KOM league Flash Report for Christmas 2017 1948 Carthage Cardinals

The KOM League

Flash Report

for

Christmas 2017

 

Disclaimer:

 

This week’s report is filed at: www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/38470184004/

 

Upon preparing the previous Flash Report I feared there would be more deaths in 2017. I kept tracking former players and found that Ralph Liebendorfer of the 1947 Bartlesville Oilers passed away in October of this year. Then I learned of the death of a former Carthage Cardinal, Jack Hinkle early this week. So, the report starts with obituaries and then goes into other stories a reader or three might find of interest. Read on and if you don’t find anything you like return the unread portions for a full refund.

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Death of former Carthage Cardinal

www.greensboro.com/obituaries/hinkle-jr-gaston-e-jack/art...

GREENSBORO--Gaston E. Daniel "Jack" Hinkle, Jr., 88, a resident of Greensboro, passed away on Friday, December 15, 2017 after a brief illness. He certainly lived a full life. He was preceded in death by his parents, Gaston E. Hinkle, Sr. and Ruby Jester Hinkle; his son, Terry Hinkle, and a sister, Barbara H. Cranford.

 

Jack is survived by his wife, "Dodie" Martin Hinkle of the home; sister, Glenda Grissett and husband Steve; daughters, Marilyn Stewart and husband Danny, Carolyn Szarka; son, Jack Hinkle and wife Shirley; five grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren. As a young man, Jack was an avid football and baseball player. Drafted out of high school, he was signed to play with the St. Louis Cardinals. He was on the farm team for several years until the birth of his twin daughters. He returned to High Point and became executive director of the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club. There he mentored many young people; as he said, "I love working with kids." While working, he began attending High Point College.

He quoted, "I enrolled when I was an old man." Graduating at age 32 was quite an accomplishment since he was studying, working and taking care of his children.

 

Eventually he went to work with the Guilford County School System, where he coached baseball and taught biology at Ragsdale High School for 28 years as well as serving as the athletic director at Ragsdale for several years. He worked two years at Northwest High School. Many of his players still speak highly of him and his knowledge and love of the game. His past players have stated how much they learned from him and the valuable skills they acquired through his teachings. Jack loved golf and was very proficient at it. He also fished, hunted and ran rabbit dogs for sport. Many high school and small college football and basketball games were officiated by him.

 

Later in life, he and his beloved wife Dodie attended regularly the Greensboro Grasshoppers home games. Graveside services will be held at 1 p.m. Tuesday at Guilford Memorial Park Cemetery. The family will receive friends at the Hanes-Lineberry Funeral Home Sedgefield Chapel on Tuesday from 12 p.m. until service time. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made in Jack's memory to the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club in High Point. Online condolences can be made at www.haneslineberryfuneralhomes.com.

 

Jack Morris, baseball necrologist, sent along the link to the obituary of Jack Hinkle. Here is a note that I sent to him. “Jack, before taking Hinkle's name for granted, in the obituary, do some more checking. His middle name was Edaniel in every public record I can find. Google it and check me out on that. When I spoke with him probably, two decades ago, I thought his middle name was Daniel but he corrected me. I don't have a transcript of our conversation be he told me Edaniel was a family name. It is possible the newspaper changed the obituary or else the public records were wrong for over eight decades.

 

Jack, as I build my case that the late Gaston Edaniel Hinkle Jr. went by that name I'm sharing his father's final resting place. www.findagrave.com/memorial/47217811

This is the official 1948 Carthage team photo site: www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/38470184004/ Photo identification was verified by Hank Wlodarczyk and Jim Neufeldt.

 

Front Row: Ken Cox, Jack Hallowell, Dave Young, Maurice Mathey, George Schachle, Dean Walstrom and Pee Wee Smith Batboy- foreground

 

Back Row: Charles Williams, Don Schultz, Jack Hinkle, Jim Neufeldt, Ray Diering, Walt Marlow, Hank Wlodarczyk, Bill Buck, Art Wilson, Al Kluttz (Manager.)

 

There were 40 roster players for the 1948 Carthage Cardinals and 32 are now deceased.

 

Of the eight other members, six were alive at last check while Arthur Lee Wilson and William Hatch were never located. Wilson was born May 19, 1929 in New Albany, Indiana and I never determined where Hatch was from nor his birthdate. The six guys who were alive in mid-December of this year are: Thomas Jefferson “Snuffy” Smith, Howard Powles, Lawrence Puent, James Neufeldt, James Koukl and Raymond Paul Dame. By order of listing these guys live in Omaha, Neb. the next three in Illinois, then Irvine, California and Providence, Rhode Island.

 

There were some members of that team with higher baseball connections. Manager Al Kluttz had a brother, Clyde, who caught in the big leagues. Ray Diering served as player/interim manager and he had a brother, Chuck, who started out in the St Louis Cardinal organization. George Schachle, the only player in KOM history to homer over the centerfield wall, at Carthage, was the brother-in-law of Willard Schmidt who later pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals.

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Death of 1947 Bartlesville Oiler.

 

Ralph W. Liebendorfer, age 89, of Ellenboro, North Carolina passed away Wednesday, October 18, 2017 at Autumn Care of Saluda.

 

Born April 11, 1928 in Elwood City, Pennsylvania, he was a son to the late Harry Liebendorfer and Ruth Bowles Liebendorfer. In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his brother, Harry "Red" Liebendorfer. Ralph was a veteran of the U.S. Army and served as a counter intelligence officer during the Korean War. His life's passion was restoring classic cars and was widely known as the "Cad Father" due to his love for the classic 1941 Cadillac. Ralph was also a member of several Classic Car Clubs. In his earlier years, he played minor league baseball for the Bartlesville Pirates( Ed note: Actually they were the Oilers) in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

 

Those left to cherish his memory include one daughter, Renee Issa and husband, Samer of Ellenboro.

 

Mr. Liebendorfer will be buried with military honors in the Western Carolina State Veterans Cemetery in Black Mountain, NC. There will be no formal services held locally.

 

Ed comment:

For the past couple of decades contact between the deceased and this editor was done between his home in Piru, California and mine in Columbia, Mo. I learned quickly that his greatest interest in life was his old cars and I recall sharing links of the company he ran for many years in the car restoration business.

 

Liebendorfer and his brother Harry were a pitcher, catcher tandem during their high school days at Peabody High School in Pittsburgh, PA. They were scouted by the New York Giants who tendered contract offers to both but nothing came of that and both brothers signed with Pittsburgh.

 

As far back as 1945 with Ralph pitching and Harry catching the Peabody team was making news. This showed up in the May 12th edition of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette/. “Two Schoolboy Hurlers Win No-Hit games. Frenchy Wardwell twirled for Mt. Lebanon as the Mounties blanked Crafton by 5-0 at Crafton without a bingle or tally. Ralph Liebendorfer of Peabody fanned 17, issued three walks, hit one batter and permitted no hits or runs as Carrick was trimmed by 5-0.”

In 1947 both the Liebendorfer boys were in professional baseball. Harry caught for Rehoboth, Maryland in the Eastern Shore league and hit .309 while Ralph was a 4-8 pitcher for the Bartlesville club. Harry played on the same team with future big leaguer Joe Muir while Ralph’s teammates at Bartlesville, who made it to the big leagues, were Roy Theophilus Upright and Bill Pierro. Rather than spell out the name Upright was mostly known as R. T..

1947 Bartlesville team photo. www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/39150051072/ This photo had all the players lined up in the dugout. This is half of those guys which includes the decease, Ralph Liebendorfer. These guys are identified in the photo posted on the aforementioned site. The team members in the other half of the photo are: Elmo Maxwell, Lou Godla, Jim Fink, Bill Pierro (pitched later for the Pittsburgh Pirates), Wayne Caves, Jess Nelms, Bill Waggener and Charles Stock.

 

There were 43 roster players for Bartlesville in 1947. With the passing of Liebendorfer there are 36 now deceased. The following members of that team are those who I never found: Elton Leo Downing, Wilson (first name unknown) Jack McDonald, John L. Moore and Charles Stock Jr,. William R. Waggener was tracked to a Peoria nursing home where he was still residing at the time of this report. Joseph R. Turek is the oldest living member from that team. He is now 94 years young. Downing appeared in one game as a pinch hitter and then returned to Miami, Okla. in 1949 where he caught a few games, Wilson and McDonald were pitchers, Moore a 1st baseman and Waggener was a 2nd baseman.

 

Although not finding some of these guys I know a little bit about them. Downing was born in Texas, circa 1926, and was living in Arizona with his step-grandparents by 1930. He later moved to the State of Nevada and that is where he went to high school and was living when he signed with the 1949 Miami, Oklahoma Owls. He most likely lived there when he signed with Pittsburgh in 1947.

 

Charles Stock was on the Bartlesville roster for parts of three seasons and was a catcher from Chicago. He later played semi-pro ball in the Manitoba-Dakota (Man-Dak) league. A good friend of his attended a KOM league reunion and told me Stock had died a number of years earlier. I could never verify that so I still carry Stock in the unknown status with a birthdate of 11/24/1926 and a SSN that I check once in a while to see if he has passed on. There is always the chance that the SSN he had in the late 1940’s was incorrectly transcribed by the Bartlesville Pirates.

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Check out everything

 

During this past week former Detroit Tiger pitcher, Frank Lary, passed away. It was mentioned to me in an e-mail and I replied that he had a brother, Robert Yale, who was a Pro-football Hall of Famer, having played defensive back with the Detroit Lions as well as being an excellent punter.

 

Barry McMahon of Ladysmith, British Columbia stated that he never knew of the relation between Frank and Yale Lary. I had heard that story ever since I first watched Jack Drees do NFL games, back in the 1950’s. Thus, I thought I would check that out. Frank Lary had five brothers but not a single one of them was named Yale. In checking on Yale’s ancestry I found that he was most likely an only child. So, another myth was exploded.

 

Back in my early days I thought Harry Caray was the best baseball announcer on the planet and everything he said had to be true. Oh, how wrong I was. The Dodgers had a pitcher by the name of Claude Osteen. Later a young man joined the Cincinnati Reds by the name of Darrell Osteen and from that time forward until the Osteens left baseball, Caray claimed they were brothers.

 

Claude Osteen’s career ended in 1975 and Darrell hung up the spikes in 1970. A decade and a half later I ran into Claude when he was instructing some Dodger hopefuls with the Albuquerque Dukes. He was a very personable gentleman until I asked if he would answer a question for me. When I asked him if Darrell was his brother he replied something to the effect that Harry Caray had come up with that out of thin air and no matter how many times he told Caray there was no kinship, he persisted in making that claim.

 

That story about my dealing with Claude Osteen was shared with McMahon. He had a similar encounter that involved the exchange of a few letters with former big league pitcher, Frank Sullivan. Tony Kubek was doing the game of the week on NBC and claimed Frank and Heywood Sullivan were brothers. This prompted my Canadian friend to contact Frank to verify that statement. He wrote back “Kubek may be senile! If Haywood was my brother I’d have killed myself and he probably feels the same way. So set Kubek straight, again. By the way it isn’t true, is it, that Kubek and (Howard) Cosell are related?”

 

The moral of the story: Saying things out of ignorance is forgivable, what isn’t is making the same dumb statements over and over when you know better, or at least should

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Another Tommy Warren story

 

Many stories have been carried in my writings over the past 20+ years, regarding Thomas Gentry Warren who was probably the most fascinating character ever to play/manage in the KOM league. He was the first ballplayer to return from WWII to rejoin a professional team, he was a deputy sheriff, used car dealer, convicted felon etc, etc.

 

One of Warren’s biggest problems was gambling which caused most of his other problems. It finally led to his death for he bet so much on the football bowl games of 1968 that he didn’t have the money cover his losses that he committed suicide in a Tulsa motel.

 

In going through some old clippings this past week it confirmed Warren would bet on anything. He placed a bet with Bartlesville catcher, Bill Phillips, that he could beat him in a foot race if given a four step head start. The race was run after a game at Miami on a downtown street. Warren won by one step. Phillips told the Bartlesville Examiner that when Miami came to Bartlesville there would be another wager but he would only give Warren a two to three step lead.

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From being anonymous to becoming the author of a “Masterpiece.”

 

Three short years ago an author from New York sent a message after having found references, on the Internet to my writing about minor league baseball. He was interested in knowing if I knew anything about prison teams. At the time I told the gentleman that I would put that information in my Flash Report to ascertain if any of the readers knew anything about that subject from the “old” days. The years went swiftly and recently this note appeared in my e-mail. “Hello John: You had kindly corresponded with me about bush-league baseball a few years back. I was then researching a book about Oklahoma prisons, including prison baseball programs. Well, that book is now finally finished. So I wanted to thank you again for your contributions. If you have a moment, check out firsttoknock.com/products/bobby-bluejacket-the-tribe-the-... There's a pretty cool photo of my subject batting on the prison baseball diamond. The book itself has several great baseball shots. If you know of other folks that would be into this, please spread the word. I'd love to send you a gratis copy. Let me know if you'd like one, and if so, send a mailing address. This is the webshop for others who might be interested in purchasing. Thanks! Best, Michael”

Since the Christmas spirit was upon me I responded to Mr. Daley with “Lo, send it unto me oh wise man.” No, I really didn’t say it that way but it had the same effect. A few days later a book, in excess of 700 pages arrived. Not knowing where to start I went to the end and read the bibliography. In a few minutes I was engrossed in some of the names found therein for they were people I knew in my “salad days” as a citizen of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Daley’s account of these those folks was spot on accurate. One of the sources he quoted was Terrell Lester. Many people recall Lester for his attendance and coverage of KOM reunions dating to the first one in Pittsburg, Kansas. He was also the first guy to critique the book “Majoring in The Minors” and gave it a half page spread in the Sunday edition of the Tulsa World way back in the dark ages…1995. Another name mentioned in the book had the same last name as this author. He was a Tulsa attorney, later prosecuting attorney and then Governor of the State of Oklahoma. That is all I have to say about that. Read the book and see if you can figure out what became of my namesake who had the first name of David.

 

So, if you live in Oklahoma and especially Tulsa, you would enjoy Michael P. Daley’s masterpiece. “Bobby BlueJacket—The Tribe-The Joint-The Tulsa Underworld.”

 

Never has this tidbit been shared but every “joint” mentioned in that book has been frequented by Yours truly. That includes the big house at McAlester to the reformatory at Stringtown. The town of Stringtown’s most famous former resident was guy named Willie Stargell.

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Annual Christmas call from Homer

 

Each Christmas season a very great treat is experienced. The telephone rings and when I pick it up the voice conveys the Christmas spirit with “Hello John and Noel, I love you and want to say Merry Christmas.” This call is repeated to others with whom the caller knew in his KOM league days and later met at the reunions each time they were held.

 

Homer is not the name of a person but the town in which he lives. At the age of 92 this man is as alert, happy and as optimistic as anyone I have ever known. As we spoke the caller mentioned that he had called to also find out the number of another of his KOM friends. Upon asking who it was he replied “I’m having a senior moment and forgot.” He asked if I had arrived at the juncture where those moments come into my daily life. I advised him that they didn’t occur more than twice each minute. Thus, I expect another call from him when he recalls the name of the person whose telephone number he was seeking.

 

You might think a senior moment arrived in the preparation of this article and that I forgot who called me from Louisiana but it isn’t likely I’ll ever forget Bill Bagwell, the former New York Yankee farmhand who spent the summer of 1948 in Independence, Kansas and it has held a special place in his heart for 69 years due to the people he met.

 

Many others have been in touch this holiday season so if you have been wondering why I haven’t mentioned guys like Joe Stanka, lately, it was due to him not communicating. I did get a Christmas card from his wife this year with a new e-mail address. So, if any of you former Ponca City Dodgers wish to reestablish contact, let me know.

 

And to all a Merry Christmas!!!

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Done