Backroads and Ballplayers #66
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.
A Hot Night at Dickey Stephens, Lost Stories: Speaking of Saves & Life After Baseball
Welcome new readers. If Philip Martin sent you, don’t expect the same level of writing competence at this location. The exceptionally talented Mr. Martin writes amazing op-eds across a variety of topics, but he is at his absolute best writing about baseball. See his challenge later in this post.
Troy Taylor Passing Through
In case you missed it, last Tuesday was a hot night at Dickey Stephens Park. August in an Arkansas summer offers many hot nights, but this one was different.
My buddy Harold, the unofficial mayor of Section 107, invited me to join him in his usual position behind the Travs’ dugout. Otey was there, our friends the Nichols were in their place on row one, and a couple thousand regulars braved the 95-degree evening to witness an unexpected “farewell party.”
When Troy Taylor, a 22-year-old from UC Irvine, entered in the 9th inning with the Travs clinging to a 2-0 lead, the mayor directed my attention to the mound. “This kid is real good, I mean real good,” he continued.
Taylor struck out two to nail down the win and collect his 16th save as a Traveler. Later, when I looked him up on BaseballReference.com I found that he had been “okay” in his first two minor league seasons, but he had discovered “something” in 2024. Taylor had come up from Class A to the Travelers as one of the Mariners’ top pitching prospects. I suspected he was headed for the “show” but I certainly did not expect to see that he got the call the next day.
Last evening I watched the Sunday night game with the sound off to avoid the discussion of Victor Robles pet monkey and an interview with the guy who brought sandwiches to the booth.
In the bottom of the 8th, the closed caption under the bullpen shot caught my attention. Troy Taylor was warming up for the Mariners. It would be his major league debut.
Last Tuesday, about a dozen of the Section 107 folks greeted Taylor after his save in Little Rock. Last night in Seattle, with most of the 35,000 fans still present at T-Mobile Park, his family standing and cheering every strike, and a national TV audience, Troy Taylor produced the same line he had posted in Little Rock five days earlier.
One inning pitched, two strikeouts, one walk, and no runs allowed
This kid IS “real good!” Welcome to the show Troy Taylor!
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“Lost Stories” trivia question: Speaking of saves…
To prove that Arkansas baseball history is full of obscure facts and forgotten stories, try this one. (Come on, do not look this up, *hints later in this post)
Who is the all-time saves leader among pitchers born in Arkansas?
Lost Story: Larry Paladino’s Life After Baseball
Last week’s connection to Philip Martin’s column came from his comment about nearing a time in his life where he could hope to “shoot his age” in golf. Older golfers with good skills have Shooting Their Age to look forward to, but some of us may not live to be 100 to enjoy that milestone. This discussion reminded me of one of the most amazing accomplishments in Arkansas sports history, the lost story of Lawrence Paladino of Conway County, Arkansas.
Larry Paladino was born this week in 1929 at Catholic Point, Arkansas, a community settled by Italian immigrants in the late 1800s. There were plenty of young people to play with in Larry’s childhood. He had 13 siblings, and he was surrounded by an extended family that loved sports and competition.
Paladino was outstanding at every sport offered at Subiaco Academy, where he attended high school in the late 1940s. He was the quarterback in football, a high-scoring guard in basketball, and a boxer. In the summer he pitched for the men’s semi-pro teams around Conway County.
Later at Arkansas State Teachers College, (University of Central Arkansas) he excelled as a football player, but at 5’11” and 160+, his best college sport was baseball. He was an All-AIC pitcher in 1950 and 1951 and led the Bears to the conference title in his final year in Conway.
During that 1951 conference championship run, one of Larry’s teammates was an outstanding hitter from Bee Branch named John Joyner. Joyner and Paladino were about the same age, and their home communities were about 10 miles apart, making it very likely that they were frequent opponents and sometimes teammates in their youth.
Joyner made an unusual move in the middle of the 1951 conference schedule. He signed a pro contract, left school, and joined a New York Giants minor league team in Greenville, Mississippi, in the Cotton States League.
The New York Giants also signed Paladino immediately after the college season and sent him to Muskogee in the Western Association. In 1952, his second year with the Class D Muskogee Giants, Paladino became the ace of the staff. He led the Giants in pitching victories (16), ERA (3.43), and innings pitched (197).
John Joyner was also assigned to Muskogee and the speedy outfielder led the team in triples and drove in 70 runs. The two former teammates led the Muskogee Giants to the Western League Playoffs, and both looked destined for the major leagues.
Joyner played one more successful season, batting .325 with 20 homers for the Mayfield Clothiers in the KITTY League. Despite his success, Joyner decided to return to Arkansas, finish his degree, and become a high school basketball coach. Joyner had a very successful career but passed away at age 36 while coaching at Joe T. Robinson High School.
Paladino was promoted to Class B in 1953, but by 1956 chronic arm problems had taken their toll. In his last three seasons, Paladino pitched just over 100 innings and had a won/lost record of 4—10. Although his expected journey to major league baseball was over, he was about to embark on another phase of his athletic career that would result in recognition in a sport he never tried in his youth at Catholic Point, Arkansas.
At age 30, three years after he thought his athletic career was over, Paladino bought a set of golf clubs from a friend who was moving to another location. The rest of the Larry Paladino athletic saga is remarkable.
Over the next 50 years, Paladino would become one of the most successful senior amateur golfers in history. He won the Senior Tour (today known as the Champions Tour) Pro-Am Tournament in 1983 and 1984. From 1988 to 2010 Paladino won 25 golf club championships in New York, New Jersey, and Florida and 16 at the famous Island Country Club on Marco Island, Florida.
Larry Paladino shot his age for the first time at age 63 when he shot a 61 at Red River Country Club in Clinton, Arkansas. Larry Paladino passed away in 2014, the year he shot his age for the 1,640th time.
Larry Paladino is buried at St. Joesph Cemetery, 10 miles from his teammate John Joyner whose final resting place is in Bee Branch Cemetery.
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*Hint - The saves leader among Arkansas-born major league pitchers didn’t know what a save was!
The Philip Martin Challenge:
Yesterday the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s Philip Martin, offered his lineup for the “Best I Ever Saw Team,” and challenged others to do the same. This takes some serious thought, so I am taking a few days to ponder the impossible.
I think that being about 10 years older than Martin makes this much more difficult. How do I decide between Mantle, Mays, Musial, Aaron, and Ted Williams? I don’t think I could safely ask Williams to DH?
And Barry Bonds… I can imagine the scene at Barry’s house…
Someone runs in to interrupt Barry’s breakfast with the news that an amateur baseball writer in Arkansas has left him off his “Best I Ever Saw Team.”
Twitter, or is it X, hammers me for my judgemental stance on Bonds and I lose three subscribers. I am hoping to do this for my next week’s post, but it will be a chore!
To be continued…
Philip Martin’s Challenge Link
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* Last Hint - The all-time leader in saves among Arkansas-born pitchers was born in Pope County
A save is awarded to the relief pitcher who finishes a game for the winning team, under certain circumstances. A pitcher cannot receive a save and a win in the same game. A relief pitcher recording a save must preserve his team's lead while doing one of the following:
Enter the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitch at least one inning.
Enter the game with the tying run in the on-deck circle, at the plate or on the bases.
Pitch at least three innings.
Lost Story: “Old Folks,” Arkansas Career Leader in Saves!
The answer to the trivia question is Ellis Raymond Kinder, born in 1914 just south of Atkins, Arkansas, in a farming community called Wilson. Incidentally, Brooks Calbert Robinson Sr. was born about a mile down the road three months earlier. Robinson Sr. would move to Little Rock with his widowed mother after the flood of 1927. The Kinders stayed.
For those of you who want to claim “foul,” Kinder retired about 12 years before saves became a statistical category, and his 104 saves were awarded retroactively.
Ellis Kinder was part of a quartet of outstanding rural Arkansans pitchers who arrived after World War II. A compelling argument could be made that the key to a successful pitching staff in the late 1940s was to locate the right Arkansas country boy. In 1948, the Cleveland Indians found a knuckleball specialist from the Arkansas Delta named Gene Bearden to lead the Tribe to the American League pennant and a World Series Championship. That same year in the National League, Havana, Arkansas’ Johnny Sain won 24 games, worked more than 300 innings, and pitched 28 complete games for the pennant-winning Boston Braves.
The 1949 season produced a similar story with different characters. Preacher Roe, a part-time math teacher from Viola, Arkansas, won 15 games for the NL Champion Brooklyn Dodgers. He led the National League champs in ERA and pitched a 1-0 shutout in the only game the Dodgers won in the 1949 World Series.
Over in the American League, a hard-living 34-year-old right-hander from Atkins, Arkansas, named Ellis Kinder was dominating hitters despite his inattention to any typical training conventions. Kinder led the AL in winning percentage and finished fifth in the MVP vote. Although there was no such thing in the baseball stats of the day, Kinder recorded his sixth career save in 1949.
Next week’s Backroads and Ballplayers Weekly will feature Ellis Kinder and an invitation to join me at Hot Springs Baseball Weekend.
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I'll have to think about that team. Is it supposed to be players I watched in person, I wonder? Also, I don't think Ted Williams cared that much about playing defense, so you might be able to convince him to just concentrate on hitting.