KOM League Flash Report for 9/24/2021

KOM League

Flash Report

September 24, 2021

 

This is a special edition of the Flash Report and is limited to one item. To access it go to:

www.flickr.com/photos/60428361@N07/51512426853/

 

At the precise hour this report was completed the funeral service for a member of a legendary baseball family was commencing.

 

It was a tough choice in deciding an appropriate photo to share honoring the memory of the deceased. One photo showed Cloyd Boyer in spring training with a fellow sitting behind the backstop. This guy claimed he was a big fan of Cloyd’s and that he eagerly awaited each spring in order to watch his favorite player. In the photo the fan was sound asleep. My choice was narrowed to one of the 1939 Rosebank grade school team on which three of the Boyer brothers were members or the 1941 Alba Aces. Since none of the Coss brothers were living in Alba at that time I decided on the 1939 grade school team. Rosebank is the school attended by youngsters living in the Cossville area.

 

After perusing this article you will see some names unfamiliar to most every reader and you might want to come back and review the list of those team members.

 

Red Bank Grade School baseball team—1939

 

Back Row: Left to right:

 

Carl Parker-teacher and coach, Buford Coss, Cloyd Boyer, Raymond Dale Moore and Walter Comstock.

 

Front Row—Left to right:

 

Kenton “Kenny” Boyer, Ray Dell Coss, Lynn Brown, Wayne Boyer, Leonard Brown, Harold Martin and Royden L. Coss

 

In the photo Cloyd was 12 years of age and Kenny was eight.. Of this group Cloyd, Wayne and Kenny Boyer along with Ray and Royden Coss and Raymond Moore all played professional baseball.

 

Every person in that photo has passed away with the exception of Raymond Moore who was living in Springfield, Mo. when we last conversed.

 

*****

 

Cloyd Victor Boyer

mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGljvRnlrMDlsTddRCGV...

Cloyd Victor Boyer, 94, of Alba, Missouri, departed this life on Monday evening, September 20, 2021, at St. Luke’s Care Center in Carthage, Missouri.

 

Cloyd entered this life on September 1, 1927, in rural Jasper County in the community of Cossville, one of fourteen children born to the late Chester Vern and Mable Agnus (Means) Boyer. He was raised near Alba, Missouri and was a 1945, graduate of Alba High School. His professional baseball career started in the summer of 1945, when he signed with the St. Louis Cardinals as a pitcher. In the fall of 1945, he enlisted in the United States Navy. After his honorable discharge, he returned home and rejoined the Cardinals. On November 17, 1948, he was united in marriage to Nadine Witherspoon and to this union five children were born. Cloyd’s baseball career endured nearly five decades. His club affiliations included the Cardinals, Kansas City Athletics, Yankees, Braves, Toronto and the Royals. He retired at age 65 in 1992, from the Braves organization. He enjoyed gardening, hunting, fishing, cutting wood and refereeing high school basketball. He was a member of the Alba Christian Church.

 

He was preceded in death by his parents; two children, Teresa and Mike Boyer; five brothers, Wayne, Kenton, Clete, Lynn and Lennie; and two sisters, Lela Boyer and Juanita Woodmansee.

 

Cloyd is survived by his wife of seventy-two years, Nadine Boyer of the home; three children, Ken Boyer and wife, Brenda, of Webb City, Cheryl Boyer of Alba and Jim Boyer and wife, Teresa, of Webb City; ten grandchildren; nineteen great grandchildren; three great-great grandchildren; a brother, Ronnie Boyer of Webb City; five sisters, Deloris Webb of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, Pansy Schell of Alba, Shirley Lockhart of Fayetteville, Arkansas, Bobbi McNary of Joplin and Marcy Layton of Oronogo; several nieces and nephews; as well as a host of other family and friends.

 

Ed comments:

 

In the last edition of this publication it was mentioned that the only surviving members of the 1946 Carthage Cardinals were William Eckensberger, Cloyd Boyer and possibly Canadian resident Robert Louis Cloutier.

 

When making that statement I had feeling I probably jinxed those guys by mentioning it. However, all were over 90 years of age and no one goes on forever, not even Methuselah.

 

Upon the news hitting the Internet the messages starting coming fast and furious from Southwest Missouri as well as from around the country that the eldest of the baseball playing Boyer family had passed away.

 

When Cloyd pitched for Carthage during the last three weeks of the 1946 season I was too young to even know what a baseball was. In less than a handful of years I was listening to Harry Caray and Gabby Street broadcast his exploits as he was starting his major league career. Cloyd had great potential but arm trouble caught up with him. A few years after listening ti the games he pitched for the Cardinals I was at Joplin Junior College. There I had a few classes with one of his younger brothers, Lynn.

 

It was more fun, interesting and educational to listen to Lynn between classes talk about the times the family went to St. Louis to watch big brother, Cloyd in action. Lynn also had a fling at minor league baseball but instead of being a righthander pitcher like his brother he was a left handed first baseman. Lynn had played professionally at Ardmore, Okla., Hamilton, Ontario and Albany, New York prior to his entering Joplin Junior College.

 

Listening to Lynn talk about how the Cardinals treated his brother Cloyd gave me a different outlook on the “glamorous” life of big league baseball. At that time he was bitter that Cloyd’s career was jeopardized by a manager who pitched him on as little as two or three days rest if the opposition happened to be the Brooklyn Dodgers. At that time in history the Cardinals were “dead birds” when they played the powerful team from New York and Cloyd had good success against them.

 

During that year at Joplin Junior College not only did I get to know Lynn, a little bit, it was the first time I had ever seen Cloyd. Many days for lunch a trek was made to a barbecue restaurant on West 7th Street. There Cloyd, now 31 years old, and some of his fellow employees at Pacific Mercury would be there having the same great food that I enjoyed. Of all the people in his group he stood out. I guess it was due to the fact he was only the second big league baseball player I had ever seen, up close and personal. The first one happened seven years earlier when Stan Musial shook my hand and gave me a tour of his restaurant and office known as Stan and Biggies on Chippewa Avenue in St. Louis.

 

Over the ensuing years there wasn’t any contact or reason to contact a member of the Boyer family. In 1964 I ran across Lynn, who had graduated from Pittsburg State Univ. and was teaching at Walker, MO. Just a few miles east of there I was pastoring a church in El Dorado, Springs.

 

Thirty years after my days in El Dorado Springs the effort to document the history of the KOM commenced and there was ample reason to contact Cloyd. Time was spent with him at his farm on Jasper Route 3 as well as communication by letter and telephone. He never made it to the Internet.

 

In the early days of the KOM league reunions he wasn’t interested in attending them but later on he was convinced to show up and he attended and reunited with a number of his 1946 Carthage teammates as well as guys he played with or against in the higher classification minor leagues or at the major league level. At one reunion he and Joe Stanka got together and they enjoyed each others company immensely. Each had been major league right-handed pitchers and they both had become Christian’s and shared stories of their faith. At the concluding session of a KOM league reunion, Cloyd, a man of few words, asked permission to speak. When he was through there wasn’t a dry eye in the banquet room especially the one’s on the either side of my nose.

 

There were things that happened after meeting Cloyd that were tragic. He lost a son who accidentally shot himself when his rifle feel out of his grasp as he was sitting in a tree stand. The son called 911 on his cellphone but he wasn’t located in time. Their faith got Nadine and Cloyd through that episode.

 

Many times our conversations wee on trivial matters. Back in the day Cloyd was sometimes called “Junior.” Since his father was named Vern I asked him how that could be and he explained that he had an aunt who gave him the nickname. Usually, when asked about who the best ball player in the family was Cloyd would say it was Kenny. That was for the press. However, I asked him the same question and he told me the best athlete in the family was his oldest sister Juanita.

 

There were 14 Boyer children and all the brothers have passed on with the exception of Ron. Five of the sisters are still living. I know that information is in the obituary but if I have learned anything someone will write and ask how many are still alive for they will not have read the obituary.

 

In the obituary the town of Alba wasn’t mentioned as Cloyd’s place of birth which is contrary to every record book ever listing that information. Cloyd wasn’t born in Alba and every time we talked I asked him why he let that error stand. He related that he had taken that up with the Sporting News people in the past and it was never changed. A few times I asked if he wanted me to make an attempt to get the current keepers of the record to change it and the last time the issue was discussed he replied “It doesn’t matter any more.”

 

After the posting of Cloyd’s obituary a number of people made contact and they are those who have the power to change the official information in the baseball world. It might make interesting reading to post those but in deference to all concerned I shall refrain. The folks who are in charge of the official records have a great responsibility to only change them when they have overwhelming evidence. Up to now they only had my word and Cloyd’s desire to have the change of birthplace corrected.

 

Cloyd Boyer’s birthplace

 

At the time of the birth of most of the Boyer children Cossville was a “thriving” village. It lost that status and the few businesses there such as the Coss blacksmith shop went away. When I went to Cloyd’s house in 1994 I asked him to go up there with me and show me where it was. He told me there was nothing to see. He gave me the precise directions and I drove four miles from his home on Jasper Route 3. The only thing I encountered was a curve in the road and a house on the west side of it.

 

Arivving at Cloyd’s farm he was informed I didn’t find anything. He smiled and said I had just been to Cossville. Cossville was the home of the Coss family. Mr. Coss built a baseball field where his two sons Ray and Royden learned to play baseball along with Cloyd and Wayne. Kenny was around six or seven years old when he played there with the big boys. He was on the Red Bank grade school team in 1939 and he was a charter member of Buford Cooper’s 1941 Alba Aces.

 

Location of Cossville in the Duvall township of Jasper County, Missouri.

 

There is a road running east and west just as you leave Opolis, Mo. which is half in Kansas. It was a long time weigh station for trucks entering Kansas. The road going east is called Baseline Road. Just south of that road, about five or six miles is where Duval Township is and Cossville was. Just south of there is Alba. I used to drive those roads between Carthage and Pittsburg when I went to graduate school.

 

If you keep going east on Baseline Road you will hit old Highway 71 at Jasper.

 

Baseline Road is the dividing line between Jasper and Barton counties. The cemetery where most of the Boyer and Coss family is buried is less a dozen miles from where Cloyd lived his last days. When Ray Coss died I called Cloyd and he knew nothing about it. I told him that the funeral would be held within the hour and he said he and Nadine would be able to make it.

 

Conclusion:

 

After a few e-mails word was received from the person responsible for changing the information in the record books and he advised that Cloyd’s place of birth will be shown as Cossville as well as that of his brother Cletis. For many years Cletis was shown as having been born in Cassville which is at least 90 miles from Cossville or where Cossville used to be.

 

Time is short to get some things corrected that I know and someday maybe someone will write about the birthplace of Carl Hubbell. It is listed as Carthage but is on the same latitude as Cossville it islocated about twenty five miles east in Lawrence County, Missour. The place of Hubbell’s birth was the community of Red Oak and like that of Cossville they no longer exist except in the memory of some old folks, like Yours truly.

Done