DONNER
Bernie « Bubba » Donner was
an Alabama State League all star at shortstop in 1947.
Bernie played with Andalusia that season, then moved on to Terre
Haute in the 3-I League. Bernie’s a great guy who loves
to talk baseball. I interviewed him in June, 2000.
[View Bernie Donner’s AFL Stats]
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?
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