Backroads and Ballplayers # 105
Stories of the famous and not-so-famous men and women from a time when baseball was "Arkansas' Game." Backroads and Ballplayers Weekly is always free and short enough to finish in one cup of coffee.
Post Season in Division II, Tricycles and Seniors, Old Folks, Older Folks, and Oldest Folks
The Post Season Begins…The GAC has four teams in the DII Regionals
I have written lately about Great American Conference baseball and the members who were once in the old AIC. Last evening, the teams in the NCAA Division II Regional Tournaments were announced. Congratulations to Harding, Arkansas Tech, UA Monticello, and Henderson State.
For the first time in league history, the GAC will send four teams to the Central Regional. Regular season champion Arkansas Tech claimed the No. 5 seed. Harding earned the automatic bid on Sunday afternoon and received the No. 8 seed. The Wonder Boys and Bisons will travel to Warrensburg, Missouri, for a regional hosted by top-seeded Central Missouri.
GAC Championship runner-up Henderson State is the No. 6 seed, and Arkansas-Monticello received the 7th seed and the final at-large berth in the region. The Reddies and Weevils will travel to Mankato, Minnesota, for a regional hosted by Minnesota State.
Check the schools’ websites for live TV information.
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On the Road Again…
About a year ago, I decided to make a change in my life. I had given up my four-mile walk and bought a regular adult tricycle. That was a pretty good idea, but it required a lot of work for a little distance.
I Googled some choices that seniors were making to stay active. My next move was an electric (battery-supported) trike from a company called Lectric. Wow, I can’t explain the uplifting experience this tricycle has provided. I now go all over Russellville. I pedal from my home on the west side of town, through the downtown area, and out to Arkansas Tech on weekends and student breaks. I have logged more than 1,100 miles, and as warm weather approaches, I plan to average about 50 miles a week.
Of course, my rides remind me of Arkansas baseball history, and my adopted hometown is full of connections to some of the lost stories of our ancestors’ favorite pastime. I plan to make room for a Thursday update on the lost stories I pass on my daily ride.
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Old Folks, Older Folks, and Oldest Folks
Ellis Kinder, who was born July 16, 1914, in Atkins, Arkansas, was 31 years old before he pitched his first game in the big leagues. He was 34 in 1949 when he won 23 games and led the American League in pitchers’ winning percentage. Kinder retired in 1957, the only Arkansas-born pitcher with 100 wins and 100 saves. His teammates gave Kinder the nickname “Old Folks.”
Ellis Kinder in Only in Arkansas
Jonas Arthur Berry of Huntsville, Arkansas, is certainly among the ten oldest players to debut in the major leagues, although his birthdate moved around a few times before settling on December 16, 1904. That date of birth would make him 37 years old when he entered his first big league game on December 6, 1942. Berry’s gyrations and nervous movements on the mound led sports writers to call him “Jittery Joe.” He pitched in his last professional game in 1951 for Corpus Christi, Texas. Berry was 46 years old.
Jittery Joe Berry in Only in Arkansas
Rollie Stiles - There is no sign entering Ratcliff, Arkansas, designating the small village in Logan County, Arkansas, as the hometown of a big-league baseball player. Major league pitcher Rolland Mays Stiles was born in that quiet little farming community in 1906.
In June 2006, “Rollie” Stiles was the guest of honor at the St. Louis Brown’s annual reunion. When he was introduced, the banquet guests and former players rose for a standing ovation, a bewildering experience for a pitcher with a lifetime record of 9 victories and 14 losses. Five months later, Rollie Stiles would enjoy his 100th birthday as a baseball celebrity.
Rollie Stiles was quite surprised to find that he was in good health at age 100. In a 2006 interview with baseball historian Ed Attanasio, he said this about his longevity, “I had nearly every disease you could have as a kid. I was always sick. I always drank a little bit, and I smoked cigarettes during my whole baseball career. So, I can’t tell you why I’ve lived so long.”
On July 15, 2006, about a month after the Brown’s reunion, 100-year-old Dr. Howdy Groskloss passed away in Vero Beach, Florida. Dr. Groskloss’ death made Rollie Stiles the oldest living former major league player, a distinction that brought with it a notoriety he never experienced as an active player.
Stiles became a sports page headliner in newspapers throughout the country. He was invited to baseball dinners, and he was recognized with awards from numerous sources. The unusual thing about the attention Stiles received from the baseball community was that it came 73 years after he played his last major league game.
As a youngster back in Ratcliff, Stiles was pretty good at several sports, but according to Rollie, he was best at basketball. Stiles grew to 6’2” in his teens, a height that in the 1920s was considered tall for a young athlete.
A friend who was moving to Oklahoma convinced Stiles’ parents that young Rollie should come live with his family near Tulsa, where high school sports got more attention. Stiles’ parents agreed, in hopes that his athletic ability would create opportunities that might not be available in rural Arkansas. Stiles headed to Helena, Oklahoma, for his senior year of high school.
Researcher Matthew Clifford, in a comprehensive work for the Society for American Baseball Research’s biography project, relates how pro baseball found Rollie Stiles. After high school, the chance the Stiles family took by letting young Rollie move to Oklahoma was rewarded. In 1926, he signed a scholarship offer with Southeastern Oklahoma State Teachers College in Durant, Oklahoma. In the spring of 1927, Stiles played his first and only season with the OSTC baseball team. That summer, he was pitching in a game at a county fair when Rollie got the attention of a scout for the Class A Tulsa Oilers. Playing for pay sounded better than college to young Stiles. He left college in the winter of 1928 and signed with Tulsa.
The Tulsa Oilers correctly felt the Arkansas farm boy, with only one season of college baseball, needed some instruction and competition at a lower level. Tulsa sent him an hour down the road to Muskogee, a Class C team in the Western Association. In the 1928 season with the Muskogee Chiefs, rookie Stiles quickly became the ace of the staff and led the team in wins and innings pitched.
He was back in Tulsa at the end of the year, where he won two games for the Oilers in September. In 1929, Stiles picked up where he left off the year before and became Tulsa’s top starter. Once again, he led his team in wins and innings pitched. Young Stiles pitched more than 290 innings in his second year of professional baseball. Was that too much work too soon for his young arm? By today’s standards for a pitcher’s workload, it was certainly excessive. Rollie Stiles won 40 games and worked over 500 innings in his first two years of organized baseball. He would never come near those totals in the remaining eleven years of his pro career.
The 22 wins and his exceptional workload at Tulsa earned the 23-year-old a shot with the major league Browns in 1930. Remarkably, the usually inept Browns finished ahead of two teams in Stiles’ first major league season, somewhat of a success for a team usually entrenched in the cellar. Stiles won three and lost six for the season. He ended the season on a high note when he won his last start in late September and pitched a complete game against a pretty good Cleveland Indians team.
In 1931, Stiles pitched in 34 games for a Browns’ team that climbed all the way to 5th place, dizzying heights for a franchise unaccustomed to such a lofty place in the standings. He posted a 3-1 record, which made him the only pitcher on the Browns with a winning record. His win-loss total was deceiving. Stiles’ lofty 7.22 ERA was the highest on the regular Browns’ staff.
The Browns farmed Stiles out to a financially distressed franchise in the Texas League for the beginning of the 1932 season. Although he officially pitched for only one team, the franchise was sold during the season, and his record indicates he pitched for two uniquely named minor league clubs. For the strange season with the Wichita Falls Spudders and Longview Cannibals, Stiles was 3-7. His ERA was a sparkling 2.70, and by season’s end, he had been picked up by AA Milwaukee.
Although they had apparently given up on Stiles after the 1931 season, after watching his replacements, the hapless Browns decided to bring him back to the American League in 1933. Perhaps an underlying reason for his promotion was that young Rollie was willing to pitch for $1,800 per year. The cash-starved Browns were always looking to save a buck. In what would be his last season in the majors, Stiles struggled to a 3-7 record with the Browns, and the team settled into their accustomed spot in the American League cellar.
Stiles also had the unfortunate experience of playing for the unpopular taskmaster, Rogers Hornsby. Despite Hornsby’s attempts to motivate the team with his continuous rants and caustic personality, he managed the Browns to last place. Stiles described the year with Hornsby as “the darkest of his career.”
Stiles’ lifetime major league record was 9–14. He toiled in virtual obscurity in his three years with the Browns, a team that considered any year a success that didn’t end with them in the cellar. Few writers covered the Browns, and almost no one noticed or cared. Attendance was consistently the lowest in the major leagues. During the entire decade of the 1930s, the Browns drew a total of about one million fans over ten years. One game drew only 34 loyal patrons.
Former Browns’ pitcher, Ned Garver, noted, “The crowd didn't boo you, because we had them outnumbered.'' Garver also recalled watching a foul ball hit high in the stands. No one bothered to chase it.
After his final year in St. Louis, Stiles would pitch seven more seasons in the minors with only moderate success. His minor league career record was 103 wins and 115 losses. Although his career record in pro baseball was not outstanding, Rollie Stiles was a big-league baseball player. Just getting to the majors is a long shot beyond the dreams of most farm boys from Arkansas. The added unique experience as Major League Baseball’s oldest living player for more than a year added a special curtain call to Rollie Stiles’ baseball story.
Upon his retirement from baseball in 1940, Stiles went to work in St. Louis for Procter and Gamble. While there was little to brag about the Browns’ teams during his years there, Stiles found it easier to boast about his second career. He spent 34 years on the production line for a company he called “the biggest and best soap company in America.”
BaseballReference.com lists Stiles’ salary for 1933, his last year in the majors, at $1,800 a year. In the year of Stiles’ death, he witnessed Alex Rodriguez’s agreement to a new contract with the Yankees. A-Rod’s salary for 2007 paid him over $110,000 per day (based on 235 days from the beginning of spring training until the Yankees were eliminated from postseason play). Today’s players do not need second careers with Procter and Gamble.
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