Backroads and Ballplayers #48
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.
Hog Wash and Conway Day in the Majors
Lost Story: Dr. Baseball Comes to Greenbrier
Hog Wash - Will McEntire Signs In
On May 29, 2021, the Duluth Huskies of the Northwoods League announced that 20-year-old Will McEntire, a redshirt sophomore from the University of Arkansas, would join the Huskies for the upcoming summer season. The Northwoods League was a summer loop for college players, and according to the Huskies press release, McEntire was excited about pitching regularly. Will’s enthusiasm was obviously tempered by the fact that while he was unpacking for a summer in Minnesota, his Razorbacks were about to host an NCAA Regional.
Three seasons later McEntire’s photo is at the top of Monday’s (April 1, 2024) sports page, accompanied by the headline, “McEntire a leader in UA’s deep pen.” The feature story on the sports page after an LSU sweep is a recognition Will McEntire probably never expected. Or perhaps he always knew he could be the bullpen leader of the number one team in college baseball. One thing is for sure. He is right where he always wanted to be, wearing a Razorback uniform and pitching before 11,000+ at Baum-Walker Stadium.
In the modern come-and-go world of college baseball, a fifth-year senior is about as rare as LSU getting swept in an SEC series. In addition to McEntire, who else was wearing a Razorback uniform this past weekend and was part of the program in McEntire’s first year with the Hogs? That is an easy question, Dave Van Horn, Nate Thompson, and Matt Hobbs.
Bob Holt’s lead story reveals that Dave Van Horn had no plans to use McEntire in the Saturday game. On the lineup card, the coach posted for the bullpen guys, McEntire’s name was not listed. “I didn’t write [McEntire’s name] on the lineup card by the locker room. When I went in and got it right before we went out to stretch, his name just appeared.” Matt Hobbs confirmed that Will had added his own name. -Bob Holt Arkansas Democrat Gazette
If, after throwing 62 pitches on Thursday, the Tigers thought the ace of the Hogs bullpen was finished for the series, they had underestimated McEntire’s resolve.
McEntire entered Saturday’s game in the eighth inning with the bases loaded and Arkansas clinging to a two-run lead. The Tigers had exactly the guy they wanted at the plate. Mac Bingham had homered in the fourth and again in the seventh. McEntire struck him out on four pitches.
Just another weekend in the bullpen for the senior leader of college baseball’s top-ranked team.
What do you think about Razorback baseball going into the last two months of the schedule?
Conway Day in the Major Leagues, Wicks and Stone get their first start.
Sunday, March 31, was our first chance to see Arkansas’ promising rookie pitchers, Jordan Wicks (Conway High School, Kansas State) and Gavin Stone (Riverside High School, UCA) get their first start of the year. Although Wicks and Stone did not get a win, both looked very good.
In Sunday’s game with the World Series Champion Texas Rangers, Wicks pitched four innings and gave up five runs. Only two of the runs were earned and had Gold Glove shortstop Dansby Swanson handled a ground ball that looked like a double play in the fourth, Wicks could have easily worked four innings without allowing an earned run. He struck out six, and twice Wicks fanned the dangerous Adolis Garcia to end an inning with runners on base. He left after four innings with the score tied.
Gavin Stone got his first start of 2024 against the St. Louis Cardinals. He struck out the side in the first and had a routine second inning before Goldschmidt drove in a run in the third with a humpback liner. After a three-up-three-down fourth, Stone allowed a run in the fifth and left a runner charged to him when he departed in the sixth. His line was five innings pitched with three earned runs allowed on seven hits. He struck out six, and at times he was dominating, but any optimism about his start must be tempered by the fact that he was pitching against the Cardinals. I can’t wait to see him develop into an outstanding big league pitcher.
Dr. Baseball Comes to Greenbrier
In the 1930s, the Sunday Edition of the Arkansas Gazette featured a “magazine” section, not unlike the special inserts in the Sunday editions found in today’s large newspapers. The Arkansas Gazette Magazine allowed for more in-depth articles and often included features on the accomplishments of noteworthy Arkansas citizens. The Sunday magazine of June 23, 1935, featured a lengthy article about Earl T. Williams, a country doctor from North Faulkner County. Surprisingly, Dr. Williams’ tribute did not include extraordinary work as a rural doctor, although his work in that field was probably significant. The glowingly laudatory feature by columnist V. V. Quertermous focused on Williams’s leadership in the development of Arkansas baseball players. In retrospect, while his contributions to Arkansas’ baseball prior to 1935 were significant, Williams’s most important work was still ahead.
Dr. Earl T. Williams was born near Hannibal, Missouri, in 1881 and arrived in Greenbrier, Arkansas, to set up his first practice in about 1908. His interest in baseball originated in his youth, and although he did not have the skills to play professional baseball or the time to hone those skills, he possessed a deep love for the game.
By 1913, Dr. Williams had become the coach of the local town team in Greenbrier, and in 1916 he helped establish a semi-pro league called the Faulkner County League. In the early 1920s, Williams’s interests began to change as his involvement in amateur baseball grew. Traditionally, the manager of a semi-pro team found players, scheduled games, and made a lineup. Perhaps influenced by his advanced education, Williams became interested in player development. He continued to look for talent, but Williams took an extra step uncommon in semi-pro baseball. He coached. Williams studied player skills and drilled his players on proper technique. He became what in today’s sports jargon is called “a student of the game.”
The success of Williams’ semi-pro teams did not go unnoticed. Not only was the Greenbrier semi-pro team successful as a unit, but individual players on the team also began to get noticed. As a result, Williams’ players caught the attention of professional baseball scouts, and young men from tiny hamlets in North Faulkner County, Arkansas, began signing minor league contracts. The first of these was Otis Brannan of Greenbrier, who had been an outstanding college baseball player at Arkansas State Normal School (University of Central Arkansas), as well as a star on the Greenbrier semi-pro team. Brannan would become the first player mentored by Dr. Williams to make the major leagues when he became the starting 2nd baseman for the Saint Louis Browns in 1928. He would play professional baseball for 13 seasons.
Although Otis Brannan was the first player who played under Dr. Williams to reach professional baseball and the first to reach the major leagues, he was closely followed by more Greenbrier-trained players in the late 1920s. Among these were Dr. Williams’ two oldest sons.
Royce Williams, the oldest Williams son, graduated from Hendrix College in 1924, after a stellar career in four sports. By 1929, the elder Williams son was 26 years old and had worked his way up through the minor leagues to become the starting second baseman for Class A Memphis in the Southern Association. Royce Williams would have a ten-year pro baseball career but never made the major leagues.
Williams’ middle son, Dibrell, came home from college in the spring of 1929 and became an instant success that summer with the Little Rock Travelers. By the winter of that year, Dib Williams had been signed by the Philadelphia Athletics and was destined to be Greenbrier’s second major leaguer the next spring. Dib Williams would play 475 major league games and another 1200 plus minor league games. He was part of two pennant-winning seasons for the Philadelphia A’s and batted .320 in the A’s 1931 World Series appearance.
A third son, Gene, was eight years younger than Dib and would break into pro baseball in 1936 with Batesville in the North East Arkansas League. The younger Williams son was not as successful in professional baseball and his lifetime record in Baseball Reference.com is inaccurate, but he probably played four years of minor league baseball.
Dozens of North Faulkner County young men who trained under Dr. Williams joined Otis Brannan and the Williams brothers in pro baseball in the next decade. By the late 1930s, the country doctor had become the most influential and respected person in Arkansas baseball. In 1938, Dr. Williams decided to take on his most ambitious endeavor.
Doan’s summer school was drawing more than 300 young men with major league dreams to Hot Springs, Arkansas, each February. Big league instructors made the school attractive, but February in Hot Springs was often bitterly cold. Hot Springs also had a rather rowdy reputation, and some families were reluctant to send their inexperienced young sons to a town with unfamiliar temptations. Influenced by the baseball school concept, Dr. Williams came up with what he thought was a better idea, a baseball summer school in a mom-approved, less distracting town.
In April of 1938, an ad in the Arkansas Gazette announced the inaugural Greenbrier Baseball School opening on June 14 of the coming summer. Dr. Williams had name recognition and respect in Arkansas and neighboring states that gave his fledgling summer baseball school instant credibility.
The Greenbrier Baseball School would feature instruction by Williams and his sons, Royce and Gene, in a rural setting devoid of “honkytonks, beer joints, and pool halls.” Tuition would be the standard $50, but for $10 more per week, the young men would be housed by families and fed home-cooked meals.
The Williams school was off to an impressive start on a 13-year run that would eventually produce about 80 professional baseball players. Greenbrier Baseball School grew to be a popular summer destination for aspiring baseball players, and Dr. Williams became nationally recognized for his leadership in amateur baseball. In 1941, the Amateur Baseball Congress named Williams as the “National Amateur Baseball Leader of the Year.”
In an interview with the Arkansas Gazette in 1949, Dr. Earl Williams fielded the tough question that baseball historians ponder in researching his outstanding career. Columnist Joe McGee asked the 68-year-old country doctor, “What would you do if you had a baby case and there was a ball game at the same time?” Doc Williams replied, “I’d be at the game I guess.”
About two years after the revealing interview, on January 29, 1951, Dr. Earl Williams was in downtown Greenbrier when he experienced the first symptoms of a heart attack. He managed to drive to his home but died a few minutes after arriving there. In a career that unquestionably exemplified the title “Dr. Baseball” given to him in that Sunday Magazine in 1935, Dr. Earl Williams supported the hopes of young men with aspirations of professional baseball for more than 40 years. The Williams family made an obscure little ballpark in rural Faulkner County, Arkansas’ “Field of Dreams.”
My books Backroads and Ballplayers and Hard Times and Hardball contain more in-depth stories about baseball in Greenbrier and hundreds more stories about the men and women who made baseball “Arkansas Game.”
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I have been excited about Razorback baseball teams many times over the years, and even had high hopes several times for a national championship. But this team just feels different. There’s no thought that maybe we are exaggerating this or heaping too much praise on that. This team is solid in all aspects and unquestionably a championship caliber squad. They might not win it all - so many things have to go right - but some team out there is going to have to go out and play above their ability to take them down. It’s a joy to experience. Go Hogs!