Dave Nitz to the rescue

        Almost everyone who knew him fairly well has a Dave Nitz story. Here is mine.

      He rescued me once from having to do play-by-play of a basketball game.

      Those of us with Louisiana ties -- especially North Louisiana -- know that Dave is one of the most accomplished sports radio broadcasters of our time. 

      His affiliation with Louisiana Tech University athletics spanned almost 50 years, and he was the Shreveport baseball -- most the Captains -- play-by-play radio man for 20 years.

      He was dedicated and knowledgeable, personable (always with some stories), fun ... and talented. We all loved "Freeway Dave." He did love to travel, mostly by car.

      Give us Jim Hawthorne, Tim Brando and Nitz, and you've got "The Big Three" of northwest Louisiana broadcasting fame. 

       They were the modern-day successor to IZ, Irv Zeidman, the Shreveport Sports baseball/Centenary College basketball "voice" of the 1950s/early 1960s.

        We all listened to Nitz for hundreds -- maybe a couple of thousands -- of games (football, basketball, baseball) over the years. You had to love it!

         Dave passed away Tuesday at age 82, and we are sad. He was a character to remember.

         It was a pleasure to occasionally sit in with Nitz in the broadcast booth or on the basketball media table. And one memorable weekend is my "Nitz story."

---

       The week before Christmas, 1979, Dave was broadcasting Louisiana Tech women's basketball but also had agreed to do three Centenary College men's basketball games in New York (City and state).

        Jim Hawthorne had been Centenary's play-by-play guy for much of the 1970s -- before, during and after the Robert Parish era. But starting with the 1979-80 season, he had been hired to be LSU men's basketball announcer.

         Tracy Jackson -- who operated the Manpower temporary employment agency in Shreveport -- had play-by-play experience and did some Centenary games early that season. But he and wife Jo had a large family and he wanted that Christmas time with them, so he wasn't available for the New York trip.

          Centenary was scheduled to play Long Island University on Thursday night, then Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y. -- near Albany, three hours from New York City -- on Saturday night, and finally national power St. John's University in Queens on Sunday night.         

         It just so happened that the Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters were going to play in a big holiday tournament at Madison Square Garden that weekend.

         So Nitz was going to be in NYC, and we needed a play-by-play announcer for the Centenary games. Ah, yes, Nitz would do it.

         And as the Centenary sports information director for four years I was the "color" analyst for the road games, butting in to Hawthorne's play-by-play for much of that time.

There was a catch to Nitz's availability. The Lady Techsters, who the previous season had emerged as a national power (a status they would maintain for two decades), were playing in a tournament in Las Vegas early that week. They won that title and the team -- and Nitz -- flew to New York City on Thursday.

        Fine, except the time frame was short. Centenary's game with Long Island actually was in Brooklyn. So the question was, when and how would Nitz find the game's location?

         (It was a weird setting. The Schwartz Athletic Center was a gymnasium converted from an auditorium -- it once had been a theater -- and it was on the third floor of a building attached to  LIU's main building. Go figure -- Long Island U. in Brooklyn?)

          Game time, thankfully, was 8 p.m. (Eastern time). I had brought the radio equipment and set it up, and actually started the pregame broadcast.

         Quick note: I had never done play-by-play on radio, in public. Had been the "sidekick" -- analyst -- for high school football games and Centenary basketball. But the only play-by-play I'd done, many times, was in the bedroom of our home in Sunset Acres. 

         Never desired to do play-by-play on radio. Not my thing. (Would have been worse on television.)

         But game time was close, Nitz wasn't there. Oh, my .. where is he? I am not relishing this.

         And then ... two minutes to tipoff: Here's Dave!

         Freeway Dave to the rescue. Actually, Subway Dave ... because -- experienced and savvy traveler he was -- he had found his way to Brooklyn by subway and then a cab to LIU.

          Very times in my life was I happier to see someone than Dave that night.

           And it was a wild game to broadcast -- a 114-101 game, Centenary on the short end. But what a pleasure to do the game with Dave.

--- 

          Even better was the Saturday experience. First, Dave broadcast the Lady Techsters' game with Rutgers at "The Garden," which -- again, thankfully -- had a 1 p.m. start. High-profile matchup, which the Techsters won 89-83 in overtime. Got to sit with Dave at press row on the Garden floor.

           Then, we were off to Centenary's 8 p.m. game at Siena. Rode the train to Albany -- a neat trip near the Hudson River, and a passenger's view of the U.S. Military Academy. Caught a cab from the train station, and broadcast a good effort by Centenary but an 86-82 loss. Still fun.

           The next day, Sunday, back to Madison Square Garden and the Techsters' thrilling victory against powerful Old Dominion, 59-57. Tech's record after that: 16-1.

           That night, we made our way to Queens for Centenary's test against a talented St. John's team, one of the many powers for legendary coach Lou Carnesseca. I did a pregame interview with him, and he was very nice (to a radio novice). Centenary was no match for Lou's team; the final was 92-72.,

           What a weekend with Nitz.

---

           A follow-up: The Centenary team that had a 1-8 record (the victory had been in the season opener) after the New York trip improved slowly, then blossomed in March and wound up with a winning record and as the Trans America Athletic Conference postseason tournament champions.

         The Lady Techsters made the national semifinals (it was the AIAW then) for a rematch with Old Dominion (which starred Nancy Lieberman, Anne Donovan and Rhonda Rampolo). ODU won that one easily, but Tech's final 40-5 record was a sign of great things to come in the future.

          One other Nitz connection with me: The first Louisiana Tech events he broadcast were the games in the 1974 NCAA baseball regional at old Arlington Stadium. I covered that for The Shreveport Times, an early career highlight. 

         The University of Texas had one of the nation's best college baseball progams, but Tech darned near earned a College World Series trip, beating the Longhorns to reach the winners' bracket. Texas came back to top Tech twice. 

           It was a heckuva start for Nitz's career at Tech. He was a "new" guy for all of us then and became a legend over time. 

           We remember him fondly, and we are thankful for the memories. 

          

One of my favorite columns

       Sometimes a writer walks into a wonderful column or story subject. And that's what happened here.

       I was reminded of this column written a little more than 39 years ago. Found it on the old Shreveport Journal files on newspapers.com, and it was sentimental to read it again.

       This was an award-winning piece in the annual Louisiana Sports Writers Association contest; in this case, the 1985 awards presented in July 1986.

       It was not a first-place award; it finished second in its category. Fine. Contest judging always is subjective, so we accepted -- with gratitude -- whatever the result.

       Winning awards is not why we chose the sportswriting/newspaper business, but they were a reminder that on a particular story, column or project, you did a good enough job to impress someone. 

       Doing the job well day after day -- and, well, helping sell newspapers -- was my personal aim. Didn't always succeed, sometimes in fact failed miserably, and had to move on. 

       Worked with many better writers and editors, some of them repetitive award winners. But awards did come this way occasionally, and every now and then, there is a reminder of the work involved. And it's fun to think back on that.

      This particular column came from a night when I covered a Texas League baseball game at SPAR Stadium, the (very) old home of the Shreveport Captains. It happened to be the Fourth of July, 1985.

       Sat down with an elderly man, a familiar season-ticket holder as he was making his return to the ballpark for the first time that season, and the first time as a widower. 

       Wasn't particularly looking to write a story or column, but simply to say hello to the gentleman, Mr. Eugene Hemard, who was 87. The story/column found us.

       Turned out to be a sweet piece, or maybe a bit bittersweet because Ms. Mamie wasn't there.

       Read it, and I hope you appreciate it. (And, yes, the photo is from when I was 38 years old. Don't look much like that anymore.)

 

That's the old ballgame, Shreveport -- a book for sale!

           Happy to announce That's the old ballgame, Shreveport has been published, and is now for sale.

      I have the first three copies -- they arrived today -- and can tell you that the type is large enough for easy reading.

       It is 231 pages of Shreveport and North Louisiana pro baseball history. Many photos and capsules on the players and officials significant to the teams that represented Shreveport, the city's ballparks, and the area players who played pro ball -- in the majors and minor leagues.

---

       When people suggest that writing this book has been "a labor of love," they are correct.

       Loved doing it, the writing and even moreso the research. Proofreading was a task. To the final read, there were corrections to make.

       And, yes, it was a labor. Putting together the book -- formatting it -- took the first seven months of 2022. No technical wizardry here; let's say that the Publisher and Word programs often were more in charge than the formatter.

       But with lots of help, it is done. Thankfully.

       Going back even further, the project began four years as a series of chapters on my blog, Once A Knight. But much material was updated and corrected, and there are many more photos than in the blog series.

        While finishing up in the past couple of months, three of the 1959-61 Shreveport Sports passed away -- Dave Wickersham, Frank Cipriani and the popular Leo Posada. Sad, but all were in their 80s. We updated their player capsules.  

       So many great names in this book, many great memories ... and the issues that led to the demise of pro ball in the city. 

---      

       Two ways to buy the book:

       (1) You can buy the book on Amazon ($35 per copy, plus shipping costs);

       (2) Preferably, you can buy the book from me. Let me know, and I will order it and then send it to you (send $35 and your mailing address).

       (To be honest, we benefit more if you order through me. Amazon Publishing, which printed the book, gets a greater share with a direct order.)

       But who's counting?

       Here is the link to the Amazon order page, if that's the way you want to go:       https://www.amazon.com/dp/1791838391

       Hope you will be interested in the book. 

Eating at the trainer's table

Riley Stewart: A big man in 'Baseball'

 

An anonymous baseball name from the past

         Johnnie Dawson was a catcher in professional baseball in the 1930s and 1940s, and he was from rural Caddo Parish who became, for a time, a Shreveport resident.

      Or maybe his name is Johnny Dawson. We're not sure which spelling is correct.

Reno newspaper
July 25, 1941
(clipping provided by
Dr. Margaret Gripshover)

     You will not find him in all the Shreveport area pro baseball material that we published in 2019 and early 2020 because -- frankly -- we had never heard of him until a couple of months ago.

     In all our research back to 1895 -- of the early Shreveport teams and then the Gassers, Sports, Braves, Captains, etc., and players from Northwest Louisiana that played pro ball -- he was anonymous.

     It was an avid baseball researcher who found Dawson for us and identified him as a Negro Leagues player.

     Dr. Margaret M. Gripshover -- whose informal name is Peggy -- is a professor of geography at Western Kentucky University. That field also includes environmental studies.

    Originally from Cincinnati, she has been at Western Kentucky for 11 years after previous faculty stops at Marshall University and the University of Tennessee.

     So geography is her j-o-b. But she's also passionate about -- and has researched and written on -- horses, the thoroughbred racing industry, mules (yes, mules) ... and baseball.

     Pertaining to the great game, she is partial to the Chicago Cubs and the Wrigley Field area, and her current project -- which brings her to us and Mr. Dawson -- is research on African American contributions to baseball.

     She is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and is contributing a chapter on Dawson to a book on the 1942 Kanas City Monarchs, a combined writing project for numerous SABR members.

     So Dawson was a missing piece and, having seen some of our work online, she wrote us seeking what information we had on him. Which was ... none.

--- 

     Here is what we did find on Dawson from a, well, sometimes-not-sure source, Wikipedia:

     Johnnie Dawson (November 8, 1914 – August 6, 1984) was an American Negro league catcher between 1938 and 1942.

     A native of Shreveport, Louisiana, Dawson made his Negro leagues debut in 1938 with the Kansas City Monarchs and played with the Chicago American Giants and Memphis Red Sox in 1940. He returned to the Monarchs during their 1942 Negro World Series championship season. It was Dawson's final season in baseball. He died in Los Angeles, California, in 1984, at age 69.

Negro league baseball debut — 1938, for the Kansas City Monarchs

Last appearance — 1942, for the Kansas City Monarchs

Teams — Kansas City Monarchs (1938); Chicago American Giants (1940); Memphis Red

Sox (1940); Birmingham Black Barons (1942); Kansas City Monarchs (1942)

     And from the Baseball Reference web site, here is a link to the scant Negro Leagues statistics on Dawson:

     https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=dawson003joh

--- 

     Going to let Dr. Gripshover -- "Peggy" -- take it from here. Following are parts of what she wrote to us in mid-October:

    "Dawson’s baseball career mirrors that of many second-string players in the Negro Leagues of his day. His life off the field was no walk in the park either. I am pretty sure that it wasn’t easy  to be an African American man in “Bloody Caddo.”

      Dawson’s immediate family was fractured and unstable from the get-go. He and his brother (Kemp Dawson) were raised in rural Caddo by different sets of aunts and uncles in the Greenwood and Flournoy communities. His father, also named John Dawson, vanished from the picture by 1920 and his mother remarried and moved to Shreveport.

      Johnny and Kemp had their scrapes with the law in Shreveport, but nothing major (mostly gambling). Kemp left Shreveport before Johnny did and moved to Los Angeles where he had a brief career as a boxer.

     The Dawson boys were just two of the many African Americans who left Shreveport for LA during the “Second Great Migration.” One article I read claimed that there were so many former Shreveport residents in LA, that there was a neighborhood that was informally called “Little Shreveport.”

     Johnny ended up in LA after his service in World War II. Dawson continued to play baseball in the burgeoning post-WWII semipro leagues in California, along with some other former Negro League players. He played semipro baseball for a variety of teams until around 1949. 

    After that, I lose track of Johnny and his brother Kemp until their deaths in the 1980s. Kemp died in San Francisco in 1983, and Johnny passed away a year later in LA. I have a few documents that indicate that both brothers were probably married at least once (maybe twice), but no records of any known children.

     I am fairly experienced with doing African American genealogy, but the Dawson family has been a real challenge. Endlessly interesting, but a challenge nonetheless. 

     … There were a few bright spots in the Dawson family story. The uncles who raised the Dawson brothers were fairly successful farmers in Caddo Parish, and one of the uncles was a  regular exhibitor (and winner) at the Louisiana State Fair in the 1910s. Fast forward to the 1990s, and you will find Johnny’s cousin, Matel “Mat” Dawson (1921-2002), a Detroit autoworker turned philanthropist who endowed a scholarship at LSU-Shreveport."

—- 

     And there you have it --  the story of Johnny (or Johnnie) Dawson, as we have it. A small, previously unknown — and somewhat sad — segment in Shreveport baseball history uncovered by Dr. Margaret “Peggy” Gripshover (photos left and below).

    And we thank her. 

That's the old ballgame Shreveport -- acknowledgements

     Acknowledgements

     It has been "a project" that took more than two years to compile. But thinking about professional baseball in Shreveport, studying it, and researching it has been practically a lifetime experience.

     To put together the material in these 30 chapters brings to mind what the great, zany Casey Stengel was quoted as saying.

     After his New York Yankees clinched the 1958 American League championship, the old manager supposedly said: "I realize I couldn't have done it without the players."

     (Just to be sure, he said it again a few weeks later after the Yankees won the World Series.)

     So ... I could not have put together this material without help from a lot of friends.

     To begin, John Andrew Prime -- former reporter/writer for The Shreveport Times with a deep interest in local history -- suggested the topic and provided guidance along the way.
     A huge assist from John James Marshall -- state-champion quarterback (Jesuit High-Shreveport, 1976), Shreveport Journal sportswriting/editing regular in the 1980s -- who opened the door for research on newspapers.com.

     The great bulk of this material came from those Times files, and also from other newspapers that somehow tied into Shreveport baseball.  

     Whatever we gathered from the pre-1950s days, much it was from the writing of Shreveport Times sports editors Joe Carter (1922-47, his column was titled "Raspberries and Cream") and Barney Ghio (1947-51, ''Barney's Corner.").

     But so much of the 1950s/early 1960s Shreveport Sports material came from the writing of then-Times sports editor Jack Fiser ("The Inside Corner"), a superb wordsmith, a columnist who would have been a star in any market.

     And no one covered Shreveport baseball longer -- or better -- than Bill McIntyre at The Times, before, during and after his 15-year stint as sports editor. 

     McIntyre was my first boss at The Times -- he was an encyclopedia of sports knowledge -- and my association with Fiser was for much of my sophomore year at Louisiana Tech University when he was the sports information director. I have so much admiration for those two "mentors."  

     No one knows more about the 1980s Shreveport Captains than John James Marshall. No one knows more, or wrote more, about the 1990s Captains and early 2000s city teams -- or most every sports subject in the area -- than Scott Ferrell, whose three-decades stay at Shreveport newspapers now has him as the overall editor of The Times.

     Their help with my "project" was invaluable.
     Thanks to JJ and to Teddy Allen -- the "Designated Writers" team, my co-workers at the Journal in the mid-1980s -- for publishing a few of these chapters on their Designated web site.

     There were, over the last five decades, many, many sportswriters in Shreveport who left their piece of baseball coverage, and some material was gleaned from most of them.

     Taylor Moore, who was part of the Captains' ownership for 25 years and the team's general managing partner, was/is a valuable resource. One of the team's ex-general managers  and a good friend of nearly five decades, John W. Marshall III, has always made contributions.

     For photos, there was one major source (other than those photos taken from the Internet): The Texas League office. 

     The great majority of the photos in this project came from the TL office. The 25-year TL president Tom Kayser collected -- through donations from the newspapers and the Captains -- many of The Times and Journal baseball photos.        

     And then, in a great break for this project, Tim Purpura -- former Houston Astros general manager (among several of his baseball-industry jobs) -- succeeded Kayser as TL president and moved the league office to ... Fort Worth. 

      So that worked for me. Tim graciously opened the files in his downtown office to me to dig for Shreveport-related baseball photos. 

      It took several trips. Tim's executive assistant, Jessica McClasky (ex-softball star, current coach), helped by scanning dozens of photos; before that, league intern Tyler King was a big help.
      John Ridge, whose "Shreveport Confidential" site on Facebook is always interesting and who has done extensive research and posts on all things -- athletics included -- in north Caddo Parish, contributed several early day Shreveport baseball photos and clippings.
       There are more photos to be had, in the Times' and Journal negatives files, now located in the LSU-Shreveport archives section. Obtaining those, as well as formatting and publishing a printed book of this material, are in the "maybe" category.

       But for those who are interested in the Shreveport baseball history, it is all online, and the intention here is to at least provide a printed copy of the chapters to various outlets (newspaper, library, TL office, etc.).
       For now, though, we have reached the bottom of the ninth inning on Shreveport pro baseball. We have gathered the material, and we are grateful for all the help we  received.       

Nico Van Thyn
Fort Worth, Texas
August 19, 2019

That's the old ballgame Shreveport, chapter 30 -- A personal journey

    Chapter 30

      A personal journey

The writer, as Shreveport Journal executive sports editor, covering a Shreveport Captains game at the old, roofless
 SPAR Stadium in 1982. (Photo by Louis DeLuca, Dallas Times-Herald) 

     Baseball was my first American sports love, and it still is.

     From the time we first saw them, we loved the Shreveport Sports. Then we loved the Shreveport Captains.

     Over about a 40-year period -- boyhood to middle age -- those were our teams. 

     The Gassers and all those previous team nicknames? Too soon.

     The Swamp Dragons and the independent teams that followed? Too late. By the time they came along, we had left town. Soon, so had professional baseball.

     Too bad, and kind of sad.

     The players who represented professional baseball in our hometown,  who wore those white home uniforms with "Sports" or "Captains" across the front or the (usually) gray road uniforms with "Shreveport," those were our boys of summer (young men actually, although some were close to 40).

     And the ballparks, those were our home parks. Countless hours spent at each of those places.

     First, Texas League Park-turned-Braves Field-turned SPAR Stadium -- never "beautiful," but functional through the 1950s and '60s and a decaying facility in the 1970s that was a near-wreck into the mid-1980s. 

     Then, the new concrete Fair Grounds Field, so nice at its opening in 1986, so visible from Interstate 20. And for 17 years, home of Shreveport's Texas League team. For another nine, home of independent-league teams.

     And then gone ... a pro baseball void in Shreveport-Bossier that soon enough will be a decade long.
A ballpark still standing by I-20, but -- honestly -- an eyesore, even from a distance. Can it be put back into playing shape? Doubtful. Too expensive, too much negativity.
Maybe someday ... a fix, or a new ballpark. Difficult to see it in the near future.

     But once upon a time, following those Shreveport teams was a magical journey for us, and a totally unexpected one. Because before 1956, baseball indeed was a foreign subject for me.

 ---

     We came across the Atlantic Ocean on a boat as 1955 became 1956, and the hottest topics that first year in the U.S. were Elvis Presley, Mickey Mantle, Ike and, for us, the Mickey Mouse Club. 

     To think, the Brooklyn Dodgers -- for the only time in their history -- were the defending World Series champions. Did not realize then how much misery the New York Yankees had dealt them over the years.

     But Dodgers, World Series, Mantle, Yankees? All new to me. Baseball? Did not know the second thing about it.

     The first thing: It was a game that in the old country, The Netherlands, was called honkbal. A minor sport there. We had read (in Dutch) about it, but never seen a game.

     The kids on the elementary school grounds here, though, played baseball at recess and speedball -- same game, rubber ball (a bit bigger than a hardball). So, after rudimentary introductions to speaking, reading and writing English, came some of the basics of the game.

     Found out a couple of things pretty quickly: 

     (1) Hitting a ball with a wooden bat was not all that easy, especially when -- as Bill McIntyre would write in The Shreveport Times a few times in future years -- pitches were fired in anger; 

     (2) If you lined up in the catcher's position, without benefit of a mask, and got too close, the wooden bat could hit you in the face. A few weeks into the experience that meant a severe black eye, but luckily no further damage.          

     Slowly that first spring and early summer, we would begin hearing about the Shreveport Sports. A professional baseball team in our city, and Dad's company had tickets for games at the stadium. His bosses, hearing of the son's sports interests, suggested we take the tickets and go to a game.

     We lived close enough to the ballpark in the old Allendale neighborhood that -- without benefit of a car -- we could walk, and be there in about 20 minutes. Down Jordan Street to a right on Southern Avenue, then across the railroad tracks toward downtown, and soon enough, a few blocks away, you could see the stadium light poles behind the fence in right field.

     Can close my eyes and see that scene, and remember the thrill. It was almost -- not quite, but almost -- like going to Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam (also within walking distance of our little house there).

     Hello, Texas League Park, 1956.

     Recall going in the front gate and then seeing the ballfield and the stands, the Sports in their home white uniforms, the Dallas Eagles in the visiting grays. The date -- researched this in The Times files -- was July 8, the only Sunday game the Eagles played in Shreveport to that point in the '56 season.

     And I know, I remember, it was the Eagles as the visiting team.

     Do not think, however, that I was aware of how special a season 1956 would be in Shreveport, or how special one player -- home-run hitting phenom Ken Guettler -- was that season.

     By that Sunday, Guettler had hit 33 home runs -- past the halfway mark of the Texas League record (55). 

     He did not hit one that Sunday, but he would make history, earn his forever place in Shreveport baseball lore -- and make the cover of this book.

     We sat in the upper grandstand, Dad and I, two of the 1,319 paid for the game. We were about 10 rows up just to the right of home plate, but enough so we could see into the home-team dugout on the third-base side. In Shreveport, the home team side was always on the third-base side.

     No one was more enchanted by baseball than I was that day. It was instant love.

     Maybe it was the first inning -- Dallas scored three runs, then Shreveport scored five. (The Eagles ended up winning 8-6, but that did not matter much to us then.)

      Could not always figure out exactly what was happening in the game (although it was easier to learn than American football), but I loved the pitcher-batter battles, I loved the speed of the baserunners, loved the mixture of white-and-gray uniforms -- and loved the red and blue trim of the Sports' colors (especially the two-tone hat) with the "S" logo.

     Along with the Sports, I found another favorite team because they were on television a lot -- once we got a TV -- and in the news. The pinstriped home uniforms were unique, eye-catching. Lots of interest, I discovered, in the Yankees and especially the center fielder, No. 7. It would be Mickey Mantle's greatest season, so it was natural to become a fan of the player and the team.

     Think we went to one more Sports game that summer, but by the next year, Dad's company had box-seat tickets, so we went often -- although attendance had fallen off dramatically -- and I remember Dad proudly leaning over the railing on the third-base side to scoop up a couple of foul-ball grounders. Never an autograph seeker, I took those baseballs and used them on the playground.)

     By the next year, I had a Shreveport Sports cap and a yellow-and-blue Sports T-shirt.

     It was disconcerting to learn that there would be no Sports in 1958; the ballclub left town. Did not really understand the reasoning then -- a ban on integrated games was a huge issue -- but was delighted when the Sports' franchise came back to life in 1959 ... in the Southern Association.

     So, it was the 1959-61 Sports -- a Kansas City Athletics' farm team -- with which we most identified. Found a player who, other than Mantle, became a personal favorite -- a 19-year-old second baseman, Lou Klimchock, "Baby Lou" to the Shreveport media. 

     He was terrific that season and he wore uniform No. 4 for the Sports. And for the four years in which I played at baseball -- not well, at all -- my uniform was No. 4. (Also liked the Yankees' No. 4, Lou Gehrig, subject of the first book I read in America.)

     Those Sports players -- Peden, Posada, Grunwald, Slider, Ward, Hankins, Hunt, McManus, Howser, Wickersham, Spicer, Pfister, Blemker, Black, Davis and Davis, Parks ... I could go on and on -- were magic for me. Followed their career paths in their years after Shreveport.

     Tough to see the ballclub leave again after 1961. But the ballpark became a close friend -- as a scorekeeper for high school, American Legion and recreational ballgames, and sometimes P.A. announcer, too.

     When pro ball returned in 1968, I was a college junior and one of our Louisiana Tech friends, basketball-baseball star George Stone, started the '68 season pitching for the Shreveport Braves (in the Atlanta Braves' organization). As he commuted to home games, we came with him several times in the early season.

     He was on his way to the major leagues; that year, in fact. I was on the way to a sportswriting career.

     That summer, 1968, among the assignments as a Times intern a half-dozen times was coverage of Shreveport Braves' games (with that came the official scorer role). The next summer it was a fulltime position -- and frequent Braves/Captains stories and columns for almost the next two decades.

     From that standpoint, it was less being a fan and more being a reporter. But still, it was -- as it had always been -- a point of pride in seeing Shreveport in the standings (yes, it was in bold in the newspapers). It looked especially good at the top of those standings.

     However, I always felt like a jinx for Shreveport teams. In the years I lived there (1956-1988), there were this many league championship teams: zero.   

     In the four years before we arrived, the Sports won two Texas League playoff championships (1952, 1955) and one regular-season championship (1954). Two years after I left for good, the Captains won the first of back-to-back championships (1990-91), and then they won again in '95.

     Oh, well.

     Another point of pride was identifying former Shreveport players and/or managers as they moved on, many to the major leagues, some as big stars. For a short time in their lives, they were our guys.

It was tough, but understandable, to see the demise of pro baseball in Shreveport starting in the year 2000 when the ballclub -- mostly locally owned for some 25 years -- was sold to corporate interests. Personally, the independent-league teams that followed were not of much interest for someone living out of state.

But the game endures, without a team in Shreveport. So do memories.
And so does the love for a baseball past in a place that meant so much to us.