SP: Tell me how you got started.
JR:
My short career was a great experience for me; especially in meeting
some great fans and playing with some truly fine players. I began my career in
1948 with a farm team of the Washington Senators, the Gadsden Pilots, in the Southeastern
League. The Pilots were rivals of your Montgomery Rebels. Woody Coombs,
a Gadsden resident and former minor league shortstop, was my manager and mentor
in the Marine Corps in 1945-46 in Tsingtao, China. We both served with the
6th Marine Division during WW II. Woody managed the 22nd Marine Reds and taught
me how to play short. Woody got the Pilots interested in me. During spring training
and a cold spell with night games, I came down with a muscle sprain in my
throwing arm. I lost my job before the season started and Manager Bill McGee
(a first baseman for the Philadelphia A’s during the war) sent me down for some
R&R. I never came back to form and got optioned to Brewton for a short while.
In the meantime, the Pilots got off to a bad start and Bill McGee joined Brewton
as a playing manager. Gadsden released me and I was off to the Andalusia Arrows.
I finally healed, got my confidence back and played well for the rest of the
year. When I joined the Arrows, I was surprised to find Jim Wingard as center
fielder. Jim played for the 29th Marines in Tsingtao and we played against each
other. The league had good talent with many minor league and college players.
Jim was a good center fielder with all-around ability and would have made a good
manager.
SP: Do any players stand out in your mind
from the league in 1948?
JR: My favorite player was
Russell Reid, a great competitor who would play anywhere with a lot of emotion.
He played when hurt and we usually won when he was in there. Charlie Wilcox was
also a good manager and catcher. He was patient and kind to us young guys to
help build up our confidence. Unfortunately we never played together again but
it was a good group. The best pitcher in the league was Bob Purkey of the Greenville
Pirates. He could bring it and eventually was a star with the Pittsburgh
Pirates and the Cincinnati Reds. Greenville and Troy (a Tigers farm club) had the
best young talent in the league. Most of the players played for $150 to $200
per month. However, some of the major league farms may have given a few signing
bonuses but I didn’t know of any.
SP: What were
the living conditions like for you?
JR: Most of us
single guys lived in private homes with a room for rent or an apartment for the
married guys. Russell Reid and I roomed together as accommodations were scarce.
The fans welcomed us into their homes and made us part of their families. They
were truly great fans who never booed the home team even when we deserved it
SP:
How about travel?
JR:
Travel was by a small bus and overnight stays were rare. We traveled back home
after the game and usually slept until it was time to go to our home park the next
day. Travel expenses were kept to a minimum; it was a low budget league.
SP:
What were the ballparks like?
JR:
The ballparks were small and cozy. Many were shared by the
high schools and were generally worn and rough. My legs used to ache after a game
because the hardened clay was like concrete. Some of the larger cities had
better facilities like Gadsden’s new park. It was very difficult to play on a rough
field and your defense suffered. Most of the infields were skinned. Many of
the parks had minimal lighting, which made the ball hard to pick up. I got beaned
in Dothan one night when I lost the ball when batting. The out field fence
advertisement also obscured your vision. During a night game in Andalusia against
Greenville, I tagged up on third after a fly ball to center and took off toward
home at top speed. It was a close game and upon approaching home, I went into
my slide. The catcher reacted to an errant throw to the third base side of
the field and we collided about six feet from the plate. The catcher was stunned
from my teeth in his head while I was out cold and a bloody mess. Russell Reid
dragged me across the plate for the score while the Pirates complained to the
umpire. We won but I lost a tooth, which I have replaced several times over the
years, the last being two months ago. That bridge cost me more than all the money
I earned in baseball.
SP: What did you do after
your professional career ended?
JR: In 1949, after Andalusia,
I played for Jesup, Georgia, in the independent Ogeechee River League. It was
a good year, injury free, but I decided to enter Syracuse University School of
Forestry that fall. Don Rudolph pitched for us and later was an opening day pitcher
for the Washington Senators. He married Patti Wagon, a famous west coast
burlesque queen. I took in her act one night in Oakland, California, and was impressed
with her multidimensional talents. After his baseball days, Rudy was killed
while working at a construction site in southern California. He was a nice,
kind, good guy and a friend. In 1950, I heard the call to return to Georgia
after the end of the semester and play for Blakely in the Chattahooche River League.
At the season’s end, the Korean War started and my Marine Corps Reserve Unit,
10th Tank Battalion was activated and I reported to duty after my unit left
for Korea. I spent a year at Camp Lejuene, North Carolina, in a training replacement
battalion and was released to go back to school because of my prior service.
During that period, I met Doc Hixson, another great Jesup pitcher. He was
on duty at a naval base. I graduated from Syracuse in 1954 with a BS in Landscape
Architecture. My career has taken me to Montreal, Canada, city parks and the
National Park Service throughout the United States. I retired in 1985 after over
31 years of federal service and now enjoy visiting our parks and painting them
in watercolors. I still cherish my baseball playing days and would not trade
those memories. My wife and I enjoyed watching our son, Adam, grow up and play
the game. It was a dream come true. He does some coaching at the high school
where he is a teacher.