Backroads and Ballplayers #27

Stories of the famous and not-so-famous men and women from the days when baseball was "Arkansas' Game." Always free and always short enough to finish in one cup of coffee.

Book Appearance Schedule, Loose Ends, a Post-Season Story, and Brooks in Cardboard Memories

Hard Times and Hardball usually retails for under $20. It can be found at most local bookstores such as Dog Ear Books, in Russellville, Bookish Emporium, in Heber Springs, Wordsworth Books in Little Rock, All Things Arkansas, in Hot Springs, and at our favorite coffee shop, Petit Jean Coffeehouse and Mercantile.

Of course, you can order it from Amazon or purchase signed books from our website.

You can also meet me in person at the book signing events listed below:

Fort Smith, Arkansas, Bookish Book Store, October 13, 12:30 - 2:00

Clarksville, Arkansas, Library, October 24, 4:00 -5:00 p.m.

Arkansas Tech Library special presentation Thursday, October 26, Arkansas Baseball Players in the World Series 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. (third floor)

Ozark, Arkansas, Library Meet and Greet October 28, 10:00 - 11:00 a.m.

Danville, Arkansas, Area Authors Day, November, 4

Post-Season Woes and Goes

Okay, congratulations to the nine of you who picked the Rays, the one of you who picked the White Sox???, and those few of you who picked the Jays or Arizona. You can now watch the playoffs and know you are not going to win the first annual Jim Yeager Backroads and Ballplayers “Pick the World Series Champions” contest. Oh yes, and Susan Yeager you are out too. The Boston Red Sox were not as funny as when you chose them, but they are out. Coach Daily didn’t even pick them and he wears their hat everywhere.

By the way, let me see how many of you chose the Twins. That would be zero.

As an aside to this post-season evaluation theme, what do you think about the Arkansas guys? I wanted the Cubs to make the playoff so I could write a follow-up on Jordan Wicks and Drew Smyly. I have a feeling Smyly will come home to stay. He has made about 50 million in salary and worn seven different uniforms. I think he has had a pretty good career. His best memory will likely be the Field of Dreams game in 2022. On Wicks making the Cubs out of spring training, I am going to go about 75% yes.

On the others, I think 25% for Beeks, 10% for Gavin Stone, and 50/50 on Jonathan Davis. Some team will invite Jakob Junis to spring training, but he is probably iffy as an opening-day roster guy. Besides, he was only accidentally born in Arkansas.

Want to comment on any of the above?

Bearden, a little tarnished, but still our guy!

I have a post-season prediction. It is somewhat easier than the task that those of you faced when you entered the “Pick the World Series Winner” contest back in the spring. My bold prognostication…The Cleveland Guardians will not win the 2023 World Series. The Guardians/Indians have the longest active championship drought in MLB, with their last World Series title coming in 1948. This year’s absence will make 75 years.

Back at World Series time in 1948, Truman was president, there were only 48 states, and yours truly was not quite a year old. There were 16 major league teams, and only two of them made the post-season.

The Indians’ Gene Bearden’s brief stint in 1947 had not been impressive, but he made the Indians’ 1948 roster after an outstanding spring training. The rookie from Lexa, Arkansas, got off to a good start, winning four games in May, and by the end of July, his record was a respectable 8-3.

A knuckleball doesn’t place a lot of stress on a pitcher’s arm, and as summer’s dog days arrived and the Cleveland pitching staff began to wilt, Gene Bearden started his remarkable winning streak. He won 11 games in the last third of the season and finished the regular season with a 19-7 mark including three wins in the last week of the season. The Indians had come from five games back in early September to tie the Red Sox for the American League Pennant. Although Gene had pitched a complete game two days earlier, he got the call from Manager Lou Boudreau for the one-game playoff

Of course, truth is often stranger than fiction, and Bearden’s five-hit victory in the tiebreaker not only gave the Indians the pennant It was the Arkansas knuckleball specialist’s seventh straight win and an exclamation mark on a 20-win season.

Gene Bearden’s historic season continued into the World Series against the Boston Braves. With the series tied at one game each, Bearden faced only 30 batters and won a 2-0 shutout in game 3. The two teams split games 4 and 5 and in the eighth inning of game 6 Boudreau called for the knuckleballer. Gene Bearden came through by saving the game, and appropriately the amazing rookie who had led his team since mid-season was on the mound for the Indians’ shining moment. Teammates carried the rookie pitcher off the field. He was without question the man of the year in Cleveland.

Like the Indians, Gene Bearden would never recapture the magic of 1948. He would pitch seven more seasons and never have a winning record in any of them. Bearden retired to Phillips County Arkansas in 1958, tried several retail endeavors, and did radio work playing Blues music and reading the market reports. He was elected to the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1988. Bearden died in 2004. I wish that was the end of the story, but there is a “rest of the story.”

Before his World Series heroics, Bearden had been branded a hero of another variety. He had a “War Hero” story from his days in World War II. That part of his life which was published in reliable sources including SABR biographies, various Arkansas history sources, and my book Backroad and Ballplayers is apparently not true. I will leave that to the historian who did a much better job than me in finding the truth about Gene Bearden’s war story.

The baseball part of the Gene Bearden story stands for itself. At that moment 75 years ago, he was at the top of the baseball world. Sportswriters and news columnists added to the baseball accomplishments a war hero component that had been retold by reliable sources. Bearden himself did not know how to escape the fable of his miraculous recovery from the attack on a submarine on which he never served.

I will continue to retell the story of his amazing rookie season and his post-season heroics. I can forgive a young man who became the center of so much adulation and could not find a way to backtrack his false resume. His 1948 baseball accomplishments remain one of Arkansas’ greatest post-season stories.

Below is a link to the detective work that uncovered the fictitious war story. I am grateful for this work, and I regret the shortcomings of my research.

My Only In Arkansas this month is a tribute to Brooks Robinson with some “cardboard memories.

If you have missed some posts click here: Link to past posts.

More of my stories in Only in Arkansas

If you want signed Hard Times and Hardball or Backroads and Ballplayers: Ordering instructions Link