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Growin Up-The Clown Years.
I was blessed to be born and raised when and where I was in the 1960’s. The 20th Century had given the world two devastating wars with destruction beyond compare in the history of humanity. Humanity was tired of war and the USA was committed to creating a peaceful, prosperous world where war was obsolete and only something in the history books.
Yes, there were problems as the Communist Soviet Union was diametrically opposed to the Capitalistic USA and the other western nations that were friends and allies of the USA. There were small wars in far off places as Viet Nam had crept into our living rooms and many of the 18 and 19 year olds from the neighborhood were drafted into the military and sent to fight in Viet Nam but the war was over before my brother and I became draft age so we were blessed.
Chicago was still a racially divided city but the economy was good and there were plenty of jobs. We didn’t have much and looking back we were all basically poor by today’s standards as we had few toys, cars or clothes but we were rich in the faith of Jesus and helping out our neighbors. Few people had air conditioners in the summer and we only really had four TV stations so people sat on their porches and were involved in the community programs or the church. Most of the snow was shoveled by people with hand driven shovels and people helped one another.
Baseball, hockey, basketball and football dominated my social calendar a long with school, delivering newspapers and various other jobs to help out as that was part of growing up in a working class neighborhood. My mom struggled with asthma and my dad was an honest cop so money was always tight even though we did not know it.
I sailed thru high school and all the steps of Little league and was able to land academic and athletic scholarships to continue my education and athletic endeavors. I was “on my way” as my right arm continued to develop and by 21, I had a major league fastball and was closing in on degree at the prestigious UIC but then it happened: I developed a lump under the arm near a gland that was thought to be cancer but was later diagnosed as the torn lat muscle which was unusual because this is the muscle that slows the arm down
I rehabbed all winter and by the spring time I was able to pitch again although my velocity was down to that of a regular Division 1 pitcher but not the type of velocity the major league baseball scouts offer big bonuses too. In fact, after my senior year I went undrafted and although I had some free agent offers, I decided to play for the last barnstorming Negro League baseball team in the world, the Indianapolis Clowns.
My mom was a librarian and had read an article about the Indianapolis Clowns and she strongly encouraged me to go down to Atlanta and try out for the team. I had been working with my brother at our family bar and we sponsored some great softball, basketball and baseball teams and I was becoming quite content with the bar business. My mom begged me to be a clown and “get away” from the neighborhood bar and be part of the historic team.
She had a dream and she “knew” my right arm would allow me to circumvent the political system in cook county and would allow me to use the political science degree I had chosen. She convinced me as “the dream” was still in my soul and another summer of playin baseball every day and seeing new places could be cool if I made the team. The Indianapolis Clowns were a very interesting team to me as I researched the team’s history with my mom at the library and read the stories about the old man from Iowa who now owned the team.
I was more than a bit nervous about joining a famous Negro League team as a “skinny white lad” but I was also eager to learn and see life from the other side of “Western Avenue.” Western Avenue was the racial dividing line on the south side for a long time.
My velocity had been creeping back and playing softball with the tavern teams I had developed good hitting wrists so although I was at an advanced age for a prospect, the old owner of the Indianapolis Clowns, George Long offered me a contract.
George Walter Long was a man of 77 years who had been playing, coaching and managing a semi-pro team in Muscatine Iowa since 1933. He worked at the ladder factory and other jobs down thru the years and he also ‘booked’ wrestling, Marquis Haynes and the Harlem Globetrotter events in the off season to help raise funds for his baseball team. George had booked the Clowns thru their glory years of the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s but in the 70’s but with the explosion of cable wires across America that put major league baseball on TV every night and the rise of OPEC and gasoline prices it became very difficult for Independent barnstorming clubs to make money and all went out of business except the Indianapolis Clowns. George bought the team at the age of 67 and somehow kept the team on the road for 10 years when I arrived.
George Walter Long was a driven man and believed in the clowns as the GOLDEN Memories from the great Indianapolis Clowns in the 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s demanded him to keep the last independent barnstorming team on the road. Old George had a dream and although he blew most of his life savings on the team, the Clowns were on the road for one final season when I wandered into his life…George also had a dream that it was his destiny to discover “the best there ever was.” A guy who missed his shot but made it because of George Walter Long.
The Indianapolis Clowns had two vehicles that year. We had a bus and a trail car that George rode in with a veteran Clown. George put me in the car with them to give me some extra money to eat as I was skinny. We crisscrossed America as the “old man” told me about his life and times in the 20th century. We had a phenomenal year as we set the all time winning percentage for a barnstorming team and I had a few offers to sign with the Sox, Twins and Mariners but nobody was offering the bonus money George felt was needed for me to “make it.” “If a club doesn’t invest money in ya then they have nothing to lose when they cut ya so ya gotta get the big bonus.” He told me I had to “write” a book and use my brain and write about my experiences and then he could be the best promoter there ever was.
George sold the Clowns to a pitcher who George had signed, Dave Clark. Dave Clark is perhaps the gutsiest guy to ever play baseball. Dave has been handicapped by polio since 10 months and never walked. Yet, Dave did not want to be left out and his parents, brothers, and friends let him play and although he could not “run” fast – Dave could catch the ball, hit the ball and he could pitch. He learned to balance on the crutches and throw a decent fastball and a nasty knuckleball as he could take the spin off the ball. George Long and the Clowns had signed Dave when he tried out for the Clowns 7 years earlier and it had launched Dave’s professional career. Unfortunately, Dave tore some tendons in his elbow and needed to slowly get back into baseball shape so he decided to “buy” the team from Geroge so he could play and coach at his own pace.
Dave had an idea with a camp and then getting players who had been great prospects and had played organized professional ball but missed their chance. The Clowns were now a “last dance –a last chance hotel” for guys looking to get back into pro ball. The Clowns fed the players and provided competition and if the player did well and was offered bonus money, the players and the Clowns would split it. Dave was adamantly opposed to drugs and felt they were mental crutches but we did sign guys with past problems. 1984 was a season that was nothing like Orwell would have imagined. I had brought a 19 year catcher from the neighborhood who had just dropped out of school and he was an awesome talent but he also liked to smoke pot with some of the older guys who seemed to find a party in every town we played. The season imploded at the Camelot Hotel as there was no round table and Dave said it was “my way or the highway.” I took the highway as Zeke had a scholarship to a junior college in Iowa and needed to get home as it was August. Me, I was literally exhausted returned home to regroup and put on some weight as the road had been long with the Clowns. I delivered some pizzas and tended some bar to put together a bankroll and then headed to Mexico to look for a team in a winter league looking for a pitcher as I was working on the knuckler and had really fallen in love with the road and the game and still remembered my pledge to the moon and stars about ending the curse for the Cubs.
I was ancient for a “prospect” but I had a young face and soul so I changed my name as some friends in Chicago hooked me up with a new identity that had me at 19 years old again. I then started Homeric Huckleberry odyssey the next few years that would have made Odysseus envious as continued my Quixotic quest and played on various teams all across the USA and later with Zeke I played the game all over the Americas including South and Central America—anywhere they had a winter league after the minor league seasons ended as we were hooked on this barnstorming life.
Finally, in 1988 I decided the baseball dream was over and it was time to get a real job and set down some roots. I had made stops in most of the minor leagues so folks knew I was not 19 and since my velocity peaked out around 89 miles per hour I knew my chances of making the big leagues were over as even the bookies said my odds of making it were not even on the board.
There was one old baseball brother from Iowa, George Long, who “knew” I had a baseball destiny and begged me to play for his Muscatine Red Sox one last season as at 83 years of age he thought it might be his last season. Old George was one of my heroes as he GAVE so much to the game. I had a real nice season in the Mississippi Valley League and was one pitch away from getting the old man his state championship but the ball did not bounce our way. It was close to midnight as I drove the old man back to Muscatine from Goose Lake or wherever we played and had lost our chance at the state championship…
There was not much of the usual chatter between me and the old man as the road was dark across Iowa and our mood was somber as there is nothing so final as losing an elimination game – the baseball season was over — the fall was here and winter was coming…