SP: Hi Bernie, I’m calling you from Montgomery.
BD:
Have you met John Hitson? He played
third base for us (1947 Andalusia). Bob Engle (Andalusia first baseman and
manager) came up there (to Montgomery) after playing and directed the cities
young program. He dropped dead from jogging four or five years ago.
He was a great baseball player and a great manager, and he had more sayings that
you could imagine. If I could have written them down and made a book of
them, I’d have made a fortune. I remember one day we were on our way to
Ozark, Alabama to play and we passed a truck carrying a bunch of telephone poles
and he said, « Man, if you could swing one of them nobody’d ever get you out! ».
He had the quips, I’ll tell you. He was something on this earth.
SP:
I was just in Ozark last week taking pictures
of the stadium there.
BD: I’d have loved to have
been a left-handed hitter there. That right field line was only about 260
or so. The left field line was about 390.
SP:
It’s changed now. All the fields are pretty even.
BD:
I’ve got to tell you something that happened to me over at Ozark one afternoon
that’s never happened to anybody else in baseball, I don’t believe: There
was a left handed pitcher throwing, and it was so hot that you couldn’t breathe.
I was the first man up in the seventh inning, and we had an umpire named
Frank Drubino, who was a magician during the off season. He was a good
one, too. He’d show us all his card tricks. Anyway, this ol’ left
hander threw me this big curveball and I grounded it back to him and he threw
me out at first base. I’m walking back to the dugout and somebody hollered:
« Hold it, you gotta come back and hit « . The umpire had been up
in the stands, in the shade over on the first base side trying to cool off and
we had started the game and didn’t even notice he was missing. I had to come
back up to bat, and that pitcher threw me the same pitch and I hit it right
back to him just like I did before! Ozark had a guy named (Gerald)
Juzek. Man, he could smoke that ball, I’ll tell you. Another
great one was that boy in Greenville, Max Peterson. He had a 28 and 12 record
(Peterson’s record that year was 27-12) and he completed just about every
game.
SP: Keltys Powell says Andalusia beat
him 6 times that year.
BD: We did pretty good against
him. We could have made the playoffs. It was labor day and it was the
last day of the season. We were playing Troy and they were the bottom
team (Troy was next to last that year). We played a double-header to make
up a rained-out game. It was the only one that got rained out the whole
year down there. All we needed to do was win to get into the playoffs and
we lost both games to a bottom team, and everybody went home.
SP:
1947 was your first year of pro ball and you were an all star.
BD:
Yep, Bob Engle and « Booger » Russo (Manny Russo)
were on the all star team too. I think Manny hit about 25 or 30 home runs that
year (Russo hit 19). I hit behind him, he hit 4th and I hit 5th. I’d come
up and the bases would be empty! That ruined my RBI totals. I think
I knocked in 87 runs that year.
SP: Yes, 87 RBI’s,
3 homers and you batted .317.
BD: If he hadn’t
been in front of me I think I’d have knocked in 95. He hit a flock of
home runs. You know he had half of his left hand chopped off during the war
from a Japanese (soldier) who dropped on him from out of the trees and came
on him with a machete. He had his small finger and his ring finger and the
outer part of his hand missing. When he swung at the ball, he had a long,
sweeping swing and if he missed it, he couldn’t control the bat so good, but
when he hit it, he could control it and hit the home runs. He was a good
baseball player and a real gentleman, a classy man. ‘Course, we called him
« Booger », but his name was Manuel.
SP: Everyone
called you « Bubba ».
BD: That’s right. That
was my big brother’s name and I couldn’t shake it. Chick (Earle) and I went
to the University of Richmond in 1946, right after the war, and I’d played high
school baseball before that, and a boy I’d played with started calling me « Bubba ».
Then everybody started calling me « Bubba ». I couldn’t get rid
of that handle, but I didn’t worry about it.
SP:
You went from Andalusia to Terre Haute in the 3-I league in 1948. What
prompted that change?
BD: I was sold to the Philadelphia
Phillies. I tell you, it was a whole lot cooler in Terre Haute than it was
in Andalusia! When I went to Andalusia, I weighed 190 pounds and
when I came home, I weighed 165. I’m 6’3″! The last three weeks of
the season, I tried to get a lighter bat and I ended you with a 33″ which was
the shortest thing in the rack. It felt like a railroad tie! We played 140
games down there and only one got rained out. All we ever had was hot and
humid weather. I played almost 20 years (pro and semi-pro) and the most
vivid memory I have was playing in Geneva, playing an (afternoon/evening) double
header, and we went into the clubhouse (after the first game) and hung those
uniforms up and showered and went to eat our evening meal, then we’d come back
to play the tail-end of the double header. Those old woolen uniforms we
had were still soaking wet and stinking and weighed about 150 pounds!
We’d have to put them back on.
SP:
How were the living conditions?
BD: We’d just make enough
money to pay for our meals and our rooms. We didn’t have a whole lot
left after that, but we loved to play baseball.
SP: After
Terre Haute, you went to Appleton in the Wisconsin State League.
BD:
That’s what wrapped me up with (pro) baseball. I was
hitting pretty good in Terre Haute and playing third base. I’ll tell you,
there’s a whole lot of politics in baseball. They sent me to Appleton,
to Class D ball and I wasn’t going to play any more Class D. They were going
to make me play right field and I didn’t want to play right field. So,
I quit and came home, and two days later they called me and wanted me to come
back (to Terre Haute) and play first base because the fellow they had was
an old timer, used to play with the Phillies before the war, named Ed Murphy.
He was a good baseball player. I told the general manager if I come
back in two weeks he might send me out to Selina, Kansas or somewhere so I gave
it up. I made a whole lot more money working and playing semi-pro ball:
Almost three times what I was making at Terra Haute.
SP:
Glenn Perdue said that after 1948 he went and played semi-pro too.
BD:
We’d get $20 a game, and that was a whole lot
of money back then. I was making $250 (a month) at Terre Haute, and I came home
and played semi-pro ball three nights a week. That’s $60 bucks a week
plus $126 dollars a week for working. I bought my first new car then.
I’ll tell you though, that Alabama State League had more better players than
that 3-I league did.
SP: There’s around 50 guys
who made it to the majors from the AFL.
BD: Really?
SP: How were the stadiums you played at?
BD:
The best one was Troy. They were a Detroit
Tigers ball team. The infield was always manicured just like the big leagues
and they had a nice level playing field, nice distances to the fences
and a good clubhouse. They had all the good stuff. Greenville
had a nice one too.
SP: What did you do
after baseball?
BD: Well, I’m 75 years old and I’m
still working. I got a little office and I do design work. I work
with a couple of contractors here. I worked on construction after baseball,
industrial pipe work and all that. I made a lot of contacts and then
at the tail end of my career making drawings of pipe work and shop fabrication
and all that.
SP: Let me ask you about some of the
all stars from 1947. Do remember Ben Catchings?
BD:
Yes. He was a second baseman, managed at Enterprise. You’d better
watch him when he was on base. He’d come into second base stealing, and
he’d have both cleats up and he’d kick the ball out of your glove. You
had to keep a close eye on that guy!
SP: How about
Emory Lindsey?
BD: Oh yes. He and I were big
buddies. He was an old-timer and he could hit that ball. I came to
bat one day and I was in this horrendous slump at the end of the year.
I went from .363 down to .317 in what seemed like overnight. I just
couldn’t buy a base hit. Anyway, I came to bat at Dothan one night and got
a big sweeping curve ball, hanging there right around my belt and I took
it. Ol’ Linsey said, « Boy, no wonder you’re in a slump taking a pitch
like that! ».
SP: How about Dolly Lambert?
BD:
Oh, Dolly Lambert! He’s give you more garbage up at the
plate and just above your knees! He had a screwball! He’d throw all
kinds of garbage up there then all of the sudden PHEWWW…. He’d throw that
fastball up there. He’d keep you off balance. I used to hate to hit against
him.
SP: How about Charlie Kranitsky?
BD:
Charlie and I were roommates. Andalusia let him go
and I think they made a big mistake. Bob Engle didn’t want to let him go.
I guess the Phillies bought him and he went over to Greenville and he
did good over there, hit the ball real good.
SP: I
understand he’d come back to haunt Andalusia every time they’d play Greenville.
BD:
Oh man, yeah! (laughs). We had a pitcher
named Jimmy Jones from Mobile, Alabama. He and « Country » (Stan) Strickler
came up, both of them good chuckers, and Jimmy Jones had a perfect game one
night up ’til the top of the eighth against Greenville and Kranitsky was the first
man up that inning and he singled between Hitson and me into left field.
Next thing we know, they’re hitting the ball all over the place. Before we
know it, here comes Charlie Kranitsky up again and he hits one over the wall!
As he came around second, I said, « Charlie, you’re gonna make them sorry
they ever let you go ».
SP: Do you remember a first
baseman for Greenville named Perry Roberts?
BD: Man,
Do I! He could hit that ball! He knocked in 152 runs! He
could swing that bat so fast you couldn’t see it move. He hit one down the
line in Andalusia one night and it was about 362 down the line, and by the time
he hit it, it was out of the park.
SP: He batted
.389 too.
BD: Now that ain’t bad!
SP:
How about Frank Martin?
BD: Oh
yeah. Opening night in Andalusia, we had a boy named « Judy » (Lou) Holt that
started and he was supposed to be the number one man. Martin hit two
homers off him and whipped him. The next night we played in Dothan, you know
we’d play one night in our place and the next night in their place, and Frank
Martin saw old Judy walking into the park and he called out to him, « Hey there
cousin! ». Man, pitchers don’t like that stuff.
SP:
How was the travelling back and forth?
BD:
Well we went by school bus. Kind of hard riding. Now when I got
to Terre Haute they had a bus with roll-back seats. We’d travel 400 miles
sometimes, going from Terre Haute to Waterloo, Iowa, and that was a long trip.
We’d get a day off in between. You didn’t have that in that league
(Alabama State League). Let me tell you about July the 4th: We had
a double header with Brewton. They came up and played an afternoon game, and
then we went and took our showers and ate, then got on the bus and drove down to
Brewton for a night game there. How do you like that?! Could you see baseball
players doing that today?