Inside Baseball
OK…OK… I have had a few e-mails asking where I’ve been! Frankly, I have been pre-occupied with our season finale homestand and preparations for the playoffs…
Another request I’ve had from some readers is for more “inside” stories. The following items do NOT qualify as “inside” stories on the Cats, but they do constitute an inside look at a pretty good portion of a baseball life, and I hope you, dear readers, find it of interest.
A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by an old friend, Kathy Gierer, in Columbus, GA. Kathy is a teacher / journalist and she served as the official scorer for the affiliated minor league teams in Columbus for about 20 years.
Columbus is losing its’ minor league team at the end of this season. The owner has decided to move the franchise to a new stadium in Bowling Green, KY and Kathy has been commissioned to write a feature for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer focusing on the memories of those who have been involved in professional baseball in Columbus.
Kathy contacted me to ask if I could take a few minutes to send her some of my memories. We spent 5 very enjoyable years as General Manager of the Columbus RedStixx (1991-1995). We were the Cleveland Indians class A affiliate in the South Atlantic League. There are enough memories from those five years to fill a book. I narrowed it down to a “David Letterman” list of eleven… No, I couldn’t whittle it any further… I actually combined a couple of the personality memories into one item to get it down to eleven. It might be a little self-indulgent of me to send these to you, but it is my hope that you will find these items an interesting “slice” of a baseball life. Here are some Columbus, GA “memorable moments” in a countdown to number one style:
#11 - Charlie Morrow purchases the RedStixx from Henry Gilbertie in late 1994….. Both of these men were good guys, but I knew the handwriting was on the wall for our departure when Charlie bought the team. He wanted to run it himself and he had his own ideas about how to do it. I could tell he didn’t really want the old GM to hang around. We spent the next season (1995) familiarizing Charlie with the community and the baseball world, then we left for a new challenge in Fargo, ND. Charlie did a lot of good in Columbus and it was a loss to the community when he died in March of 1998 at the young age of 42.
#10 - David Bell and Pete Rose, Jr. In our first two seasons in Columbus (1991 & 1992), we had two young third basemen with a pedigree… David Bell, son of Buddy Bell, grandson of Gus Bell, and Pete Rose, Jr.
I remember that David, just 19 years old in 1991, struggled in the first half of the season, hitting something shy of .200 with no homers…. but by the end of the year, he had something like 5 home runs and about 60 RBI. He went on to a pretty good major league career. David was a class act. Very mature for his age and a real pleasure to have around.
Both Buddy and Gus Bell came to Golden Park more than once to watch David play ball. It was a thrill to get to know them as well. I still have a framed item with all three of their baseball cards, signed.
Pete Rose, Jr. “Petey”… was with us the next year, in 1992. He actually did get to the majors briefly many years later with the Reds. For us, he was solid at third and he too was very professional in all his dealings with us. I remember his car being vandalized and he handled it with class….. and my son didn’t mind that after the incident, Pete asked him to drive his fancy Mercedes to our house during road trips and to feel free to use the car if he wanted to!
Although Pete Rose, Sr. never showed up at Golden Park (at least that we know about, because he was banned from baseball), Pete Jr.’s mom, Karolyn was there several times. Lois got to know her pretty well… I recall she like to be called “Kettle”… and she was shaped like one by that time!
#9 - Columbus hosts the SAL All-Star game in 1993……. We had a crowd of over 5,000 fans at “old” Golden Park that day. I remember handing out the all-star watches at the luncheon that day and giving one to Derek Jeter, who was a South Atlantic League all-star with Greensboro that year. Every time I see Derek Jeter play a game on TV for the Yankees, I wonder if he still has his little ol’ SAL All-Star watch from Columbus, I think about the fact that I still have mine… how many people have that watch? Me and Derek Jeter for two! Also, our field manager, Mike Brown, was married at home plate before the all-star game in front of 5,000 fans! I don’t know if folks in Columbus, particularly the “powers that be”, appreciated how neat that was to host that game. If I had more time, I would look up the total list of players who played in that ga me…. Derek Jeter is not the only big name player who played in that game!
#8 - Willie Canate is picked in the MAJOR LEAGUE “rule 5 draft” by the Blue Jays. This may seem strange… but at the time, Pat Gillick (now GM of the Phillies) was the GM of the Blue Jays. One day, he called the RedStixx office to speak to me. I was stunned. I had met him on a few occasions, but we were hardly pals. The reason he called is that he was thinking of buying stock in Synovus and he knew it was a Columbus company. He wanted my take on the company!!!! I happened to know a couple of people who had pretty good positions with the company so I made a call and got the head of investor relations to call Pat Gillick in Toronto. Later, he actually travelled to Toronto and made a personal call on Gillick. At the end of my phone conversation, Gillick asked me if we had any good players on the RedStixx. I told him that Willie Canate had been very good for us and I thought he had an outside chance of playing in the big leagues. Later that winter, the Blue Jays selected Willie in the rule 5 draft from the Indians…. they selected him in the MAJOR LEAGUE phase, which meant that they had to keep him in the majors for that next year…. which they did. It was Willie’s only year in the majors, and I feel that it would never have happened but for that call from Pat Gillick. Obviously, I am NO scout!
#7 - The 1991 rain-plagued season. That first season in 1991 was the wettest of the five seasons we spent in Columbus… lots of rainouts and even more “rain affected” games. We had a small staff and the field wasn’t in the best shape when we got there in the spring since it had been neglected all winter. I raked a lot of mud and was very frustrated… I remember standing at second base with the umpires, our manager Mike Brown and the visiting manager, I believe it was Lorenzo Bundy, and having what was close to a nervous breakdown… totally frustrated about our inability to get any decent weather. We must have played “Rainy Night in Georgia” 500 times on the PA system that year! �
#6 - The board of all-time greats. I was very proud of the board which was mounted above the main concession stand at the “old” Golden Park. It was my idea to create a very visible board listing the names of the baseball greats who had played on that historic spot. The list is long and impressive…. something that makes a first time visitor to that park appreciate the historical significance of the place. If it wasn’t my idea…. I am going to take credit for it anyway!
#5 - Fort Benning and the US Army. Everyone knows how much Fort Benning means to Columbus, but what I appreciated about it most was the opportunity to meet so many great folks who were in Columbus because of Fort Benning. Both active service, retired and civilian employees. People like Rosemary and Linwood Johnson, Dave and Linda Turner, Jim and Judy Walker, Steve and Dot Thiele, and many, many, more good folks who work or have been stationed there. These folks work or worked at the post and also for the team. They are solid, dependable, honest, just flat out good people who we consider friends for life. I was fortunate to be on the board of directors of the local chapter of the A.U.S.A. (Association for the United States Army) and got to meet the Commanding Generals and Bird Colonels who ran Fort Benning… We attended Ranger graduations, change of command ceremonies, and many, many more events that really reinforced my pride in America.
#4 - Dayton Preston. What a man! Dayton had been the owner AND general manager of the Columbus Astros for most of the 20 plus years that the previous class AA club had been in town. I had heard of him before we moved to Columbus, but you have to meet the man to understand his love for Columbus and for the baseball team. He was so helpful to us in getting started and getting introduced to folks. I’ve taken the reins of other teams in other cities where the previous management is of little or no help… they may be bitter about things in the past, etc. But not Dayton… he was helpful, friendly, just an all around good guy.
#3 - The RedStixx staff… both full time and seasonal. We had so many good, solid, dependable, honest, friendly, helpful, just plain GREAT people who worked for us over those five years…. I will list some of them…. I know I will forget some…. but here are some folks who I place on our list of FRIENDS FOR LIFE…. Rosemary Johnson, Dave and Linda Turner, Jim Walker, Rick Jacobson, Steve Thiele, Kathy Gierer, John Atkinson, Jack Rogers, Carol Dean, Dave Wilson, Kevin McNabb, Mark Littleton, and so many more… like Cecil Darby (our historian).
#2 - The announcement of the team…. in February 1991. We held a press conference at the Holiday Inn to announce that the old class AA “Mudcats” were going to be replaced by a CLASS A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians. The farm director of the Indians, Dan O’Dowd (now the GM of the Colorado Rockies) was there, as was Dayton Preston, Spec Richardson, Cecil Darby and a good media turnout. If I recall correctly, it was February 14, 1991 or at least very close to Valentines Day…. and we were going to open the season on April 9!!! We had the podium in front of a fireplace in the hotel and my back was to the burning fire. Richard Hyatt of the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer wrote the article for the paper the next day. He referred to having my backside to the fire… getting a new full-season franchise open and operating in less than 60 days! The ballpark had been neglected all winter and the fiel d was knee high in weeds. I remember mowing it myself the first time WITH A PUSHMOWER… just to get the weeds down! But we did it… we were up and running with the INDIANS in less than 60 days. We did not change to RedStixx until 1992… that’s another good story.
#1 - TIE….. Willie Bowman and Spec Richardson. These men are the two GREATEST BASEBALL FIGURES IN COLUMBUS. Willie Bowman was the peanut vendor at Golden Park since the day it opened in 1950. His sales pitch was hard to ignore…. “HEY, GOODY, GOODY, GOOODY, GOOOODY PEANUTS!” and the famous ‘WE HAVE A SPECIAL TODAY…. BUY ONE - GET ONE!” (Get it? If you buy one bag…. you get just that…. ONE BAG!) It wasn’t just his peanut salesmanship, it was the smile that he managed to put on everyone’s face just by walking past them with his famous call and booming voice that could be heard from anywhere in the ballpark. He was truly a special, vital and unique part of the Golden Park experience. I know it is hard to imagine calling a peanut vendor the greatest baseball figure in Columbus…. but that is what he is. Anyone who has ever seen Willie do his thing would have t o agree with me. He is the only peanut vendor I know who has a bobble-head and knowing Willie Bowman for me was a 100% pure pleasure. He is in my hall-of-fame for sure.�
The same thing goes for Spec Richardson. H.B.”Spec” Richardson grew up in Columbus. He started his baseball career working in the concession stands at Golden Park. Later, he became the business manager and eventually moved to the Jacksonville, FL ballclub and then on to the class AAA Houston Buffs. When Houston was awarded a major league expansion team in 1962 Spec had already become the right-hand man of the famous Judge Roy Hofheinz who owned the “Colt .45’s (later changed to Astros). In his job with the Judge and later as GM of the Astros, Spec oversaw the construction of the EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD…. THE HOUSTON ASTRODOME. A true local boy “made good”. He was the general manger of two major league teams and the NATIONAL LEAGUE EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR in 1978 with the San Francisco Giants…. he was, in his heyday, one of the most colorful and well liked executives in the major leagues. Spec started hi s career in Golden Park…. and made it to the pinnacle of major league baseball as a major league general manager. When he retired, Spec and his wife Tommye (also a local gal) returned to their roots in Columbus. Spec made himself available to help me in any way help was needed. He was not above sitting at a desk and answering the phones, nor getting behind a concession counter to sell popcorn. Of course, his advice and counsel was the biggest help.
Getting to know Willie Bowman and Spec Richardson… that tops my list!
There it is. A glimpse into 5 of 35 plus years in a baseball life. Looking back on it, those were some pretty good years. Our two oldest kids graduated from Columbus High School (also alma mater of baseball slugger Frank Thomas). We were in the playoffs at least twice… I have to look it up to remember… it might have been three times… but we never won the league title. The Fort Worth experience has been the only one in our career that may top Columbus, Georgia.
JPD
