Tood's Town VII
A small but great personal experience.
In the previous posting, I talked about baseball as a primary social event in Tood's Town. Over the years, the Cairo Merchants' team played most of the local towns' teams and a variety of good semi-pro and professional baseball teams including the House of David, the Mansfield Post Office, and the Kansas City Monarchs.
The Kansas City Monarchs were a AAA league baseball team. In the 1950s, they were an all black team. In addition to playing regularly in the AAA league, they had a traveling team that traveled throughout the country playing baseball games against the locals. It is my understanding that the members of the Monarchs rotated between playing on the AAA team and the traveling team so that there was no big difference in the level of play between the two.
They would play for a percentage of the gate. That is, an admission fee would be charged and a percentage would go to the Monarchs.
The Monarchs had visited Cairo on several occasions and each time they had defeated the Cairo Merchants.
On one occasion however, David beat Goliath, Cairo beat the Monarchs.
After losing that game, the Monarchs promised to stop in Cairo at every opportunity and play Cairo for free. The Monarchs were true to their word and stopped in Cairo to play whenever they were near. Cairo was never able to win a second game.
I remember one such later game. The Monarchs traveling team had Satchel Paige as its pitcher. Satchel Paige was, at that time, a baseball legend. He had pitched for many years in the old Negro League and at an advanced age pitched for the Cleveland Indians major league team.
As I mentioned in another episode, I was a great fan of the Cleveland Indians and listened to every game on the radio. As a result, I was very familiar with Satchel Paige, his sayings, and his pitching.
Very much like Yogi Berra, Satchel Paige had many clever sayings. One that I remember is "Don't ever look behind you, someone may be following."
In any event, Satchel Paige pitched for several innings that summer night in Cairo. I was the lead off batter for Cairo and was fortunate to get two hitting appearances with Satchel as the pitcher.
As it turned out I was able only to give the appearance of being a hitter. I had baseball uniform, spikes, hat and a bat. But otherwise, I didn't hit anything. Hell, I didn't even swing at anything. Satchel Paige threw me, and every other Cairo player the same 3 pitches. Fastball, change up, curve. Strike, strike, strike. I took all 6 pitches I saw in my two at bats against Satchel Paige. I set down after the first 3 each time.
I think we were all star struck. I don't know if any of the Cairo players were able to even foul off one of Satchel's pitches let alone hit anything to the field. Obviously, it was a small but lasting personal experience for me to appear in a baseball game with one of the best ever -- Satchel Paige.
Dillard Farnsworth
In the previous posting, I talked about baseball as a primary social event in Tood's Town. Over the years, the Cairo Merchants' team played most of the local towns' teams and a variety of good semi-pro and professional baseball teams including the House of David, the Mansfield Post Office, and the Kansas City Monarchs.
The Kansas City Monarchs were a AAA league baseball team. In the 1950s, they were an all black team. In addition to playing regularly in the AAA league, they had a traveling team that traveled throughout the country playing baseball games against the locals. It is my understanding that the members of the Monarchs rotated between playing on the AAA team and the traveling team so that there was no big difference in the level of play between the two.
They would play for a percentage of the gate. That is, an admission fee would be charged and a percentage would go to the Monarchs.
The Monarchs had visited Cairo on several occasions and each time they had defeated the Cairo Merchants.
On one occasion however, David beat Goliath, Cairo beat the Monarchs.
After losing that game, the Monarchs promised to stop in Cairo at every opportunity and play Cairo for free. The Monarchs were true to their word and stopped in Cairo to play whenever they were near. Cairo was never able to win a second game.
I remember one such later game. The Monarchs traveling team had Satchel Paige as its pitcher. Satchel Paige was, at that time, a baseball legend. He had pitched for many years in the old Negro League and at an advanced age pitched for the Cleveland Indians major league team.
As I mentioned in another episode, I was a great fan of the Cleveland Indians and listened to every game on the radio. As a result, I was very familiar with Satchel Paige, his sayings, and his pitching.
Very much like Yogi Berra, Satchel Paige had many clever sayings. One that I remember is "Don't ever look behind you, someone may be following."
In any event, Satchel Paige pitched for several innings that summer night in Cairo. I was the lead off batter for Cairo and was fortunate to get two hitting appearances with Satchel as the pitcher.
As it turned out I was able only to give the appearance of being a hitter. I had baseball uniform, spikes, hat and a bat. But otherwise, I didn't hit anything. Hell, I didn't even swing at anything. Satchel Paige threw me, and every other Cairo player the same 3 pitches. Fastball, change up, curve. Strike, strike, strike. I took all 6 pitches I saw in my two at bats against Satchel Paige. I set down after the first 3 each time.
I think we were all star struck. I don't know if any of the Cairo players were able to even foul off one of Satchel's pitches let alone hit anything to the field. Obviously, it was a small but lasting personal experience for me to appear in a baseball game with one of the best ever -- Satchel Paige.
Dillard Farnsworth
posted by Tood at 10:08 AM
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