That's the old ballgame Shreveport, chapter 29 -- short subjects

     Chapter 29

      Short subjects

     The New York Giants-Cleveland Indians spring training game at Texas League Park on April 5, 1954, was the first national coast-to-coast radio sports event carried from Shreveport.

The Mutual Broadcast System announcing team -- one of the best-known in the country -- was Dizzy Dean, Buddy Blattner and Al Helfer. (Ol' Diz and Buddy did baseball's national Game of the Week on national television from 1953 to '59).
The 1954 spring-training broadcast was originated by KENT, the Shreveport Sports' home network. 

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     Dizzy Dean was a fading star, barely hanging on to his pitching career although he was only 30 when he was back in the Texas League -- at his request -- in 1940.

     His June 26 start for Tulsa, anticipated by The Shreveport Times, attracted some 7,500 fans to the third-year ballpark.

     Times sports editor Joe R. Carter wrote: "The great J.H. 'Dizzy' Dean, a little shopworn from wear and tear but still the talkative national celebrity who can always command an audience, will be on display at the Sports' ball yard in the role of hurler tonight."

     Dean had pitched for Houston in the TL in 1931, compiling one of the great records in league history -- 26-10 record, 1.57 ERA, 303 strikeouts in 304 innings over 41 games -- and starting the next year was on his way to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
In 1934, he was the game's biggest star with his 30 wins for the St. Louis Cardinals and two more in the World Series, and he had 133 wins in a six-year period. 

     Injuries (a fractured toe in the 1937 All-Star Game and then arm issues) had curtailed his career, although he pitched well for the Chicago Cubs against the Yankees in Game 2 of the 1938 World Series, taking a 3-2 lead into the eighth inning when the Yanks rallied and dealt him the loss.  

     At his request, he went from the Cubs to the Tulsa Oilers early in the 1940 season, trying out a sidearm delivery instead of the overhand style that had characterized his blazing rise to stardom.

     From The Shreveport Times' front sports page June 26, an Associated Press story datelined New York and written by Whitney Martin started:

     "Dizzy Dean has gone back to the minors and his brave attempt to be philosophical about it strikes a pathetic note, particularly his hope that the southwest sun will bring comfort to his ailing arm. ...

     "Sure, he's been an arrogant showoff. Sure, he criticized not wisely but too well. Sure, he got in more jams than a kid in a pantry. But that's Dizzy Dean and he couldn't be any different. He was great when he had it, and sometimes when he didn't, and even his severest critic will miss him and hope he can come back."

    The Sports scored two runs before Diz registered his first out. But although he gave up 12 hits, he pitched eight innings, walked only two (one intentional), and after being lifted for a pinch-hitter in the top of the ninth, got the pitching win when the Oilers rallied with two runs for a 6-5 victory.

    Diz was 8-8 with a 3.17 ERA in 21 games and 142 innings for Tulsa that season. But he pitched only 13 more innings professionally and became one of the nation's best known baseball broadcasters for a couple of decades. He made several trips to Shreveport and the ballpark during that time.

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     At the April 8, 1967, spring exhibition game (Cleveland Indians vs. Cincinnati Reds)  came the first warning sign that Shreveport's ballpark since 1938 was aging, and crumbling.

     During the seventh-inning stretch, a row of seats in the grandstand on the third-base side gave way -- the concrete slab had loosened because the I-beam holding it had shifted -- and fans sank with it.

     It was above the home clubhouse, and that helped break the fall. But, as The Shreveport Times reported in a Page One story the next morning, two children from the same family landed on a pile of lumber that was stacked nearby and were injured. The game was held up for about 10 minutes, the children were taken to a hospital, treated for cuts and bruises, and released. 

     SPAR officials later said stadium damage was minimal, and repairs were made that summer. But a decade later, just before the 1977 Texas League season, the upper grandstand was deemed unsafe by architects and closed permanently, and the I-beams for the lower reserved seat sections had to be re-enforced. Stadium capacity went from some 5,000 to 2,000, and remained that way through the Captains' last season there (1985).

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     One of the most bizarre Shreveport baseball incidents was 1938 Sports manager Claude Jonneau's season being ended by a fight with one of his players -- ex-major league catcher Walter Stephenson -- outside a San Antonio hotel.

Jonneau suffered an eye injury, which became infected and he was in critical condition for a time in Schumpert Sanitorium in Shreveport.

     Six stitches were needed to close a cut under his right eye, which because of a childhood accident was artificial, and had to be removed when his face became infected after the fight. He recovered, but did not return to the team -- interim manager Hub Northen finished the season -- and was let go after the season. 

     First reports in newspapers were that Jonneau had been hit in the face by a ball while in the outfield during batting practice. He was treated and came to the ballpark that night and the next one, his face heavily bandaged, and the true story was reported soon thereafter.

Stephenson was not suspended, and issued a public apology a couple of days after the fight. 

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     Paul "Pound 'Em" Easterling, a legendary Texas League outfielder for 16 seasons (13 full seasons), was with the Shreveport Sports in the Dixie League in 1933, then returned to them late in the 1939 TL season.

In his first at-bat with the Sports after a trade from Oklahoma City, he hit a home run at Fort Worth. He was traded to Dallas early in the 1940 season; in his first game for the Rebels, he hit a home run against the Sports.

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     Longest games for Shreveport teams: 

     21 innings -- Captains 4, San Antonio 3, in San Antonio on May 21, 1987;

     20 innings -- Gassers 1, Fort Worth 1 (tie), May 8, 1918, in Fort Worth;

     19 innings -- Sports 4, Fort Worth 3, first-round playoff game, Sept. 14, 1942, in Fort Worth. 

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     Highest scoring game in Shreveport baseball history: the very first season and first week, 1895, April 28 -- Grays 21, Sherman 20.

     That must have been the way the game was played then because two days later Shreveport lost to Fort Worth 24-20. 

      And in May, the Grays hit another high mark with 26 runs (26-10 victory against Houston) in which every Shreveport player had at least two hits and the team stole 13 bases.

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     Shreveport teams had quite a run of top thieves in the early years -- stolen base leaders.

     Tony Thebo of the Shreveport Pirates was the Southern Association stolen-base champ in 1908 (with 90) and 1909 (with 63). 

     In 1905, Jim "Snapper" Kennedy led the Southern Association with 57 stolen bases, and Bob Byrne was the leader the next season with 46. Then, when the team nickname became Pirates, Tony Thebo was the champ in 1908 (with 90) and 1909 (with 63). 

     For the Gassers, it was three Texas League leaders in steals in a six-year period -- Al Nixon (37, 1917), Mel Silva (39, 1920) and Homer Ezell (55, 1922).

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     Dave Wilhelmi had an unremarkable six-year pro baseball career, but did have one remarkable night.

On May 3, 1983, in Little Rock, Ark., the 6-foot-5, 230-pound Shreveport Captains right-hander pitched the first perfect game in the Texas League in 48 seasons. He was 21, in his fourth pro season, and had spent two weeks on the disabled list, but in only his second start of the season (his record was 0-1 with a 7.00 ERA), he retired 27 Travelers in a row as Shreveport won 7-0. Two difficult outfield catches in the ninth inning saved the gem.  

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     Left-handed pitcher Mike Remlinger came out of Dartmouth College in 1987, joined the Shreveport Captains late in the season and was an immediate sensation. In his first home game, on Aug. 12 at Fair Grounds Field, he struck out the first nine Tulsa batters -- one short of the league record -- and wound up striking out 15 in seven no-hit innings (with one walk) when, after 122 pitches, he was pulled. A reliever gave up a hit in the ninth; Remlinger's victory gave him a 3-0 record.

He would go on to a lengthy major-league career, mostly as a reliever.

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      The 1992 TL All-Star Game in Jackson had an incredible finish: The East team rallied with seven runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to beat the West 8-6, and it was Shreveport first baseman Adell Davenport who hit a game-winning two-run, two-out home run.

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     Toughest loss in Shreveport baseball history? One strong candidate: Game 5 of the Texas League Eastern Division best-of-five championship series in 1994 (Sept. 3).

Leading 1-0 from the top of the first inning on, the Captains had two outs in the bottom of the ninth, one out from reaching the league finals. Jackson had not scored in 22 innings. Then Tom Nevers and Jeff Ball hit consecutive home runs -- in a span of four pitches -- to steal the victory (and the finals spot) for the Generals.  

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     Taylor Moore, Captains’ president and managing general partner for close to 25 years, provided this tidbit about the man who ran the ballclub from 1938 to 1961:
"As an aside, Bonneau Peters lived at 535 Elmwood Street. We lived at 553 Elmwood Street. Side by side. What would be the odds that the two individuals heading baseball in Shreveport for the longest periods of time would have houses next to each other?"