Backroads and Ballplayers #91
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.
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The Mystery of the 1920 Team Photo, Be Like Mike, & The Lost Story of Bob Mavis.
The Mystery of the 1920 Travelers team photo!
I have had the photos below since researching the story of the 1920 Travs for my second book (Hard Times and Hardball 2023). The Travs, managed by the dapper Kid Elberfeld (middle front), won Arkansas’ first minor league pennant.
Remember, these unwashed guys posed for this team photo in front of a fence near Kavanaugh Field more than 100 years ago. A closer examination will reveal that the two pictures are the same photo with extra players somehow added to the bottom photo which appeared in the Spaulding Guide. Decades before Photoshop, does anyone have an idea how this photo was created?
If you are a new subscriber, or you missed the story of the 1920 Little Rock Travelers, their story ran in Only in Arkansas, on September 25, 2020. Click here to visit that issue of OIA.
An afternoon with Mike Loggins
On Saturday, February 1, the Robinson-Kell Chapter of SABR met for the group’s winter meeting. The guest speaker was former Razorback baseball All-American, Mike Loggins.
Listening to Mike Loggins is an uplifting experience. Loggins had a great career as a Razorback baseball player in the mid-1980s, but untimely injuries and various roster moves kept him just short of the big leagues. Despite not reaching his ultimate goal, Loggins never loses his signature smile as he recalls his baseball career. Being in the same room with Mike Loggins is a special treat.
Loggins played center field on the Norm DeBriyn team that beat Texas in the finals of the 1985 Southwest Conference Tournament and made the College World Series. He was named to the All-Southwest Conference team in 1984 and 1985 and was chosen as an All-American in 1985.
Loggins finished his career with a .335 batting average, 159 hits, 261 total bases, 132 runs, 108 RBIs, and 19 home runs. The Kansas City Royals drafted him in the third round of the 1985 draft, and Loggins played seven seasons in professional baseball. Four decades later, Mike Loggins looks like he could still play.
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Last month in Only in Arkansas, I wrote a story about adopted sons, Leo Nonnenkamp and Lee Rogers and the amazing 1937 Little Rock Travelers. They became heroes in Arkansas and they never left. Rogers and Nonnenkamp made their lifetime home in Little Rock and were eventually inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.
Nonnenkamp and Rogers are not the only professional players who fell in love with Arkansas while playing for the Travs. A few years later a Little Rock fan-favorite named Robert Henry Mavis spent five years in a Little Rock uniform, batted 300+ in each of those years, and found a new hometown. Like Rogers and Nonnenkamp before him, Mavis’ best memories of pro baseball occurred in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Bob Mavis finds a home - Adopted Son and Pinch Runner
Bob Mavis’ story will sound familiar in several ways. He is one of about 1,000 major leaguers whose career consisted of only one game. He lived the Moonlight Graham story. They call it a “cup of coffee” in the big leagues. Some of those one-game guys pitched to a batter or so, some batted one time, and a few only played in the field. Bob Mavis did neither.
He has no official at-bats, did not pitch, and did not play on defense. As sadly unique as his story may be, Charleston, Arkansas’ Otis Davis had a similar experience. Backroads and Ballplayers Weekly #9
In the spring of 1946, Otis Davis was heading north with the Cardinals and would soon make his major league debut. That same spring, Wisconsin native, Bob Mavis, was moving his wife and young daughter to Little Rock, Arkansas, their new hometown.
Mavis was beginning the third of five years with the Arkansas Travelers, the Chicago White Sox AA minor league team. Five years is a long time to play full seasons with one minor league club. He not only played with the Travs for those years, he was outstanding. Mavis batted over .300 each year, and he led the team in several offensive categories in many of those seasons. Mavis loved Little Rock, Arkansas, and Arkansas loved him.
By 1949, after five excellent years in Arkansas, Mavis and the Travelers had become the property of the Detroit Tigers, and he was finally promoted to the Tigers AAA club in Toledo. He hit .300 again at the higher level and managed to hit 12 homers, a respectable number for a 5’7,” 150 lb. infielder. Mavis had earned his chance in the majors and when the Toledo Mud Hens’ season ended, he got the call to report to the Tigers.
Mavis traveled with the Tigers throughout September but did not get into a game until September 17th, when he made his major league debut, on a Saturday, in historic Yankee Stadium. More than 40,000 fans inadvertently turned out for Mavis’ first game. In a situation not unlike Scat Davis three years earlier, Bob Mavis entered the game as a pinch runner with his team behind.
Unlike Davis’ debut, however, Mavis’ appearance did not have a happy ending for his team. Mavis pinch ran in the top of the 9th for backup catcher Bob Swift, who had reached base on Phil Rizzuto’s error. A fly ball and a walk later, Mavis was on second, with a runner on first and one out, when Johnny Lipon grounded into a game-ending double play.
The Yanks had held on and were one step closer to the pennant they would clinch the next week. Bob Mavis was running to third base as the double play behind him ended the game. If Mavis had the benefit of present-day hindsight, he might have lingered a bit on third as the legendary Yankees trotted in for the celebration.
If he walked slowly toward the dugout, Mavis could have passed Joe DiMaggio one more time, or if he stopped to tie his shoe, he could have taken another look at pitcher Joe Page hugging catcher Yogi Berra. Mavis could have locked in the sights and sounds of that personally historic day had he known he would never have another chance in a major league game. He was, after all, in venerable old Yankee Stadium. The jubilant home crowd was on its feet, and he was walking off the field in the big leagues. Unfortunately, none of the cheering was for Bob Mavis.
Mavis would play six more years of minor league baseball and later get a brief chance to manage his beloved Arkansas Travelers. He retired as an active player in 1957 but continued to scout throughout the South for several major league teams.
Bob Mavis had chosen to call Little Rock home during his playing days and remained there while working as a scout. He retired in 1990 after nearly a half-century in baseball. Mavis died in Little Rock in 2005, as one of the all-time Arkansas Traveler greats and a former major leaguer. According to Mavis, “I got a cup of coffee, but I never got any cream.”
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It doesn't appear any new player was added. The player on the far right in the front row (in the top photo) was somehow moved to be player #7 on the top row (in the bottom photo). Needless to say, they had to change the way his arms are folded and instead of sitting - he is now standing - so they also had to make his glove disappear.
Mike was great! He was a very entertaining speaker and shared lots of great stories! He was great after the talk too as he spent some time answering some questions. I bet this guy was great in the clubhouse!