1948 Ponca City gift to each player--a personalized leather billfold.

KOM Flash

Necrology Issue

August 22, 2015

 

In keeping with my pledge not to send out a Flash Report this week, I’m only stopping long enough to share the news of the passing of a shortstop for the 1948 Ponca City Dodgers and a pitcher for the 1949 Bartlesville Pirates. If you take time to read this report you’ll see where one former KOM leaguer got to meet and speak with two of the most influential figures of the 20th century and they both went to see him. There is even a photo of the KOM leaguer and the famous individual who dropped by his place of employment. That is on the Flickr site and that site is referenced in four different instances in this report. If you don’t enjoy the narrative of these reports you might like peering at the pictures. By clicking here it will start you out on viewing the photos of which there are four. www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/20581106198/

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In Memory of Kenneth L. Boyd

November 29, 1929 - August 17, 2015

obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?...

 

Obituary:

Kenneth L. Boyd was born in Lubbock, Texas on November 29, 1929, the only child of L.C. Boyd, Jr. and Eunice (Holcomb) Boyd. The family moved to California where his father worked in the aircraft industry in the 1930s and 1940s. Ken's passion was baseball, and he played for South Gate High School and several minor league ball teams, including the Santa Rosa Pirates. He graduated from South Gate High School in 1948 and at-tended Pepperdine College for one year.

 

He met Sarah Alice McCoy while working at the Northrup Aircraft plant in Hawthorne, California. They were married on December 19, 1950.

 

Ken served in the United States Air Force from October 1950 to August 1954, and was stationed in Albuquerque, New Mexico and then at RAF Brize Norton and RAF Lakenheath in England with the 4th Aviation Field Depot Squadron.

After leaving the Air Force, Ken returned to Texas and began farming with his father in Swisher County. Ken and Sally lived and farmed near Tulia for over 50 years, where they raised their two sons. In his later years he worked for the City of Tulia and the Swisher Electric Coop before moving to Lubbock where he lived at Cottage Village and battled Parkinson's disease.

 

Kenneth is survived by his wife, Sally, and his two sons, Blair Boyd (Lubbock, Texas) and Doug Boyd (Austin, Texas), four grandchildren (Brady Boyd, Bailey McCaslin, Lori Hill, and Jena Boyd), and three great grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 4:00 p.m. Thursday, August 20, 2015 in the Abbey Chapel of Resthaven Funeral Home.

Condolences and online guestbook can be found at www.resthavenfuneralhome.com

 

Ken served in the United States Air Force from October 1950 to August 1954, and was stationed in Albuquerque, New Mexico and then at RAF Brize Norton and RAF Lakenheath in England with the 4th Aviation Field Depot Squadron.

 

After leaving the Air Force, Ken returned to Texas and began farming with his father in Swisher County. Ken and Sally lived and farmed near Tulia for over 50 years, where they raised their two sons. In his later years he worked for the City of Tulia and the Swisher Electric Coop before moving to Lubbock where he lived at Cottage Village and battled Parkinson's disease.

 

Kenneth is survived by his wife, Sally, and his two sons, Blair Boyd (Lubbock, Texas) and Doug Boyd (Austin, Texas), four grandchildren (Brady Boyd, Bailey McCaslin, Lori Hill, and Jena Boyd), and three great grandchildren.

 

A memorial service will be held at 4:00 p.m. Thursday, August 20, 2015 in the Abbey Chapel of Resthaven Funeral Home.

Condolences and online guestbook can be found at www.resthavenfuneralhome.com

 

If anyone goes to that guestbook you’ll find that I sent condolences on behalf of the surviving members of the 1949 Bartlesville Pirates and myself. Locating Mr. Boyd took most of 20 years. After that lengthy search I found him living out his final years in the same place he was born. He had fond memories of his time in organized baseball but like most guys it didn’t last long enough due to military service. He started out in the Pirate chain in 1948 with Santa Rosa, California and the guy on that club who had the longest and most successful stretch in the professional game was Vernon Law.

 

Although the obituary didn’t give his middle name it was Lawson.

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Alexander Muirhead Jr.—Ponca City Dodgers

www.legacy.com/obituaries/sacbee/obituary.aspx?n=alexande...

 

Alex was born in Libertyville, Illinois on April 11, 1927 and passed away peacefully on August 15, 2015. Loving husband of Ginger Muirhead. Beloved father of Jim (Diane) and Marianne and step-father of Dennis (Jeanette) Swanson and Susan (Tim) Annear. He is also survived by several grandchildren & great grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents Alex Sr. and Ann Muirhead, brother Thomas Muirhead and stepson Brian Swanson. Alex enjoyed golf and bowling, but baseball was his first love. He played baseball through his younger years playing on leagues, high school and the American Legion, and he was also drafted by the Boston Red Sox. He was drafted into the Army in 1945 and after the war he played for the Brooklyn Dodgers organization in the KOM League. In February of 1952, he joined the CHP and retired after 31 years at the rank of Captain. Alex was also a member of SIR Branch 93 - Over the Hill Gang and the Elks Lodge #6. Friends are welcome to attend a memorial service on Friday, August 21, 2015, 10 am, at the East Lawn Memorial Park Chapel, 4300 Folsom Blvd., Sacramento, CA. The family wishes to thank the staff and doctors at Sutter Hospital and the ACC Nursing Home. The family request any donations to the CAHP Widows & Orphans Trust Fund. Arrangements by East Lawn Elk Grove Mortuary 916-732-2031. - See more at: www.legacy.com/obituaries/sacbee/obituary.aspx?n=alexande...

 

Muirhead was one of the former KOM leaguers who I got to know quite well. He contributed much to my early writing efforts with great stories, photos and even a billfold. To prove these aren’t idle statements I’m backing them up with evidence. The first piece of evidence is found on page 133 of my first “non-bestseller, Majoring in The Minors.” That book is no longer available but the photo was taken of him at his California Highway Patrol office at Culver City, CA in 1973.

Click here to see the photo: www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/20581106198/

Click here to see the inscription on the back of the photo: www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/20581130938/

If you click on first URL you’ll know immediately who the guy on the left is and from there you’ll deduce that the guy on the right is Captain Muirhead. What the photo doesn’t tell you and neither does my book if you happen to have it—is what prompted the impromptu visit. So here is the scoop. The guy who stopped by and eventually had his photo taken with Muirhead didn’t do so because he had heard the Highway Patrol Captain had once played for the mighty Ponca City Dodgers. As Muirhead told me when he gave me the photo “Dutch stopped by to use the restroom facilities.”

 

Muirhead had another visitor who came to visit a “real lawman” and to talk about guns. When that visitor left he handed Muirhead a pearl handle revolver. Muirhead told his visitor that he could not accept gifts. On the way out of the highway patrol office the visitor handed the gun to one of Muirhead’s officers. When the officer reported it to Muirhead he was told that the gun had to be returned. So, when the celebrity returned to the area some time later the officer went straight through security of the celebrity and pulled out the pearl handle revolver and said that he wasn’t allowed to accept gifts. That didn’t please Elvis Presley that a gift was returned. Alex told me that his officer never thought much about approaching Presley with that weapon on him. But, in that day, Presley had more security than the guy who visited Muirhead’s restroom in his role as California’s Governor—Ronald Reagan.

 

When a former KOM leaguer leaves this life I usually go the large three ring binders I have on each team. One of the things I came across that Muirhead had given me a couple of decades ago was a billfold. Most teams didn’t give their players anything for winning a pennant in the minor leagues but the Brooklyn Dodgers gave each player a gold ring that carried the name of the team, year and the league. (I own two of those. One each for the 1948 and 1951 pennant winning teams.) Inside the ring was the player’s name. Aside from that the Ponca City Dodgers gave each player a leather billfold, in 1948, with their name and team inscribed thereon. You can see that at this site: www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/20581106198/

 

It had been a couple of decades since I had looked at that billfold. So, I decided to take another look at it today to see if Muirhead had left a dollar bill in it. What I saw when I opened the center section was a complete surprise. I had never seen it before—honest. It was difficult to photograph but I tried. If you click on this site take a look at it and tell me what it is: www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/20582319709/ That poor lady hasn’t had a thing to wear in the past 67 years.

 

Most baseball researchers, upon reading my stories of former players, inquire as to whether the person had a nickname. Here is a quote from Majoring in The Minors. “Few players, when asked, will admit to as many nicknames as Muirhead does. Along with ‘Al’ and ‘Morefield,’ he also acknowledges ‘Dog-Biter.’…He tells how that nickname occurred. ‘In 1952, four or five fellow employees and I were at my residence, in Visalia, Calif., for a friendly, low stakes evening of poker. About 0230 hours, after everyone went home, I was emptying ashtrays, getting rid of the ‘empties’ and generally cleaning up. Our dog, a Chihuahua Toy Fox mix, was sleeping peacefully on a chair and I leaned over for some stupid reason to give him a good night pet. He uncoiled like a ‘rattler’ (snake that is) and bit my upper lip. In seconds it puffed up about three times its normal size. I spent the next two to three hours at Visalia Hospital getting my lip sewn back together. The dog survived. I went back to patrol duty with a patch on my lip, and had to do a lot of explaining.’”

One additional thing I can clear up for the baseball record books. Muirhead threw and batted from the right side.

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Attempting to uncover a middle name of a former KOM and big leaguer.

 

One of the best hitters in KOM history was a guy mostly known as R. T. Upright. He went back to Kannapolis, NC at the close of the 1947 season thinking he had won the KOM league batting title. However, in a review of the data it was discovered he had lost that title by the narrowest of margins, .0064, to a Johnny Mize look-alike, Miami’s Loren Packard. (Ed note: Someday I must share quite a profile written about the Helena, OK native in 1947.)

 

Upright played in the farm system of the Pirates through 1950 and then wound up in the Chicago White Sox and Cubs organizations before getting a shot in the big leagues at the tail end of 1953 when he wore the uniform of the St. Louis Browns long enough to get six plate appearances. . After that he played in the Pacific Coast, Southern Association and Western leagues before hanging it up and going home to work in the textile mills in his native North Carolina.

 

What goaded me into this article was the mention of the death of Kenneth Boyd. I was looking at some of the guys with whom he had played who went up in the Pittsburgh Pirate chain. The names included Vernon Law and Law’s name led to Gus Bell, Bill Hall and Al Grunwald. I looked at the roster of the 1947 Leesburg, Florida club and found some of those guys along with the name of Herman Upright. At that moment I was pretty sure I had found the name of one of R. T. Upright’s brothers. To make a long story short I was correct in my assumption and Herman was four years younger than R. T. I decided to check the regular sources to see if Herman might still be alive and since I found no record of his death, I began a trek through telephone directories. Within a few minutes I was speaking with Mrs. Herman (Phyllis) Upright. I told her I research old baseball teams and found where a Herman Upright had played for Leesburg, Florida and Landis, North Carolina in 1947. Her immediate response was “He had a brother we called “Dixie” who played baseball a long time.” I didn’t want to jump on to the subject of “Dixie’s” middle name quite yet and told her of Herman’s one year in baseball. She said I could speak with him but he might not remember too much due to what I call “The ravages of time.” Since that alerted me to the prospect that Herman might not be able to answer all my questions I then posed the $64 question to his wife. “What was R. T.’s middle name?” Mrs. Upright replied that she came into the family in 1951 and all that she had ever heard him called was “Dixie.” I then asked her if R. T.’s middle name could have been Theophilus. She paused and remarked “When Herman and I were first married I told him I was happy his parents didn’t name him after his father for his name was Gother Theophilus Upright.”

 

Of course, you can see where I’m going with this. I believe that R. T. “Dixie” Upright may well have been Roy Theophilus “Dixie” Upright. I still can’t prove it but I’m working on it.

When Herman Upright finally made it to the telephone he had some flashes of memory about his one year in professional baseball. The Pittsburgh Pirates signed both him and his brother at the same time, in 1947. Herman said he had been signed after success playing American Legion ball at Gastonia, NC. R. T. did everything left-handed and Herman hit and threw from the right side. During the 1947 season Herman batted the ball at a .147 clip at Leesburg, FL and Landis, North Carolina and big brother, R. T., hit .364 at Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Herman recalls that he was playing first base for Leesburg when the Pirates send a player down in which they had invested a lot of money and he grabbed most of the playing time. That player was Al Grunwald who had a long career even making it to the big leagues. Another pretty good member of the 1947 Leesburg ball club was a Pirate prospect who made his mark in baseball with the Cincinnati Reds, Gus Bell.

 

Shortly, into the 1947 season, Herman Lee Upright was released by the Pirates and he returned to his native Kannapolis, NC and landed a job with the Landis, NC Millers a team in the North Carolina State league which was only 10 miles from Kannapolis. In another KOM related connection, the first baseman at Landis was Warren Greenlee Sliter from Chicago. The St. Louis Browns took Sliter from that club and sent him to Pittsburg, Kansas where he played for the rest of that season and 1948 and stole the hearts of a few of the Pittsburg Browns female fans. Fifty years later I was getting calls from some of his admirers wanting to know (1) if he was still living and if so, (2) was he still married? The answer to both those questions were answered in the negative.

Now back to R. T. Upright. Did I get a definitive answer from his brother, Herman, about that middle name? The answer is “No.” However, there were many answers I didn’t get to other questions due to what I described earlier in this article as “The ravages of time.” Herman is now 86 and fondly recalls some of the highlights of a life that included a tour of duty in Korea and many years as a supervisor for the Canon Textile Company, the place that made many of the towels and wash rags for my generation.

 

And speaking of towels and wash rags I have finished yet another week of "tidying up" some aspects of former KOM leaguers. I could have gone further regarding the death of a former St. Louis Browns infielder who lived nearby and how his paths crossed that of two former KOM leaguers and the likes of Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. The former Browns player, who passed away, was Bud Thomas and this is a link to his obituary: www.legacy.com/obituaries/sedaliademocrat/obituary.aspx?p...

 

If you read that obituary you’ll see his link to Cobb and Ruth. Thomas was a teammate with two young men who played in the Esquire East-West game in 1945 and later hopped on the train to the KOM league. One of those former KOM leaguers gave me the program from the 1945 game played at the Polo Grounds in New York. Some of the photos in that program might be good ones to share in a Flash Report, some day. And, maybe, like most of my reporting efforts, I’d get the big “ho-hum” with the statement “That old guy is still trapped in the mental time warp of his youth.” And, to that I’d plead GUILTY.

 

Done