Showing posts with label World War II. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World War II. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Ernie Harwell - Interview with the legendary Detroit Tigers broadcaster

One of the legendary voices of baseball, Ernie Harwell, died on May 4, 2010 at the age of 92 after fighting a lengthy battle with cancer. Harwell began his major league broadcasting career in 1948 with the Brooklyn Dodgers, acquired from the Atlanta Crackers for backup catcher Cliff Dapper. He worked for the New York Giants and Baltimore Orioles until 1960, replacing Van Patrick in Detroit. Harwell would remain the voice of the Tigers through 2002, providing the soundtrack to many wonderful memories of baseball fans everywhere.

I had the opportunity to interview Harwell in 2008 and I can say that Harwell is everything that people said about him and more. A true gentleman, he called me in response to a letter that I had written him and started off the phone call by saying, "I'm glad we finally got together."

For a man who has met so many in his travels as a baseball luminary, he made the 30 minutes that he gave me on the phone seem as important as any interview he had conducted. While our conversation went in a few different directions, I wanted to provide a few excerpts that served to reveal Harwell's character.

We discussed his World War II service, and Harwell explain how the war helped to shape people's attitudes towards integration.

"I think World War II helped progress integration," he said. "I've always looked at it [integration] being helped by three things, music, jazz music, baseball and WWII. They all stem from one thing, you can judge a man on his ability rather than the color of his skin in each one of those. If a guy can play a great saxophone, you can recognize it and he can keep his job. Same thing in baseball, if he hits .350 you know he's pretty good. The same thing in combat, if a guy can save your life for you, you don't have to worry about what color he is. There are so many other jobs have nuances and politics, but, in those three categories, there is a pretty good accurate measurement that you can apply to all three."

He related another story regarding his early experiences of integration at Emory University in Atlanta during the late 1930's. Harwell was able to recruit an African American band to play at one of the dances that he chaired in the middle of the heavily segregated South.

"The big thing down there was dancing," he said. "We didn't have any intercollegiate sports except tennis and swimming. Dancing was a big thing. I was chairman of the dance committee. We were getting these bad bands that couldn't play very good because we didn't have any money and we couldn't pay to get a Glen Miller or Tommy Dorsey or anyone like that. I said [to the others on the committee], 'a lot of these black bands are very good and they'd make a great orchestra for us.' We have a three day thing where the bands would play different dances and it would last two to three days, and nobody objected. The band we got was Andy Kirk and the Clouds of Joy out of Kansas City and they loved them. There was never any protest at all, and this was in 1939! For some reason, nobody objected. There weren't any marches, no signs. They played and everybody loved them and that was it. You're talking about where the Marines wouldn't take black people [Atlanta]. I went into the Marines in 1942 and they didn't take African Americans until the war got going a little bit."

While Harwell was never championed as a crusader for civil rights, these anecdotes give a glimpse into the mind of a progressive younger Harwell, living in the deep South showing racial tolerance and acceptance in a place where it was uncommon to do so.

At the end of our talk, I had queried Harwell about his willingness to give interviews after spending so much time behind the microphone. Harwell answered in a way where he not only welcomed the opportunity, but relished it.

"I do a lot of radio interviews," he said. "They can't get ballplayers, so they call me and I'm happy to do it. It's enjoyable to me, I don't mind it at all. I'm glad to do it if anybody who is interested enough. I don't want to be an old guy sitting in the corner who forces himself on people talking about the old days. If someone has a question or a puzzlement that they want to solve, I'd be happy to."

Harwell left me saying that it was "his pleasure," to do the interview and wished me luck with my project. After re-examining our conversation today, Mr. Harwell, the pleasure was all mine. May you rest in peace.


Sunday, September 13, 2009

Jackie Collum, 82, 1927-2009 Former Brooklyn Dodger Pitcher

The little lefty from Iowa Jackie Collum died at the age of 82 on August 29, 2009 in Grinnell. Collum, although only 5'7, used a devastating screwball to pitch in parts of 9 seasons in the Major Leagues from 1952-1962 with the Cardinals, Reds, Cubs, Dodgers, Twins and Indians. Prior to playing professionally, he served in the US Army during World War II in the Philippines. Upon his return from military service, he was signed into the St. Louis Cardinals organization, where he posted 24 wins in Class C St. Joseph in 1948. He cited being selected to the 1954 National League All-Star as a batting practice pitcher, as being one of his favorite accomplishments of his Major League career. After baseball, Collum ran Pioneer Oil Company in Grinnell, IA.

Here is a January 2009 article written about Collum by William L. Sherman of the Iowa chapter of SABR, entitled "Jackie Collum, A Living Legend".

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Hubert "Bert" Simmons, 85, 1924-2009 - Former Negro League Pitcher / Outfielder

Bert Simmons at the 2008 Judy Johnson Foundation NightFormer Negro League pitcher and outfielder Hubert "Bert" Simmons died on Wednesday July 8, 2009 at Seasons Hospice at Northwest Hospital Center in the Baltimore area at the age of 85. Simmons played in 1950 for the Baltimore Elite Giants. With Simmons' passing, the only four known living former Baltimore Elite Giants are James "Red" Moore, Andy Porter, Clyde Parris and Clinton "Butch" McCord.

I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Simmons during the past two Judy Johnson Foundation tributes at the Wilmington Blue Rocks stadium. He was an engaging individual, signing autographs for everyone and readily willing to share his experiences about playing professional baseball and serving in World War II with anyone who asked. We talked about the finer points of throwing a curve ball (his expertise), how he was recruited by Dick Powell to play for Baltimore, and some of his great teammates in Thomas "Pee Wee" Butts, Junior Gilliam, Joe Black and Henry Kimbro. He said that Butts and Gilliam were the best double play combination that he had ever seen. Simmons was also kind enough to pass along some advice on teaching high school students, which has helped me in my journey in education.

Last summer, Simmons was signed by the Baltimore Orioles in the June 2008 Major League Baseball "Negro Leagues Draft", which he said was his greatest honor in baseball. Simmons was held in high regard in the Baltimore area, where he made countless appearances promoting the memory of Negro League baseball. His generosity will be missed, and his memory will live on through the Negro League's Baseball Museum of Maryland where he was co-president. It is located in the Lochearn Presbyterian Church on Patterson Avenue in Baltimore County, and is set to open in September. Here is a video of Simmons and Ray Banks talking about the museum.

Below is an interview from 21st Century Radio with Dr. Bob Hieronimus


For more information on Bert Simmons, explore the following websites:

Baltimore Sun Obituary
Baltimore Afro-American Obituary
North Carolina A+T Baseball Alumni Association Article
Baseball in Wartime - Detailing Bert Simmons' WWII Experience

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Danny Ozark, 85, Phillies Manager, WWII vet and Dodgers farmhand

Death is never a timely thing, especially when there are questions that are left unanswered. I was left with many when the news broke of Danny Ozark's passing on May 7, 2009. A few months earlier, I had interviewed a spry Ozark on his cell phone for almost an hour about his baseball career and his attempts to ascend through the Brooklyn Dodgers organization in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Ozark, like many others of his era, was whisked away from professional baseball to serve in World War II, only to return to a crowded minor league system that was about to experience the effects of integration.

Danny Ozark / Topps
Ozark entered professional baseball in 1942, starting out as a second baseman for Brooklyn's Class D team in Olean. It was there where he was teammates with a future Brooklyn Dodger, Cal Abrams. Shortly thereafter, he was drafted into the Army.

"I was in the Army, and we landed in Europe on D-Day," Ozark said in 2008. "I received the Purple Heart in St. Laurent, France and got out in 1945. I spent three years in WWII, all of them in Europe. I never saw a baseball during WWII. I wasn't even sure I was going to go back [to baseball]."

Ozark described just what it was like to be there on D-Day.

"Well, it was I guess, the way alot of people ask me, and the best thing I probably said was, 'My underwear was very dirty and I didn't have a chance to change it for two weeks.' We were scared like everyone else, but we were young kids and alot of that stuff didn't bother us. Once you've seen death and people dying slowly, things like that stay in your memory. I can still visualize guys drowning after getting out of LCT's (landing craft tanks), because the water was deeper than they anticipated. Some of the guys that went down with the 60 lb. tanks drowned and we never saw them again." 

He was wounded in combat and later received a Purple Heart for his bravery.

"I received a Purple Heart for shrapnel wounds off of an artillery shell," he said. "The other battle we were in was the Battle of the Bulge. I spent time in Antwerp while the bulge was coming towards us because of the shipping they had in the docks where all of our equipment came in."

Returning from WWII in the winter gave Ozark very little time to prepare himself for spring training.

"When I got home in December 1945, my brother didn't go into the service and I played basketball with him until spring training," he said. "I got my legs in better shape than I had them before, but I never got to throw or anything like living in Buffalo [in the winter]."

Ozark, as well as many others returning from the war found themselves behind the curve entering Florida in February of 1946. They were also walking into history unfolding before their eyes.

"I didn't even pick up a baseball you know. Brooklyn sent me a contract to report to Spring Training in February. They brought us down to Sanford, Florida. That's where Jackie [Robinson] came in, right near Daytona Beach. It was the first time I got to meet him too. We were in spring training together in '46. Heck, the first week we started playing exhibition games. I got a sore arm like everyone else. We couldn't throw the ball, yet they kept pushing us. It took time to get our arms in shape, our bats to hit the ball, and for us catch the ball because we never played baseball [during the war]."

There was immediate competition from the players that lived on the West Coast and those that spent their military service playing baseball.

"Guys in the service, especially in the Navy, some of them played with teams in exhibition games where the war was going on, guys like [Bob] Feller, Virgil Trucks, etc. We had so many guys coming from California where they can play year round. They were so far ahead of us in spring training, fielding, hitting, throwing, as far as baseball was concerned. It took us a whole month to catch up, sometimes longer because so many players in the service came out and reported. Pitchers hurt their arms because they threw too soon. [Branch] Rickey wanted to see how hard you could throw. We didn't have the doctors like they have today where you could mend in a short time and bring it back like it used to be."

At one point during that 1946 spring training, there were over 600 players in camp. Ozark marveled at the talent that was there.

"There were so many guys that could have surely made it," he said. "It wasn't that there was a shortage of talented players, there was a shortage of roster spots for them in the majors."

The problem with having so many players in camp was due to the reserve clause; you weren't free to leave for another team that could use your services.

"We were in there like a bunch of slaves," he recalled. "That was for every major league team. We had farm system, and you couldn't leave them unless they released or traded you. [Brooklyn] wouldn't listen to you. They said, 'Hang on and you'll get your opportunity'."

For Ozark, that opportunity never came. After returning from WWII, the Dodgers converted him from a second baseman to a first baseman. Not only was he behind Robinson at first base [in 1947], when Robinson moved over to second base, he was stuck behind another Dodger mainstay, Gil Hodges. He looked back at what was a hopeless situation.

"Every year, I was stuck behind Gil Hodges. Where could I go?"

He felt like he had at least one supporter in the long time Dodgers executive Fresco Thompson.

"Fresco Thompson did the most for me," he said. "He helped me along quite a bit. He gave me a rule book. He said, 'You read this thing, and as your career goes on this thing will come in as handy as you can imagine.' He admired my family. He liked me and kept visiting me wherever I managed. I felt like I was going to get a shot to going up there [to Brooklyn]."

He did the best he could playing out the string in the Dodgers farm system, experiencing a few brushes when he thought he was going to get called up.

"The closest I thought I was going to get was in 1953. I always played against the big club in exhibitions, but they never took me though if they had an A or B game. Brooklyn needed a third baseman at that time, as they had [Don] Hoak and [Don] Zimmer [in Montreal]. I think finally they picked up Billy Cox and he was struggling too that year. I was hitting really well and Fresco came to the ballpark to watch me. I asked Tommy Holmes, 'Why did you put me at third base? I had no time there.' He said, 'Just to give you a change, we had Clint Weaver at first base, he was left-handed'. I wondered after all of these years if Fresco Thompson was looking at me to play third base." 

A few years later, Ozark thought that opportunity was once again knocking on his door.

"In '55, the same thing happened," he said. "I was sure I was going to go in '55. Hodges was having a tough year and they needed a third baseman and a first baseman. Thompson came again [to see me], but Frank Kellert took my place in '55. I'm almost 100% sure that is what happened."

Ozark batted over .300 in both AA and AAA. He was also among the league leaders in home runs every season. At times he felt like he was getting used to shore up the farm teams of the Dodgers instead of getting a shot at the big league club.

"You take the Kansas City team of the Yankees," he said. "[Lew] Burdette was there. I used to wear those guys out. They had [Moose] Skowron and [Bob] Cerv on their way up. These guys looked at me like, 'What is this guy doing down here?' You could have said, 'I guess I'll never make it,' but I never gave up. I just played to win."

He seemingly played for every farm club in the Dodgers organization, moving around so much that he almost hung it up in 1950.

"They sent me from AAA to Class B [Newport News] and then I went to Elmira [Class A]. It seemed like every time they sent me somewhere, it was a losing proposition. They sent me there to build up the team. We won the pennant in Neport News, I was the most valuable and popular player. In Elmira in 1950, I went back to St Paul, made two-to-three trips out of St. Paul [to Ft. Worth]. We really liked it there [St. Paul]. Our first child was born there in 1949. In 1950, they sent me to Elmira. That was when I was close to saying goodbye. They called me back to St. Paul though, and I kept going."

As we returned to discuss Jackie Robinson and the topic of baseball's integration, Ozark brought up two pioneers in their own rights, Hall of Famer Willard Brown and Clinton "Butch" McCord. Both were alumni of the Negro Leagues, and Brown holds the distinction of being the first African-American to hit a homerun in the American League. While Brown sputtered in his short trial with the St. Louis Browns in 1947, Ozark saw flashes of greatness from the 40 year-old player in the Texas League that Puerto Ricans labeled "Ese Hombre".

"I was in a home run contest with Willard Brown," Ozark recalled. "They gave us 10 swings, he beat me 9-8. He was kind of a hot dog. He could run, but never energized himself. He had a good arm and good power."

He explained how McCord's inspired play in heavily segregated Macon, Georgia mesmerized the fans.

"I had Butch McCord in Macon," he said. "He was a super guy. A good contact hitter, he didn't strike out much. He hit over .300. He became the most popular player on the team and the MVP. He was pretty close to 30 years old when I had him, and wasn't the one the organization was watching to replace Hodges at first base."

Towards the end of our discussion Ozark reflected on his coaching and managerial days in baseball.

"I retired in 1984 from managing after getting 20 years in the pension for being a major league coach and manager. I still worked for the Giants as a scout, reporting to Tom Haller who was the GM at the time. I worked for the Dodgers all my life until '72. I went back with them from '80-'82, coaching in the World Series versus the Yankees which we won in 1981. I was in three World Series with them. As I look back, five of us from the 1955 Fort Worth team, Sparky [Anderson], Dick Williams, Norm Sherry, Maury Wills, and myself all went into managing. Talk about a lineup!"

Ozark, as many others from his generation shook his head about how modern pitchers rarely throw a complete game.

"Alot of guys that are pitchers now can't finish games because the pitching coaches are counting clickers all games. The only person that knows when it is time to come out is the man upstairs. How can you apply the same rule [100 pitches] to each pitcher? We have two different bodies, you live differently, you have different eating habits, take different vitamins, etc. How can you tell whose arm can last longer?"

He cited changes in the height of the pitching mound, as well as increases in strength training as reasons for pitchers being injured more frequently.
 
"Today, guys like Clemens lift 300 lbs. In my day, you couldn't lift a feather. You had to have loose limbs. They can throw harder, yet they are tearing muscles more, due to the extra strength training. The big factor in pitching came when they changed the dimensions of the mound, when they flattened it out. They're using more of their arm instead of their legs and back, going downhill. Who would have thought that someone like Spahn would pitch the way he did for that many years? Now these relievers can't go more than one inning and get hurt. The mound has an effect and the baseball itself. They'll never raise the mound again because people want to see action."


Living in Vero Beach in 2008 gave him the opportunity to visit Dodgertown for the last time before the Dodgers moved to Arizona. The thought of the Dodgers moving signaled an end of an era to Ozark.

"It was sad to see the Dodgers leave Dodgertown, as I spent alot of time there with the organization," he said. "I went to Dodgertown the last year to watch a few games, and to visit Joe Torre, Tommy Lasorda, and Larry Bowa."

Ozark spent over 40 years in baseball as a player, coach, manager and scout. A baseball lifer and World War II veteran, he was a true hero and gentleman in every sense of the word. Some reporters had commented that Ozark was "too nice," when he managed the Phillies in the 1970s, but after speaking with him I couldn't imagine Ozark any other way. We could have kept on going that afternoon, but I felt that I had already occupied enough of his time. Upon ending the interview, Ozark left me with these final words.

"Anytime you need me, you give me a buzz,"  he said.

I wrote him three days before his death to see how he was doing. I can only wonder if he received my letter before he passed.

Rest in peace Danny Ozark. The man upstairs might need some good counsel on when that pitcher needs to come out.

Gold Card Auctions baseball cards

2018 Bowman Draft Baseball

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Ed Blake, Former Reds and Athletics Pitcher, 83, 1925-2009

Former Cincinnati Reds and Kansas City Athletics pitcher Ed Blake passed away at age 83 on April 15, 2009 in Swansea, IL after battling an extended illness. While only pitching 8 innings in the Major Leagues, Blake carved out a 15 year minor league career that included a stint as batting practice pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1943 World Series. Blake would later go on to say that experience was the most memorable of his career. Blake was fortunate enough to have a baseball card in arguably the most popular baseball card set ever, the famed 1952 Topps set. Up until his death, Blake still received many requests for his autograph on the eminent card. In addition to his baseball career, Blake proudly served in the United States Army during World War II. His son Eddie Blake Jr. was a minor league pitcher in the Baltimore Orioles system in the early 1970's.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Herman Franks, 95, MLB Catcher and Manager (1914-2009)

Herman Franks, pictured left with Willie Mays in Santurce, Puerto Rico, died March 30, 2009 at the age of 95 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Franks played for the St. Louis Cardinals, Brooklyn Dodgers, Philadelphia Athletics and New York Giants over parts of 6 seasons from 1939-1949, compiling a .199 batting average in 403 career at-bats. He lost three-and-a-half years of his career due to his Naval service in World War 2. His playing career was overshadowed by his success as a coach and a manager at the major league level.

In Joshua Prager's book, "The Echoing Green", Franks was reportedly involved in relaying stolen signals from a hole in the New York Giants scoreboard to the hitters during the 1951 "Shot Heard 'Round The World" playoff between the Giants and the Dodgers. Franks managed what is arguably known as the best Winter League team ever, the 1954-55 Santurce Crabbers. The team featured an all-star Major League and ex-Negro League lineup including: Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Bob Thurman, Bus Clarkson, Don Zimmer, Ron Samford, George Crowe, Valmy Thomas, Ruben Gomez and "Toothpick" Sam Jones. Franks went on to manage the Giants to four straight second place finishes (1965-68) and the Chicago Cubs to a .497 record (1977-79).