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Baseball
brethren:
As
we
put
the
doldrums
of
January
and
February
behind
us
and
move
into
the
Ides
of
March
and
Spring
weather,
I
thought
I
would
favor
you
all
with
a
short
From
the
Bullpen.
At
least,
the
plan
is
to
keep
it
short.
BOOK
REPORT:
A
False
Spring,
by
Pat
Jordan
Speaking
of
spring,
I
just
finished
reading
an
excellent
baseball
book,
A
False
Spring,
written
by
former
minor
league
player
Pat
Jordan.
This
book
was
initially
published
in
1973,
and
I
have
heard
it
mentioned
over
the
years,
but
never
saw
it
in a
bookstore
and
never
had
a
reason
to
purchase
it
until
recently,
when
I
saw
that
the
University
of
Nebraska
Press
was
putting
out
a
paperback
edition.
To
my
delight,
it
is a
very
enjoyable
and
easy
read.
Jordan’s
book
was
written
by
him
in
the
early
1970s,
more
than
a
decade
after
he
washed
out
of
the
minor
leagues
after
three
ignominious
seasons
in
the
low
level
minors.
I
didn’t
know
this
when
I
bought
the
book,
but
his
first
season
in
professional
baseball
was
for
the
Class
D
McCook
Braves
of
the
Nebraska
State
League.
This
home
state
flavor
made
it
even
more
interesting
to
read
than
it
otherwise
would
have
been,
but
the
book
would
still
be
worth
reading
even
if
it
was
McCook,
Montana,
or
any
other
small
town.
The
book
begins
with
Jordan’s
recounting
of
having
his
picture
taken
on
June
27,
1959,
at
County
Stadium
in
Milwaukee,
with
the
greatest
left-hander
of
all-time,
Warren
Spahn.
Jordan
was
18
years
old
that
day
and
just
had
signed
his
first
professional
baseball
contract,
which
was
to
pay
him
a
signing
bonus
of
$35,000,
four
years
of
college
education,
and
a
salary
of
$500
per
month,
for
a
total
bonus
of a
little
more
than
$45,000
distributed
over
a
four-year
period.
According
to
Jordan,
it
was
one
of
the
largest
bonuses,
if
not
the
largest,
any
young
ballplayer
had
received
from
the
Braves
in
1959.
Because
of
this,
Jordan
had
the
status
of a
“bonus
baby”
among
his
coaches
and
peers.
As
Jordan
describes
in
the
early
part
of
the
book,
he
was
a
childhood
phenom
pitcher
who
at
age
12
regularly
made
the
headlines
in
the
sports
section
of
the
Bridgeport,
Connecticut
Post-Telegram
newspaper.
Four
consecutive
no-hitters,
a
season
in
which
he
struck
out
110
of
the
116
batters
retired
and
gave
up
only
2
hits,
36
strikeouts
in a
row,
and
so
forth
and
so
on.
After
his
fourth
consecutive
no-hitter,
his
parents
were
called
by a
reporter
working
for
Ripley’s
Believe
it
or
Not.
Such
a
talent
was
Jordan
at
that
early
age
that
he
was
invited
with
his
parents
to
appear
on
Mel
Allen’s
television
show
prior
to a
Yankees-Red
Sox
doubleheader
at
Yankee
Stadium,
where
they
were
treated
like
royalty.
After
signing
with
the
Braves,
the
18-year-old
Jordan
was
flown
to
North
Platte,
Nebraska
(by
himself,
no
escort,
no
helicopter
parents),
and
then
driven
to
McCook
where
his
minor
league
career
began.
There
are
so
many
interesting
tidbits
and
excerpts
from
this
book
that
I
could
share
with
you,
but
I
will
attempt
to
be
circumspect
so
that
you
will
have
a
reason
to
actually
buy
and
read
the
book
yourself.
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At his first game as a McCook Brave, almost 800 people came to watch the McCook Braves in their third game of the season, against their nearby rival North Platte Indians. Over the course of that summer, the Braves averaged 700 people per game, about 10% of the town’s population. As pointed out by Jordan, this would be comparable to the New York Yankees drawing over 700,000 to each of their games.
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The Nebraska State League in 1959 consisted of six teams, the Holdrege White Sox, the Kearney Yankees, the Hastings Giants, the North Platte Indians, the Grand Island Athletics, and the McCook Braves. As a rookie league, the teams played games only in July and August of each year.
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The manager of the McCook Braves in 1959 was Bill Steinecke, who was a catcher in the minors for years but never made it to the major leagues. As reported by Jordan, Steinecke also played professional basketball with the “House of David” touring team which was supposedly made up of orthodox Jews, but actually was comprised primarily of Gentiles, like Steinecke, who was required to wear a fake rabbinical beard during games. According to Jordan, Steinecke stood five feet five inches tall, weighed over 200 pounds--mostly in his stomach--and resembled Nikita Khrushchev.
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Jordan recounted an episode in McCook in which Steinecke was sitting on the top step of the dugout, berating the home plate umpire, all the while with a woman fan screaming epithets at him. Jordan reported that “Steinie ignored her for a time. She cast aspersions on his manhood. ‘Can’t cut the mustard anymore, you old fart!’ He shouted back at her, ‘Not with an old piece of meat like you.’ At the end of the inning he returned to the dugout bench, out of the woman’s vision. He was cackling to himself. Julius, Overby, Brubaker and I thought he was mad. ‘That old whore!’ He shook his head as if in admiration. ‘Used to be one helluva lay in her day. Yes sirree. But so did we all, I guess.’”
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The backup catcher on the McCook Braves in 1959 was Elrod Hendricks, described by Jordan as a “black, very limber native of the Virgin Islands,” who spoke a rhythmic calypso English. After Jordan showed him up one time in front of the manager, he ran into Hendricks on the downtown streets of McCook, at which time Hendricks beat the holy daylights out of him, putting Jordan in bed for the next couple of games.
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The first baseman for the ’59 Braves was Frank Saia, who at that time was a student at Harvard Law School, just making money during the summertime, with no hopes of eventually making it to the majors.
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According to Jordan, the tenth-best pitcher on the ’59 McCook Braves was a 20-year-old from Blaine, Ohio, named Phil Niekro, who was the only pitcher on the team that ever had a major league career. At that time, Niekro was ineffective because he could not throw his knuckleball over the plate, and was considered no more than a mop-up pitcher on the team.
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Some of the other players who played in the Nebraska State League in 1959 are well known to all of us: Jose Santiago, later to pitch for the Red Sox; Jim Bouton, described as the fifth fastest pitcher on the Kearney Yankee team; Bill Hands, a future 20-game winner for the Cubs who was a seldom-used pitcher for the Hastings Giants; Al Weiss, who hit .200 for the Holdrege White Sox in 1959, but later played in the majors for over 10 years; and Duke Simms, who later helped the Detroit Tigers reach the 1972 American League playoffs, who was the North Platte Indians’ second string catcher in 1959.
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The following season, the summer of 1960, Jordan pitched for the Quad City Braves in Davenport in the Midwest League. As he described it, Davenport Stadium held almost 13,000 people, but no more than 500 ever seemed to attend any one baseball game.
Jordan’s manager at Davenport was Travis Calvin Stonewall Jackson, who was a major league shortstop with the New York Giants for many years, an All Star who retired with a .291 lifetime batting average. He was 58 years old at that time, and there was talk that “Ol’ Travis” had "took sick" while he was out of baseball, a euphemism for heavy drinking. Because of Jordan’s ineffectiveness while pitching at Davenport Stadium, and the tendency of the fans to boo him off the mound, manager Travis rarely started him at home, but instead put him out on the mound when they were visiting places like Dubuque, Decatur, Waterloo, Quincy and Keokuk. At a game in Keokuk, when Travis visited the mound to talk with Jordan, he found him as he always did, boiling, cursing and kicking dirt. “You’re not taking me out of this game, you old bastard!” said Jordon to Travis. As Jordan recalled it, “Travis just smiled his toothless smile and laid his hand on my shoulder. ‘Don’t you worry, son. You can pitch as long as you like. They love you in Keokuk.’”
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I loved Jordan’s description of the Torre brothers (Frank already in the major leagues with the Braves) “as dark and sinister-looking as a Mexican villain from a Grade B movie”; and Joe (age 19 and in the low minors) “Over 220 pounds, and his unbelievably dark skin and black brows were frightening. He looked like a fierce Bedouin tribesman whose distrust for everything could be read in the shifting whites of his eyes.”
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After
his
1960
season
in
Davenport,
Jordan
went
on
to
play
in
the
Florida
Instructional
League
that
winter,
followed
by a
brief
tour
in
Eau
Claire,
Wisconsin,
followed
by
his
terminal
assignment
to
Palatka
in
the
Florida
State
League.
I
will
not
spoil
the
ending
for
you
by
recounting
how
Jordan’s
minor
league
career
came
to
an
end.
Anyway,
I’m
quite
sure
that
any
of
you
who
take
the
time
to
read
this
book
will
enjoy
it
immensely.
Happy
reading.
ENRICHED
IN
RICHMOND
I
had
the
pleasure
last
week
of
visiting
Richmond,
Virginia,
on
my
way
to
Charlottesville,
Virginia,
home
of
the
University
of
Virginia,
where
I
traveled
to
meet
with
one
of
the
top
hose
doctors
in
the
country,
Dr.
Stuart
Howards,
and
then
to
produce
him
for
a
deposition.
I
had
previously
been
to
UVA,
but
had
never
before
been
to
Richmond.
It
is a
city
well
worth
visiting.
I
had
a
chance
to
tour
the
Virginia
State
Capitol
in
Richmond,
the
second
oldest
continuously-serving
capitol
in
the
country.
While
at
this
great
building,
which
was
designed
by
Thomas
Jefferson,
I
stood
where
Robert
E.
Lee
stood
when
he
was
named
the
head
of
the
Confederate
Army
at
the
start
of
the
Civil
War.
I
also
stood
where
United
States
Supreme
Court
Justice
John
Marshall
conducted
the
treason
trial
of
Aaron
Burr,
in a
courtroom
in
which
the
floor
collapsed
because
of
the
capacity
crowd,
resulting
in
numerous
deaths.
I
admired
the
beautiful
busts
of
the
seven
Virginia-born
presidents
which
adorn
the
main
floor
under
the
great
rotunda.
Outside
the
capitol,
there
is
an
enormous
statue
of
George
Washington
on
horseback,
flanked
by
the
busts
of
the
Virginia
giants
of
his
day:
John
Marshall,
George
Mason,
Thomas
Jefferson,
Meriwether
Lewis,
James
Madison,
Patrick
Henry.
I am
tickled
pink
to
have
another
state
capitol
building
to
chalk
off
on
my
list,
No.
30
(should
be
31,
except
for
Itchie’s
cruel
rebuff
in
Albany).
If
you
are
ever
in
Richmond,
I
highly
recommend
a
trip
to
Capitol
Square.
Although
I
was
a
bit
short
of
time
and
didn’t
get
to
see
nearly
as
many
of
the
historical
landmarks
in
the
Richmond
area
that
I
would
have
liked,
I
did
have
a
chance
to
visit
St.
John’s
Church
where
Patrick
Henry
gave
his
famous
“Give
me
liberty,
or
give
me a
death”
speech,
as
well
as
the
famous
Civil
War
battlefield
hospital
which
is
said
to
be
the
precursor
of
the
modern-day
MASH
surgical
hospitals.
All
in
all,
a
great
trip.
One
of
these
days,
I
recommend
that
we
take
a
Hot
Stove
League
trip
to
this
area,
catching
the
Richmond
Braves
and
perhaps
a
couple
of
other
nearby
minor
league
teams,
and
soaking
up
some
of
the
great
history
which
this
region
has
to
offer.
* *
* *
* *
Today
is
March
6.
Our
Draft
is
on
April
6.
Only
31
days
left
to
prepare
for
the
funnest
day
of
the
year.
My
advice
to
you:
Get
busy.
Skipper
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