A Very OK Podcast
Episode 15: “Killing of Umpire Forbidden”
May 17, 2022
Episode Transcript
(upbeat music playing)
Trait Thompson: Hello, and welcome to A Very OK Podcast. My name is Trait Thompson. I’m the executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society. And here with me, as always, is Dr. Bob Blackburn. Bob, how are you doing today?
Dr. Bob Blackburn: Doing great, Trait. This has been an unusual spring, but today is a beautiful rainy day, and I always like rain when baseball season starts.
Thompson: Well, you know who doesn’t like rain are the people who show up to go to the baseball games because it kind of puts a damper on all the festivities. And it’s interesting that we mention that because that’s very fortunate of us, but we’re talking about baseball today, and the history of baseball in Oklahoma. And wow, Oklahoma has a robust history in the sport of baseball, and I can’t wait to get into this topic. But I also want to bring in Chad Williams, who is our director of research here at the Oklahoma Historical Society. And Chad probably is one of the biggest baseball fans I know, one of the most knowledgeable people about baseball. And, Chad, welcome into the podcast. And why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Chad Williams: Sure. My name is Chad Williams, director of research at the Historical Society. I’m from Midwest City, Oklahoma. Bombers. I grew up there, lived pretty much my entire life in Oklahoma, a little bit in Wichita. I went to University of Oklahoma. Giant baseball fan, but not the Giants; the Cincinnati Reds.
Thompson: Yes, yes. And if you could see him now, folks, I told Chad, hey, wear your baseball cap tomorrow so we can get a photo of us wearing our baseball caps together. And Chad is decked out from head to toe in Cincinnati Reds gear. And that’s just the kind of guy he is, because he always takes an instruction and just runs with it as far as he can.
Blackburn: Trait, can I add one thing about Chad, other than enjoying working with him for well over 20 years? He was the manager of the OU Sooners football team.
Thompson: That’s right.
Blackburn: He knew Barry Sanders very well—not Barry Sanders. I knew Barry Sanders very well. You knew coach, the King, very well, and Barry was in and out of our lives. We were doing some programming with him. He would always come to the History Center when we needed him. He was always willing to help. Well, Chad, because he knew Barry well, started talking about the coach’s video collection, huge video and film collection. We started the conversation going, and we finally convinced the coach to donate all of his personal collections of football footage to the Oklahoma Historical Society. We now have those here in the collections. The King is still part of our extended family, will do anything. In fact, he was scheduled to speak with me at a luncheon here right before COVID hit. That was the last time that I talked to him. But, Chad, thank you for helping to bring that collection in, and that’ll be valuable for many centuries.
Williams: Sure. That was a great experience. I was a head equipment manager my last year, but a head student equipment manager, and then a student manager for four years, five years, actually, at OU. And my first freshman year, we won the national title in ’85. So it was wonderful. And then, you know, all the coaches, all the players, you could go on and on. But Coach Switzer is incredible. On my phone, it just says coach. And anytime he calls, and once in a while call and want some footage from his collection, and I’ll just revert back to 1985. Yes, coach. What do you need, coach?
(laughter)
Williams: I used to, one time I drove his car in the pouring rain, just like today is a rainy day, one of his Cadillacs that day over to get his baseball cap. He had this baseball cap. It was nasty, dirty, one of those mesh-back ones. But he said, Chad, I got to get my cap. I’ve lost it. So I was like, oh my gosh, I’m in charge of finding his cap. You know, somebody’s going to steal that. So I went over, found it, and driving back, and he had one of those old phones in the car. It was ringing off the wall, was pouring down, hail was coming down. And I was like, don’t wreck, don’t wreck. (laughter)
Williams: So, but Coach Switzer is incredible, and he’s a great, great partner and fan of the Historical Society.
Thompson: That’s fantastic. Well, let’s—Chad, how did you get interested in baseball? How did you get passionate about the sport?
Williams: Yeah, my dad, my mom, and my dad. My mom did all the bookkeeping at all of our Little League games. My dad coached me, and playing catch in the backyard. Millions of people the same way, playing catch. My dad played fast-pitch softball in Oklahoma City, Wheeler Park, all over. He went all over the place to play softball, and he would throw that hard, fast-pitch softball to me in the backyard, learning how to, one-hops and all that. And, you know, just the love of the game was what he transferred to me, and I’ve loved it ever since. And, you know, he would talk during— there was one game a week. When I grew up in the ’70s, it was the major league game of the week on one TV game. And we were we would watch the game, and he’d talk about, see how Joe Morgan is getting down on that ball, see how Pete Rose or Johnny Bench is doing that. That’s how you do it. And, you know, that relationship turned into a love of baseball for me. I wasn’t that good. I played up to first year of high school, but I was really short and slow. I could catch anything, but I couldn’t hit really well. So that was where my love, and, you know, every night listening to the Cincinnati Reds —my favorite team; Johnny Bench from Binger, Oklahoma, 1970s “Big Red Machine.” And so I would listen on my transistor radio—WLW, the “Big One” in Cincinnati, was a Clear Channel Communications. So after six o’clock, you could hear the radio. You know, it’s not like today, where you could get that on the internet, but it would come through as long as there weren’t storms in between here in Cincinnati. And you can, I could hear the games. Marty Brennaman and Joe Nuxhall doing play-by-play.
Thompson: Bob, what’s your baseball history?
Blackburn: Well, again, my father’s involved there. When I was a little kid, before my parents divorced, Dad and I would watch baseball on television. Of course, I’m in that generation that first got to see television. Born in ’51, television went on the air in Oklahoma in ’49. But we would watch baseball on television. Of course, the announcers were Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese. And Dizzy Dean had a connection with Oklahoma. You know, from Oklahoma. He coached the Tulsa Drillers for a while, and so I enjoyed watching that.
But after they divorced, I went to Calvin Coolidge grade school on the south side of Oklahoma City, and my mother gave me a choice. I was eight years old. Bobby, do you want piano lessons or baseball? Well, that was an easy choice for an eight-year-old kid. Yeah, I said yeah, baseball. And Mr. Manasco, who lived down the street from us, because I didn’t have anybody— Mom was working on television by that time. And I could walk down to his house. His son was Keith, my age, and he’d let us crawl into the back of his pickup, and he would take us to this open lot on 44th Street right off of May Avenue, where we would play YMCA league. But we were the Calvin Coolidge Crocodiles, and we had some great players on the team. Randy Sanders was probably one of the most talented athletes on the south side, would become almost a collegiate wrestler, but should have been in the pros in baseball. He was our pitcher; could throw a curveball at the age of eight. Of course, his shoulder gave him problems later, but I just loved playing baseball. First in the outfield and catcher for several years. Played about four years. And then, of course, time caught up with me, and I couldn’t keep up with some of the real athletes when I got to high school, when I quit, but really enjoyed it. How about you?
Thompson: Well, I played Little League. And the big, the famous baseball story in my family is when I was, I think I must have been first or second grade, and my mom was pitching baseballs to me in the backyard. My parents were divorced, too, so this duty fell to my mom at the time. And one time, I just really got a hold of it. And next thing I know, I had pretty much cold-cocked my mom, and she was passed—I’d hit her, hit the baseball, and hit her in the forehead and knocked her out. And mom always says that she says she thinks that’s when I kind of gave up on baseball, that I didn’t like it so much after that, and I didn’t really play very much after that. I got into other sports that I was playing, but yeah, when you knock your mom out with a baseball, it kind of taints your ability to want to play, I think.
But I will say I’ve always loved watching baseball. I wouldn’t say that I’m a, you know, a super fan or anything. I grew up collecting football cards, and I was big into the NFL. That was my big thing when I was in, you know, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth grade. And of course, living in Texas, I was a big Dallas Cowboys fan. But I’ve always loved live baseball games. And so I remember going—Abilene, Texas had a minor league team— the Abilene Prairie Dogs, and we would go watch the Abilene Prairie Dogs play. And then when I came to Oral Roberts University, Oral Roberts usually had a pretty good baseball team, and I liked to go to those games. When I got my master’s at Texas A&M, I tried to go to the Aggie games as much as I could because they just had a really fantastic stadium atmosphere for all the Texas A&M games, and of course, living in Tulsa, go to the Tulsa Drillers’ games. And now here in Oklahoma City, used to be the RedHawks. And now, you know, try to take my kids at least a couple of times a season to go see the Oklahoma City Dodgers play.
Blackburn: In terms of going to live baseball, just two quick stories. One, of course, I was living in Oklahoma City when the 89ers became Oklahoma City’s minor league team. We were an affiliate of the Houston Astros. Rusty Staub, Jim Beauchamp, Ernie Fazio. I still remember those players because my mom got tickets at KOCO-TV on television. So I had free tickets, and I had an uncle who liked baseball. He would take me. But my first major league game, mom remarried. She took us kids on her honeymoon to Los Angeles, and my stepdad, Jim Weatherall, former OU football player, an Outland Trophy winner, All-American pro player, but Jim took me to a Dodgers game, and we sat on the upper deck, which seemed like it was 20 stories tall to me at the time, but Sandy Koufax pitched that day against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and one of my heroes was Roberto Clemente at the time. In fact, my wife called me Roberto Clemente as a nickname. But the Dodgers won 2–0, and Sandy was one of those outstanding pitchers. Left-hander, total control, and I’ll never forget that game. But then the 89ers were a part of who I was as a kid. I still have two baseballs. Grady Hatton was their first coach, and he gave Mom two baseballs with all the players’ signatures.
Thompson: Oh, wow.
Blackburn: I’ll have to, that’ll come to you, Chad, at some point here. But I have those baseballs signed by all those players.
Thompson: Wow.
Williams: Well, one of the things Bob talked about the 89ers. I, as a kid, I mean, this is a different time. You know, in the ’70s, we go play games on the weekends, and the 89ers were having a game at All Sports Stadium. So everybody gets into the back of the big of the truck, you know, 15 kids, 12 kids in the back of the truck with all our equipment. Dad drives us up to All Sports Stadium. And we go out on the hill, the old hill at All Sports Stadium and fight with everybody for foul balls as they go. That hill at All Sports Stadium is what I remember as a kid.
Blackburn: You got in for a dollar.
Williams: Yeah, yeah. That left field, yeah, left-field hill. Yeah. My first game, we were, my family was in Houston, the Houston area. And somehow my dad found out the Cincinnati Reds are playing the Astros in the Astrodome while we were there. And he got tickets, so I got to see Johnny Bench. It was ‘82 or ‘83. It was one of his last three or four years, but he moved to third base because his knees were shot from all those years of catching. And I got to see Johnny Bench hit two singles playing third base, and I think they won. I don’t know if they won, I can’t remember, but in my mind they won. So I got to see Johnny Bench, and that was Dave Concepción was still playing for him. And then the most intimidating game I’ve ever been to was my next, my next real game was in Texas when Nolan Ryan was pitching for the Rangers. And my aunt and uncle had really good seats close behind the plate, and you could hear him grunt on every pitch all through the stadium when he threw the ball. And that was the most amazing to see Nolan Ryan throw a fastball.
Thompson: Yeah, yeah.
Williams: And grunt.
Thompson: So, well, before we get into the history, you know, in my opinion, and I will say, you know, like I said, I grew up liking football more than baseball. But I’ll tell you this, I think baseball movies are the best sports movies, and I have always enjoyed baseball movies. And so I know you guys have your favorites. Bob, what’s some of your favorite baseball movies?
Blackburn: Oh, well, I’m going to save my favorite for you, because you’re the leader of the pack here. But I really like two movies: one made for TV, one theatrical. But Sandlot, and I think I identified with that because I was not the most talented player, but I had a great enthusiasm for it, made great friends, and I just liked the story of that young kid who didn’t have a father around and but yet found neighbors and found kids he could identify with who helped him. You know, it was just a great, heartwarming story. But I think in terms of a more recent movie, made for TV: 61, about Mickey Mantle.
Thompson: That was a great movie.
Blackburn: Mickey Mantle, of course, was my childhood. We’ll talk about him again here later as we talk about players. But Mickey Mantle was my hero. I would trade two Willie Mays and two Hank Aarons and a Yogi Berra for a Mickey Mantle baseball card when we were buying those in the late ’50s and early ’60s.
Thompson: And if you still had those cards, you’d be in really good shape.
Blackburn: I would. No telling what happened to them in all the moves. But I think just seeing and kind of getting an insider’s view of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, that relationship, the other players. Because I met Yogi Berra, and I’ve met Tony Kubek and Bobby Richardson and some of the players off of that team. And so that was very meaningful for me, taking me back to my childhood in both cases.
Thompson: Yeah, yeah. Chad, how about you?
Williams: Yeah, A League of Their Own. I went and saw the movie A League of Their Own 20-plus times at the dollar movie, after it had come out, regularly theatrical release. And I just love the movie. I mean, if you haven’t watched it, go find it on a streaming service or something, but it’s incredible. Tom Hanks is a manager and all the Women’s Baseball League, World War II. And it just grabs you emotionally like you’re saying, Trait. It’s a movie that, he has, Tom Hanks has a great speech toward the end. He’s talking about what baseball means to him. And, you know, it just, every time it comes on the TV, I have to watch it. It’s just incredible. And then there’s a movie called Talent for the Game. It’s Edward James Olmos.
Thompson: Well, before you talk about that.
Williams: Oh, go ahead.
Thompson: One of the most iconic lines in movie history is in A League of Their Own. You want to say it?
Williams: No, go ahead. I’ll let you.
Thompson: “There’s no crying in baseball!” (laughter) One of the most iconic lines in cinematic history, for sure.
Williams: Yeah. And I constantly am doing that to all my friends, you know. Whatever they’re coming up with, I use some baseball line, some famous, quote or un-famous quote because they’re like, what’s that from? You haven’t seen that movie. You know? So other, the Talent for the Game, Edward James Olmos is a scout, and he’s going to get fired from his team in California if he doesn’t find the next great rookie. So he goes out, and he’s doing his normal thing, and he finds this pitcher that is like a Nolan Ryan at 18 years old, and convinced the parents to let him come back and audition for a minor league spot. And it’s kind of that story, the bonding between the scout and the kid that, you know, is from a little town and just plays locally, but he’s got a golden arm. So that and then Field of Dreams and Bull Durham are pretty high up there on my list.
Thompson: Yeah. Well, Field of Dreams is probably my favorite baseball movie. And I think it was part of that is because it came on, it came out when I think I was in fifth or sixth grade. And it just was at that time when the magic of that movie really got me, you know, it grabbed me from the first. I remember watching it at my friend’s birthday party. We watched it that night. In fact, I remember there’s that little intro section where they’re talking about their time at college, and the parents are, they talked about, yeah, we smoked a little grass when we were in college, and I remember my friend’s mom saying, Don’t listen to that, kids! But I loved the magic of that movie. In fact, I later went back and read the novel by J. D. Salinger that the movie is based on. But this is, to me, is one of the all-time quotes from Field of Dreams, and it’s James Earl Jones as Terence Mann saying, “the one,”— and I’m not going to do the voice because nobody can mimic James Earl Jones’ voice— but, “the one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will definitely come.” And I like to watch that movie because, you know, things seem bad sometimes in our politics. Things seem bad sometimes in our world. But that quote about that “things could be good again,” I don’t know, it offers some hope. And the scene at the end always gets me. “Wanna have a catch, Dad?” Oh man.
Williams: And I actually, I don’t know if you all have been there, but I went to Wyoming in 2019, right before COVID. And on the way, we’re trying to figure out ways to get in Wyoming. And I said, let’s go to Field of Dreams in Iowa. So we went, drove to Iowa, saw Field of Dreams. I filmed going through the everywhere on the ballpark, pictures, and walking through the cornfields. And then that’s when I found out, hey, they’re going to build a major league stadium about half a mile beyond Field of Dreams, and they’re going to have games there every year. And last year was the first time two major league teams played games.
Thompson: I remember that.
Williams: on Field of Dreams. Yeah, this year my Cincinnati Reds, 4–19, or 4–20, horrible start, are going to be in that game. So I can’t wait to see that. But if you ever get to Iowa, go to the Field of Dreams.
Thompson: Well, lots of great movies. We could probably talk all day, but Bull Durham, Major League, Eight Men Out, The Natural, The Rookie. There’s so many good baseball movies.
Blackburn: Moneyball.
Thompson: Moneyball is a great one. But let’s go on and get into the history of baseball in Oklahoma. I want to tell people the book that I’ve used to do some of the research for this podcast is called Glory Days of Summer: The History of Baseball in Oklahoma, and it’s by Bob Burke, Kenny A. Franks, and Royse Parr. And if you are a baseball fan, and you want to know about baseball in Oklahoma, I definitely recommend that you find this book. But the first baseball game that was played in Oklahoma was played near Krebs in Indian Territory, and this book talks about how baseball was really brought from the east by the mining community. Those miners that were working in Krebs. So July 4, 1882, a game between Krebs and Savannah, and 300 people showed up, and it’s basically in a pasture. There’s really no formal grandstand or anything like that. Krebs won the game 35–4. The open pasture had sacks of hay and cans that were used for the bases. But that’s what they credit as the first baseball game to be played in Oklahoma. And Bob, from those sort of humble beginnings, we get into, you know, we start getting into more organized baseball.
Blackburn: And too, a decade later in 1892, the Fort Sill Apaches are moved to Fort Sill. And Geronimo was the head of that clan, and one of those former warriors who was in captivity with Geronimo was Sam Haozous, who was the father of Allan Houser, who did the sculpture in front of the History Center. But anyway, Allan, excuse me, Sam Haozous, captured at the age of 14. So he was in his early 20s by the time they get to Fort Sill, but an athlete, and he was known for his athletic skills, and he was on the Fort Sill Indian baseball team. The Indians all organized a baseball team, would play the soldiers on the base, and Sam was one of the star players, would play in the infield. And when Ken Burns did his documentary on the history of baseball, he focused on the Fort Sill Indian baseball team, and Sam Haozous as the star player. And Sam would go on in his life, when the Apaches there were given the choice of going back to a reservation in New Mexico, Warm Springs, or coming or staying in Oklahoma where they could get an allotment. And Sam Haozous had to make this choice about his life and his family, and he said, no, I’m going to stay in Oklahoma and took an allotment in the Kiowa-Comanche lands near present-day Apache, Oklahoma, raised his family. Sam, had several kids, one of whom was named Allan Haozous, later changed his name to Allan Houser, but became probably one of the great artists of the 20th century. I started to say Indian artists, but all artists, and is featured at Smithsonian and known around the world. But Sam Haozous was on that baseball team, and so it came early to the territory with some of these people who came here from other places. And it’s such a great game. You could play it with minimal equipment. You didn’t need much of a facility, and it was very affordable.
Thompson: And Chad, it wasn’t very long after the Land Run in 1889, before we’re playing baseball in Oklahoma City and in Oklahoma Territory. Correct?
Williams: Definitely. One story I want to tell you about is the Oklahoma Century Chest was a time capsule buried in 1913. And it had a poster about the first 4th of July celebration, which Dr. Blackburn knows a lot about. The first 4th of July celebration in 1889. And one of the photos that we already had in the collection was of a baseball game. They put up these crude stands, and here they are playing baseball. They did some horse races and things like that. We have another photograph that is of the Guthrie team. This is ’89, June, before the 4th of July, June of ’89, playing the Oklahoma City team. So you’re talking, you know, very shortly after the land run when these cities, these tent cities have sprung up. They’re playing baseball games against each other.
Thompson: Yeah, Oklahoma City and Guthrie used to like to play each other, and the first organized team in Oklahoma City was called the Pirates. And I don’t know where they came up with that nickname from, but that’s what they called themselves. That was May of 1891. They played they played their first game in June 19, 1891, against the Purcell Chickasaws, and the Pirates won 22–4. An extravaganza of hitting that day with the Pirates and the Chickasaws. Now, one of the things that I read, as I was preparing for this, that I found to be quite funny is apparently the atmosphere at baseball games had developed, and it was kind of a raucous and bawdy atmosphere. People were gambling. There were, you know, prostitutes and things like that. So they wanted to attract families to these baseball games. So here was what they said in the newspaper and what they circulated about the game. To get women and families to game, they said “no intoxicating liquors allowed on the grounds. No profane language allowed. Betting is strictly forbidden. Killing of umpire, forbidden. (laughter) Absolutely no prostitution on the grounds. And horses and carriages admitted free.” So I just found it a little bit funny that they had to specifically mention that you should not kill the umpire at these games.
Williams: Well, and nothing changes. If you look on YouTube and different places, you can’t go a week without seeing a new video of some parent that’s gone crazy and punched out an umpire. I mean, that was happening back in the 1880s, even before that.
Blackburn: You know, today, Trait, if you go to small towns around Oklahoma, the rivalries now are generally high school sports, either football or basketball or maybe baseball, but generally football and basketball are the big rivalries. But before the age of radio and certainly before the age of television— radio came to Oklahoma in 1920, television in 1949— is that every town had their team, and there were some exceptional players on those teams— former professional players, former collegiate players, and they just had a job and they could work. And then you had corporate teams, and it was very competitive in Oklahoma. I know that here in Oklahoma City, the Wilson packing plant, when I was a kid, still sponsored a corporate team. Fred Jones, I wrote a history of Fred Jones Enterprises, and Fred Jones sponsored a local baseball team—wasn’t softball. By the by the ’70s and ’80s, that had become more slow-pitch softball, but it was hardball pitch. And some of these rivalries, you’d have fights, you know, between towns. And they would play, and you really didn’t have access to national sports really before ’49 and television. Radio, somewhat.
My dad in Claremore was able to pick up St. Louis Cardinals. So the Cardinals were his team because he could get them on radio in the 1930s. But seeing that’s not really personal. You don’t see the players. You’re not part of it. You hear just the action through the voice of an announcer. And so baseball really had not become a national sport at that time. It was regional. It was local. It was urban. Well, the sport out here in the countryside was really between these towns and between the corporations and the urban areas. So Tulsa would have had probably dozens of corporate teams, and Oklahoma City, dozens of corporate. And then outside of the urban areas, these town teams and very spirited, and it was something to do during the summer. You also have to realize air conditioning was not part of our lives until the 1950s, and then even slowly in some houses. I remember our first air conditioner was not until the 1960s, and so through the ’50s, during the summer, you didn’t stay in the house. It was hot. You’d get outside. And so if you’re a kid in a neighborhood, you’re outside playing, and then you go to things: stock car races, others. But baseball was still the draw. So the Oklahoma City Indians, just barely before I was born, and then the 89ers come in the late 1950s, and they build a stadium out at the fairgrounds, All Sports Stadium. And I can still visualize every part of that 410 feet to the centerfield. Why I remember that, I don’t know, but it was green. And then the billboards around it and just the whole experience there, of baseball being part of our lives much more than it is today. Now, there’s so many options for people. And with air conditioning, people tend to stay inside. But until the ’50s, baseball had a different role in our lives in Oklahoma.
Thompson: Well, it’s like you said, those town teams and those sandlot teams ultimately became feeders for the professional teams. And people would go out, like you said, Chad, and people would scout for that. And I found information. The first sandlot baseball tournament took place in 1927 in Oklahoma City, and it was way for the Oklahoma City Indians baseball team to be able to scout talent for the club. So they decided, they got a bunch of people together and a bunch of corporate sponsorship and said, let’s offer prizes to players to come and play in this tournament, and that way they can scout out the best players to bring on to the team. The prize was a gold watch for the tournament champions. If you were throwing a no-hitter, you would get a radio that was worth $100. If you were, if you hit a home run, you got five gallons of gasoline from the local gas station.
Blackburn: That cost a whole dollar for five gallons.
Thompson: Yeah, exactly. But you mentioned the Packers, the Wilson Packers, they won that tournament, Oklahoma City’s Wilson Packers. And surprisingly enough, one of the better town teams in that era was Broken Bow. And they beat Broken Bow by a score of 5–2. And apparently, OU pitcher Hall “Hally” Snodgrass was the difference-maker in the tournament. Other notable players Raymond Allen, Rip Radcliff; he played first base for the Pittsburgh team here in Oklahoma, who played in that tournament and then later played for the Chicago White Sox, and over ten seasons, he had a lifetime batting average at .311. Roy “Peaches” Davis was another person who later went on to become a pro baseball player, and he played for the, get this, get the name of this team from Duncan, the Halliburton Cementers from Duncan, and he later went to pitch for the Cincinnati Reds, Chad.
Williams: Nice. Yeah, and it’s really incredible because we don’t have a major league team in Oklahoma. You know, you have the Rangers, the Royals, the Cardinals that are close. But there was barnstorming going on. I know I have a, there’s a great picture in my office. In 1918, the barnstorming players. Players didn’t get paid like they get paid today, so they had to have jobs after the season. So there’s this great panoramic photograph that’s above my desk, and it’s Walter Johnson, who is in the Hall of Fame, probably the second-most famous pitcher going into the Hall of Fame, next to Cy Young, from the Washington, the Washington team against Walter Kinney from the Boston Red Sox. So they barnstormed. They went to Oilton, Oklahoma. They pitched, and they would have the local players play them, and then there would be some other major league players that came with them. But, you know, mostly it was a mixture of locals, and they used Model-T cars to create the baseball diamond, and Oilton won 1–0 behind Walter Johnson in ten innings. It was 0–0 through nine. And this photograph is incredible. If you scan it and zoom in, you can see a little baby crawling back behind the Model-Ts away from his parents. I always thought, I wonder where that kid is today? In 1918, would that kid still be alive today?
Thompson: Chad, that brings up an interesting point. And we’ve got thousands of photographs in our collection, actually millions of photographs in our collection here at OHS. But if people want to see some of those good old baseball photographs, where can they go?
Williams: Yeah. Our online platform is called The Gateway to Oklahoma History. That was started ten years ago. It was actually the anniversary of when The Gateway went live, and this is a free online platform of digital history of Oklahoma. We have four-plus million newspaper pages, pushing a million photographs or more, putting more and more on each day. And you can go to gateway.okhistory.org, or just Google Gateway to Oklahoma history. And you will just type in “baseball” and you’ll see that there’s close to 10,000 photographs. These could be American Indian teams. It could be from your hometown, or it could be major league teams, college teams, incredible access to Oklahoma history through The Gateway. So definitely go to The Gateway to Oklahoma History, and you can download these images and use them for your personal use.
Also, we have YouTube channels. Just type in on YouTube: Oklahoma Historical Society. We have three different channels, lots of footage of different baseball games. Local people always had their cameras, especially when cameras were affordable, video cameras. And they would film those, and some of those we’ve put on our YouTube channels, and we have some, like Bob was talking about, the Indians in Oklahoma City. We have footage of that stadium, which is really incredible. So go to YouTube, Oklahoma Historical Society and The Gateway to Oklahoma History, gateway.okhistory.org, and you can see a lot of Oklahoma history on baseball.
Blackburn: Chad, a couple of years ago, I remember when we brought in the collections from the Chandler Baseball Camp and some instructional videos. Are those on YouTube now, or maybe they will be soon?
Williams: They will be. They will be soon. There’s photographs, definitely, on The Gateway of the Chandler baseball camp, which is, if you haven’t visited there, drive to Chandler. You can go, you can walk in these wooden buildings where all these kids, for generations and generations, went to learn how to be the best baseball players they could. And just a few of the names of the kids that went to the Chandler Baseball Camp–and this location is on the National Register of Historic Places–but Doctor Gil Morgan, famous for golf. Troy Aikman, Sam Bradford, football players. Bill Self, basketball coach. These were all taught by coaches, and the owner of the Chandler Baseball Camp was Bo Belcher, and it’s a wonderful piece of Oklahoma history about Little League and going even further. They actually had people fly from other parts of the world to go to this camp. People that had, their parents had a lot of money, and they thought they were going to be a big leaguer, they’d send them to the Chandler Baseball Camp.
Blackburn: And Chad, I wanted to go. Of course, family couldn’t afford that because it was expensive. But, on that 1959 baseball team, Calvin Coolidge Crocodiles, with Randy Sanders pitching, who could throw the curveball. We won our YMCA league in Oklahoma City and were invited to play at the Chandler Baseball Camp against those players. Of course, they were very talented, you know, up and down the roster. And my team had a few weak links like me, but we got to play under the lights, and I’ll never forget that by playing there. You know, I was playing catcher in that particular game, and I remember normally our backstops were only about eight feet behind us on these little open lots in Oklahoma City. Well, there it was regulation. It looked like, I don’t know, 30 or 40 feet back. It seemed like a mile to me. Every time a passed ball, I got the cramps so bad before I was finished playing there that night. Real good memories of the Chandler Baseball Camp.
Williams: We did an exhibit that featured the Chandler Baseball Camp, and Bobby Richardson voiced over a film. They did a motion picture film of the Chandler Baseball Camp. That we we’ve got a copy here in our collections, and we used in the exhibit, and it’s incredible. And if you go there, go into these wooden shack-type places where the kids stayed overnight because it was weeks long. You stayed there and you ate there. You did everything, all the drills and all the baseball. But you go inside there, and everybody that ever stayed and was at the camp wrote their names in the wood, and it’s incredible. I’ve taken pictures of them. But all these names of all these kids living their dream, trying to become a big league ballplayer.
Blackburn: Don’t we have the evaluation cards on most of the players?
Williams: Yes, we do.
Blackburn: If any of you listeners played there— they’d have to be my age or older— but they can come and see the evaluation of their skills, like give it up or, you know, had some potential.
Williams: And they were serious. So if you weren’t very good, they were going to tell you, you know, because you’re paying for that.
Thompson: Well, before we get into talking about some of our notable players that we want to mention, I do want to talk about some of the best teams in state history, and people might be surprised, but the 1922 Enid Harvesters were one of the best teams in Oklahoma baseball history. They won nearly 80% of their games, which is a national record. They won the Class C Western Association, which was the league they were in, by 23.5 games. Their winning percentage was .795, and that is a national professional record for full-season teams, but they did not win the Western Association title that year. They were beaten by Joplin.
The best AA team in state history: the 1937 Oklahoma City Indians. They finished 101–58 and won the Texas League by 11.5 games, but unfortunately lost to Fort Worth in the league championship series. A couple of the best AAA teams, the 1968 Tulsa Oilers had a 95–53 record. They were managed by Warren Spahn, who is a Baseball Hall of Famer. They won the Pacific Coast League’s Eastern Division by 18 games and won the league championship against Spokane.
In 1965, the Oklahoma City Oilers, I’m sorry, the Oklahoma City 89ers finished 91–54. They were managed by Grady Hatton, and they beat Portland in the championship series. Okmulgee holds the record for the most victories in a season at 110 in 1924. And only four teams have won 100 games in a year. It was that Okmulgee team, Enid in 1922, Tulsa in 1927, Oklahoma City in 1937. So a little bit of history. Of course, you may want to know who’s the worst team in baseball history in the state. That would be, that honor, I guess, goes to the 1923 Muskogee Mets, who set a minor league record that still stands. They had a 38-game losing streak, and they finished 57–79, 27.5 games out of first place. So there’s some of the notable baseball teams, and some of you may want to go look those up later to learn a little bit more about some of those teams, but I think it’d be good, let’s talk about some notable players. Chad, I know the one that you want to talk about.
Williams: Sure. My favorite player of all time is Johnny Bench from Binger, Oklahoma. Again, like I told you earlier, growing up in the ’70s, “The Big Red Machine,” a dominant team, and here’s Johnny Bench from Oklahoma. He’s their one or two best players, the best catcher in the league, for sure, and he is just dominating Major League Baseball. And you’re proud, I’m proud that I’m from Oklahoma because Johnny Bench is my favorite player, and I got to see the Reds. Of course, now Joey Votto, one of my favorite players, he plays for the Reds now. He’s coming to the end of his career. But you know Eric Davis, you know, it’s different today, I think, in that people are more connected with Mike Trout or, you know, whatever the individual player is. My generation from the ’70s, it didn’t matter who was on the Reds. And if they’re horrible like they’ve been this year, or if they’re winning in 1990, win the World Series. I’m a Reds fan. And so players can move around, take more money to go somewhere else, I’m still a Reds fan. So my favorite players generally are with the Reds.
Thompson: Johnny Bench, called the greatest catcher of all time, born in Oklahoma City, but like you said, grew up in Binger. Drafted by the Reds in 1965, he was a National League Rookie of the Year in 1968, won two World Series, drove in more runs than any other major leaguer, has won ten straight Gold Glove Awards, MVP of the 1976 World Series, and went into the Hall of Fame in 1989. So, certainly up there amongst the greatest players in Oklahoma history. And Bob, “Commerce Comet” is one of your favorites. You want to talk a little bit about Mickey Mantle?
Blackburn: Yeah, Mickey was a magical player. Of course, every kid in Oklahoma had Mickey there, you know, in their constellation of great people. But Mickey was one of those charismatic people. He had the personality, but his talents on the field backed it up. He was so fast when he first went up. By the ’60s, his knees were already hurting him. But early on, he was called “the Commerce Comet.” He was from Commerce, Oklahoma, right off Route 66. And he was fast. He was a switch-hitter, so he could go on either side of the plate. So if he was batting against a right-hander, he’d get on the left side, left-hander on the right side, which gave him an advantage. He was a good fielder because he was so fast. They had him in center field. And a center fielder, of course, covers more territory than any other baseball player on the defense.
And, you know, won the MVP a couple of times, Triple Crown winner, where you lead the league in home runs, RBIs, and hits. He did that numerous times, and then just his flash, and his personality, and that big smile. And then, of course, knowing that he was from Oklahoma helped. And then the Yankees were on TV all the time. And I can’t remember, it may have been CBS. One of the TV stations, I think, actually owned a part of the Yankees at some point. So they were on TV every week. So you got to see a lot of Mickey Mantle in those days, and I can still name every player on the ’61 Yankees team. I would have been ten years old.
And I got to meet Yogi Berra a few years ago when they came to Oklahoma City to dedicate the Mickey Mantle statue out at RedHawks, now Chickasaw Stadium, and got to meet Yogi. Short little guy, surprised me. But I also got to meet Whitey Ford who played with him, Tony Kubek, who was the shortstop, and Bobby Richardson, Clete Boyer on third, Elston Howard. Of course, I didn’t get to meet Roger, Roger Maris, but he had already passed away. But getting to meet some of those players from that dream team and the impact Mickey Mantle had on young kids like us was magical.
Thompson: Well, Mickey Mantle, of course, born in Spavinaw, grew up in Commerce, took Joe DiMaggio’s place in the Yankees’ center field. He won seven World Series. He has a lifetime .298 batting average with 536 home runs, 1,509 RBIs. He hit .353 with 52 home runs and 130 RBIs to win the Triple Crown in 1956. Probably the greatest baseball player in Oklahoma history, for sure, and certainly one of those people that’s just iconic. You know, the legend will live forever of Mickey Mantle.
I do want to talk about a couple other players. I researched a few others that I want to bring up because of their importance to baseball, and go back a little bit farther in baseball history. And one thing I have to say is that the nicknames of baseball players are really incredible. I don’t think in today’s game they have as good nicknames as they had back then. But Pepper Martin, he was born in 1924. He was from Temple, Oklahoma. He was also called the “Wild Horse of the Osage,” and he played for Ardmore before going pro with Guthrie here in Oklahoma. And in the Oklahoma State League in 1924, he made $125 a month on that team, by the way. Probably good money for back in those days. He played for the Cardinals. He batted .500 in the 1931 World Series. He actually dominated that 1931 series. He had one home run, three doubles, five runs scored, five RBIs, and four stolen bases in that series, Chad, for your, for, no, that’s for the Cardinals, that’s not the Reds. But he led the National League with 133 runs in 1933, and he later went on to coach and do play-by-play for the Tulsa Oilers in the 1960s.
Another one, Lloyd “Little Poison” Waner. He was born in Harrah in 1906. He played for the Ada Town team in the 1920s, later went to play for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He batted over .312 of his 20 major league seasons. He hit .400 against the Yankees in the 1927 World Series. He holds a major league record for most hits in a rookie season, with 223—a record that they say may never be broken— and went into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1967. Well, Bob and Chad, I’ve just really enjoyed talking about baseball here today. And of course, we’ve got so much more we could talk about. So maybe we’ll have to do a baseball part two podcast sometime. But thank you so much for sharing your recollections and your memories and your own history of baseball, and this has just been really enjoyable.
Blackburn: Well, let’s hope that our listeners get out and go to a baseball game and share that experience with their with their families, sons or fathers, whatever it might be. Friends, daughters, wives; it’s a great experience, and people really need to keep baseball as one of these American traditions that kind of binds us together.
Thompson: Absolutely. Chad, any parting words?
Williams: No. I’m just very proud to be on A Very OK Podcast. I mean, I listen to them all, and now this is my initial time on, so hopefully you’ll have me back for baseball part two.
Thompson: Everybody put in some good thoughts for Chad’s Cincinnati Reds.
Williams: They need it. They need it a lot.
Thompson: Well, thank you all for listening, and we’ll look forward to talking to you on our next podcast. You’ve been listening to A Very OK Podcast hosted by Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn. The podcast is produced by the Oklahoma Historical Society. Visit us at okhistory.org, and find us on social media by searching for @okhistory. I encourage you to purchase a membership to OHS to help us continue our mission to collect, preserve, and share Oklahoma’s unique and fascinating history.
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