KOM Flash Report for 1/25/2019----Photo is Shannon Deniston of the 1948 Pittsburg, KS Browns

The KOM League

Flash Report

For

January 25, 2019

 

Well, my luck ran out. No longer can I post photos on Flickr, for free. Thus, any photo I wish to share in these reports will have a link to them within the body of the missive. Readers should be able to pull up two in this issue. If you have a problem let me know and there probably isn’t much I can do about it but will give it a shot. While Flickr has blocked my photo posting they haven’t figured out or don’t care that I can still access the file and add narrative below the posted photos. So, I believe if you click on this link you will be able to see yet another KOM league Flash Report. www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/32627657078/

This week’s edition reports on a “current event” that transpired 60 years ago between a former KOM leaguer and one of the most well-known dictator’s of the 20th century. Tune in to the report and learn who those two characters were.

 

A former dictator in New York --1959 with a former KOM leaguer

 

Prior to 1951 I can’t recall ever meeting or speaking with someone from outside the United States. That changed one hot June afternoon when the Miami Eagles rolled into Carthage in their even hotter non-air-conditioned bus. Just outside the Carthage clubhouse I was approached by two members of the visiting team. They uttered words to me that I didn’t quite understand. After a few minutes of being introduced to a new language I figured out they wanted to know if I knew of any girls they could meet.

 

Back in that era the only girls who came to Carthage baseball games were basically the girlfriends of the Carthage players and I wasn’t about to break up those relationships. I could still name the girls who dated the 1951 Carthage Cubs but for obvious reasons I think that part will be left out of this article.

 

Now, I shall reveal who the two Miami players were who introduced me to Spanish with the phrase “Batboy, know girls.” They were Gaspar del Toro and Antonio Pedro “Tony” Serpa, both natives of Havana, Cuba. Gaspar was a guy who looked like he could have been a blocking back in football and a bouncer the rest of the time. Remember the “bouncer” phrase; it will be important as this story unfolds.

 

Serpa was about the size of Stu Miller who pitched for the Cardinals and Giants at about that same time. www.google.com/search?q=stu+miller+baseball&oq=Stu+mi...

Over the years I only recalled three members of that Miami club in a vivid way as having had some time of contact with them. The other was Thomas Gentry Warren who was a former deputy sheriff, major leaguer, used car salesman and felon.

 

Warren has been mentioned many times in these reports so I’ll cut out any further references to him for this edition will be too long as it is. Warren is the man, who on that hot June afternoon of 1951, involved me in heist. It was a twi-light doubleheader and he came to me and asked a favor. He pointed to a large bat that had white tape wrapped around it about six inches from the knob. He told me the bat was mine if I kept Gaspar from using it in both games. I managed to drag the bat, which was a 44-ounce Rogers Hornsby model Louisville Slugger, from the Miami to the Carthage bat rack.

 

On that evening Miami didn’t bring along a batboy and no other Carthage kid came out that night to be the visiting team bat hauler so I took on double duty. The first trip to the plate Gaspar asked “Batboy, see bat?” And, the same answer I provided him and Serpa earlier about knowing girls was the same negative one. However, when Gaspar asked about seeing his bat I had to turn my head in order not to lie. For, I could see the barrel end of his bat protruding from the Carthage bat rack from my vantage point near the Miami on deck circle. That scenario was repeated every time he went to bat in the seven inning opening game and the nine inning nightcap.

 

Well, that is about the extent of dealing with the Gaspar. The next season he moved on to the Iola Indians where he played for Floyd Temple and Woody Fair managed teams. There Larry Flottman had the same job I had in 1951 at Carthage only Flottman got to deal with Gaspar on a daily basis.

 

At Iola, in 1952, Gaspar was again one of the league’s top hitters with a .325 mark. However, he under-achieved when it came to fielding. The balls he caught were by accident. He used his body to knock down ground balls and then had a good arm to throw runners out at first base. By the time he got to Iola both managers, Temple and Fair played third base and kept Gaspar in the outfield where he was near the bottom in fielding average. In other words his contribution to the game was offense.

 

Gaspar’s professional baseball began in 1946 when he played 73 games for Welch, West Virginia.. He was on two other rosters before arriving at Welch. Most of his appearances that year were at shortstop where he averaged an error every 1.5 games but he managed to hit .305 and that ensured his place on a minor league roster. In 1947 he was a member of the Big Spring, Texas Broncos. This is a quote from the April 13, 1947 edition of the Abilene Reporter. “Abilene Reporter 4/13/1947—“The Washington Senators' toe-hold on Cuban baseball material has given the roster of the Big Spring entry in the Longhorn loop an international flavor. The Broncos have a. working pact with .the Sens and through Scout Joe Cambria came up with good set of Cuban ball players who should help form the backbone for one of the strongest, if not the best, clubs in the West Texas Class D circuit. Big Spring already has seven Cubans on the roster and at least one more is en route (Gaspar was the one en route) to the local club. Manager Pat Stasey is well pleased with his foreign talent and with the addition of a first class second baseman and another outfielder or so the Broncos will rate as perhaps the club to beat in the new loop.”

 

In 1948 Gaspar was off to Abbeville, Louisiana where he spent two seasons. From there he moved to Del Rio, Texas of the Rio Grande Valley league in 1950 and then to the KOM league with Miami and Iola in 1951-52. He would have been one of the guys manager Pat Stasey referred to in an article from the Associated Press on August 4, 1949. This version appeared in the Klamath Falls, Oregon Herald News. “Pat Stasey, manager of the Big Spring club in the Longhorn league, is convinced that Cuban rookie baseball players are more advanced performers than their United States counterparts. Stasey ought to know. The Big Spring club is front-running the Longhorn League tor the third straight season. And aa usual, every player on his club except himself is a young Cuban. Big Springs players come from Joe Cambria veteran scout of the Washington Senators. Cambria is the co-owner of the Havana club in the Florida International league, but he sends a few players here on option. He signs must of the rookies he finds on the island to contract forms of other clubs---Big Spring. for instance. At the end of the season he may claim any of the players he wishes. This unique arrangement enables clubs like Big Spring to get a complete set of players at small expense And Cambria, in turn has the benefit of having his rookies trained for him.

 

Should Big Spring get a chance to sell a player, it may do so, Stasey always consults with Cambria and it always has been all right with him If Cambria needs a pitcher or a third baseman at Havana, Stasey ships him on right sway.

 

Fans of other Longhorn league clubs are certain that the supply of Cuban baseballers is inexhaustible When one Big Spring star leaves, another Cuban takes his place and the team rarely slows up.

 

Stasey has no language problem. Most of the rookie speak a little English and they catch on to it quickly under the tutelage of the other players.

 

One of the latest newcomers to the club is Ernesto Mayorquian, a right-handed pitcher about the size of a watch charm. He arrived in town without a cent. He didn't even own a pair of baseball shoes or a glove. "You’re too little to pitch." Stasey said, but Mayorquian's papers said he waa a pitcher and that turned out to be quite right. After feeding him for five days Stasey sent Mayorquian to the hill in a tight relief role against San Angelo. The youngster did an amazing job, pitching 10 scoreless innings. In a duel Big Spring won 8-7 in the thirteenth.

 

He declares the average Cuban rookie la fast, has a good arm and lots of hustle. They are easy to, manage and are popular both with fans at home-- and on the road.”

 

In the passage of about four decades (1951-1995) about the only tangible memory I had from my KOM league days was the bat I hid from Gaspar. When initially writing about the KOM league a visit was set up with Bob Newbill when he visited the Veteran’s Hospital in Columbia, Mo. A gentleman overheard our conversation and approached us by saying he managed Iola. Newbill who had just received a cochlear implant and didn’t have the desire to be interrupted told the “stranger” to go away.

 

After finishing my conversation with Newbill, I found the “stranger” who informed me his name was Ralph Kennedy. Not, many people ever knew of his time in baseball but many people knew of his brother, Vernon Kennedy who threw a no-hitter for the Chicago White Sox in 1935. www.google.com/search?q=Vernon+Kennedy+baseball&oq=Ve... I recall Ralph Kennedy talked about his brother being killed a couple of years earlier when he was razing a barn that fell on him. Vernon was 86 years of age when he made the mistake of not hiring someone to get rid of that structure.

 

Another thing Kennedy spoke fondly about was managing the Iola Indians of the Western Association in the last half of 1954. He took over from former big league knuckleballer Willard Ramsdell who lived near Iola. Kennedy got the job when he promised to come to the ball park sober which his predecessor had a difficult time doing.

 

In discussing the members of the Iola club the conversation, of course, got around to Gaspar.

During a mid-summer series at Muskogee, Okla. Gaspar took a stroll downtown. Late in the afternoon Kennedy received a call at the hotel and it was the local police chief. He informed Kennedy that Gaspar had been arrested for removing a pistol from the front seat of a car. The chief advised Kennedy that he would release him on a $200 bond. Kennedy informed the chief he didn’t have that kind of money but he would check with the rest of the team, when they got to the ballpark to determine if they wanted to chip in to get Gaspar released so that he could return to Iola with them after the game. When Kennedy got the guys together they neither had the money or the inclination to get their teammate out of jail and there he stayed for an undetermined amount of time. Kennedy said that Gaspar never appeared back in Iola after that Muskogee trip.

 

After the KOM league folded Gaspar contacted the owner of the Iola Indians a number of times offering his services if Iola ever went back into professional baseball. One such offer was written about, quite humorously, by Frank Gilmartin in the Iola Register in 1953. The gist of the article was that Gaspar called Earl Sifers who owned the Iola franchise from New York. There was a two hour time differential between those two places and Sifers wasn’t particularly jubilant to be aroused from a “log sawing” episode to speak with a former ball player at six in the morning.

 

It was necessary to mention that last paragraph for the last I ever heard about Gaspar was that he lived in New York and was active in amateur baseball in the Cuban community.

 

A new lead from an old story

 

With the acquisition of a half year’s subscription to some old newspaper files a story was found that surprised even an old guy who is almost immune such things. The Lafayette, Indiana Courier and Journal from April 21, 1959 carried a story about Fidel Castro’s visit to the United Nations. For those readers too young to recall that incident this is a link to what was transpiring at the time. www.history.com/news/fidel-castros-wild-new-york-visit-55...

 

Upon reading the story carried in the Lafayette, Indiana newspaper I knew it was time to contact one of the most ardent readers of these reports, Ernesto Wallerstein. He is the expert on Cuban baseball for he was one of the guys signed by Joe Cambria and sent to Big Spring, Texas in 1948. Here is his team photo that year. mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox?projector=1/ He anglicized his name to Ernie Klein when he played in the United States. What I wanted to know from Ernesto was if he ever heard of Gaspar being a bodyguard.

 

In alluding to Castro’s visit to the United Nations the Lafayette paper stated Castro had hired Cuban’s living in American as his body guards and some had professional baseball experience in this county. One of those mentioned was Gaspar del Toro who, it stated, was in the Washington Senators farm system from 1946-52. The other body guard identified was Enrique Cabre and he and Gaspar told reporters that Castro used to play baseball at the university in Havana and wanted to see a Yankee game before going home

 

Castro’s bodyguards were not allowed to carry weapons. It was stated that fellows like Gaspar and Cabre only had their fists for protecting Castro but their basic role was the giving of the high sign if they spotted any known enemy of the Cuban dictator or saw sharpshooters or any other indication of trouble.

 

That had to be the experience of Gaspar del Toro’s lifetime only possibly surpassed when his manager, Tommy Warren and the Carthage batboy hid his baseball bat.

 

For sure this article doesn’t mean much to anyone who didn’t encounter Gaspar during his playing days. But, for those who played with and against him and for the batboy’s who did or didn’t hide his bat, he was a memorable character. He was a man ahead of his time. When he was playing for Miami his teammates, other than Pedro Serpa, inquired about the kind of tobacco he was smoking. Gaspar always claimed it was fine Cuban tobacco. By the time he got to Iola some of those guys figured out the fine tobacco was fine marijuana. Some of the Iola players said you could almost get high from the smoke on the team bus.

 

 

 

This photo, from 1951 includes Gaspar del Toro, Gordon Meeres, Jim McHugh and Jack Cheatham. If you have difficulty retrieving this photo, let me know.

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About a year late

 

Charles Augustus Matzen of the 1952 Bartlesville/Pittsburg Pirates passed away August 16, 2018 in Anthem, Arizona. His obituary was mentioned in a Flash Report shortly thereafter. A condolence was placed on the funeral home site and I didn’t see the following message until this week.

 

Message from Mark Matzen, “Mr. Hall- Thanks so much for keeping in touch with my Dad - he has great memories and stories from the KOM league I too was able to play minor league ball for the Reds so I was able to enjoy and admire his stories even more. He really enjoyed his time with Pittsburg.”

 

This site carries his baseball card for his time in the Cincinnati Reds organization. www.comc.com/Players/Baseball/Mark_Matzen/c162283/Cards/B... To see what he has done since his baseball days click on this site. www.insidernj.com/prieto-taps-veteran-operative-mark-matz...

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By the numbers: 100- 90-70.

 

Coming up shortly former Pittsburg Brownie, Shannon Deniston will celebrate his 100th birthday, former Independence Yankee, Jim Bellotti--aka Jim Bello will celebrate his 90th biriday and former Ponca City Dodger, Dick McCoy and wife Molly will celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary. I have had contact with all those folks in recent days. If any one like to remember them in any manner contact information is available from the old guy writing this missive.

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Post Script:

 

Gaspar del Toro was born January 16, 1923 in Havana, Cuba and passed away July 1, 1968 in Miami, Florida.

 

 

Done