’s Side Hustle

Posted on November 15, 2020 by Ken Dowell

In the 1916 World Series, the Boston Red Sox beat the Brooklyn Dodgers four games to two. The clincher was played on Oct. 12. Three days later they were in a ballpark called Lighthouse Park in Connecticut playing a semi-pro team called the New Haven Colonials. But this wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill small town semi-pro team. The game report in the next day’s Bridgeport Times and Evening Farmer tells you why:

“Ty Cobb played first base for the Colonials and put forth his best efforts from kickoff to curfew. He hit the Boston pitcher for a double and a single, displayed speed on the paths that do not show in the box score…”

Cobb, the Detroit Tigers Hall of Fame center fielder, was coming off a season in which he hit .370, had over 200 hits, and led the league in stolen bases with 68. And who was that pitcher who he got two hits off of?

“Babe Ruth, the big left-hander, who pitched the Red Sox to victory in the second game of the world’s series classic, was on the mound for the visitors. Ruth yielded his opponent but six hits, Cobb helping himself to two.”

The game ended in a 3-3 tie, abandoned after the ninth inning. The Bridgeport Times reporter explains, “The impending darkness, together with a cold wave which made it uncomfortable for players and spectators alike, forced operations to cease before the knot could be untied.”

Baseball players were not awash in lucrative contracts back in 1916. The New Haven game was an extra payday, a side hustle.The American League didn’t see it that way and the league fined Cobb and each of the Red Sox players $50. Not a problem for Cobb, who still cleared $750 for the day’s work.

The Colonials were the brainchild of George Weiss, who as a 21-year old Yale dropout, put the team together in 1915 with two former high school teammates. Later the Colonials would become a member of an “outlaw” minor league affiliated with the Federal League, a third major league created to compete with the American and National at the time.

Weiss is the one who brought Cobb into the picture. It was in August 1916 when Weiss enticed Cobb to spend his day off playing in New Haven by floating an offer of $300. Cobb joined the Colonials for a game against their inter-city rivals the New Haven Murlins. Cobb hit a single and double and scored a run in four at bats. More importantly for Weiss, the game attracted 5,000 fans.

The Murlins were an Eastern League single-A team affiliated with major league baseball. That should have provided an advantage for the Murlins, but they were no match for Weiss. Since New Haven had a ban on playing baseball games on Sunday, the Murlins were on the sidelines as Weiss took his team to Lighthouse Park just outside the city limits. The fact that Major League Baseball also banned Sunday games gave Weiss the opportunity to bring in top ballplayers for an extra payday on Sunday.

Among his other promotions were games against a bloomers womens team and a team from China. The Murlins couldn’t compete at the gate. They didn’t do that well head-to-head either. The two New Haven teams met on Sept. 23, 1917. Here’s the Hartford Courants game report:

“With Ty Cobb on first base, the New Haven Colonials overthrew the New Havens 6-3 today… Cobb fanned once, smashed out two hits, scored two runs and drove in another.”

Eventually the Murlins threw in the towel and they sold the Eastern League franchise to Weiss for $5,000. The new Eastern League franchise was named the New Haven Profs, although it was also known as the New Haven Weissmen. Cobb and Walter Johnson, a Hall of Fame pitcher who had also played some games with the Colonials, were shareholders. The team lasted until 1930.

Weiss went on to have a long career with Major League Baseball and was elected to the Hall of Fame as an executive. He is credited with creating the New York Yankees farm system which produced the players that made the Yankees a dominant team for much of the mid 20th century. He was general manager of the Yankees for 13 years and later became the first president of the New York Mets.

Posted in Baseball, History, Sports | Tagged Babe Ruth, baseball, Eastern Leag;ue, George Weiss, history, minor league baseball, New Haven Colonials, sports, Ty Cobb | 9 Comments

Seasons Change

Posted on November 5, 2020 by Ken Dowell

Kittatinny Valley State Park, Newton, N.J.

Aeroflex/Andover Airport, operated by N.J. Forest Fire Service

Posted in Travel, Uncategorized | Tagged fall foliage, hiking trails, Kittatinny State Park, Lake Aeroflex, New Jersey, Newton | 8 Comments

The Gentle, Dreamy Abstractions of Agnes Pelton

Posted on November 1, 2020 by Ken Dowell

Departure, Agnes Pelton — Departure, 1952

A several decade long career as an artist brought Agnes Pelton neither fame nor fortune. There is a story about a collector in Santa Barbara, Calif., who bought two of her abstract paintings. He ended up unloading them at a garage sale. Initial asking price was $40. They sold for $5. Today, Pelton is the subject of a one-woman exhibit that occupies the entire eighth floor of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York

Agnes Pelton was born in Germany to American parents in 1881. She grew up in Brooklyn in the 1890’s. Her father died of a morphine overdose when she was 10 and her mother became a recluse. Agnes was home schooled, largely due to illnesses.

Pelton studied art at Pratt Institute where she had the same instructor who would later work with Georgia O’Keeffe. She lived a modest existence, largely off the grid. From 1921 to 1932 she lived in an abandoned windmill on Long Island. After that she moved to Cathedral City in the desert area of southeastern California.

Pelton made a living painting conventional landscapes and portraits. But it is her abstract works that have posthumously raised her profile in the art world. Pelton was a believer in numerology, astrology and faith healing and a follower of Agni Yoga. Her paintings are an expression of her spirituality.

When the Phoenix Museum of Art organized the exhibition Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist it was the first time her works had been exhibited since a 1995 exhibit at the Palm Springs Art Museum. It is the Phoenix Museum exhibit that is currently at the Whitney.

Pelton’s paintings are soft and dreamy with a sort of implied movement. Many of her works were painted at a time when other artists were focused on depression, class struggle and war. Today, living in a pandemic America rife with violence and political dishonesty, a stroll among the works of Agnes Pelton can’t help but chill you out a little.