Backroads and Ballplayers #93
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.
Opening Weekend at Baum-Walker, Lost Stories: Costen Shockley, Winder’s Problem Child, and a Mystery Photograph Game
A way too early look at Razorback Baseball: pluses, minuses, and questions…
Big + Brent Iredale and Two Aloys- Great start and high hopes
Big + Starting pitchers - Get these guys to May!!!
+ Bullpen - Deep and throw strikes!
+ Helfrick, Thomas, Davalan
? Diggs - I love this guy, but he seems to always be behind in the count.
? Becker - Two doubles, Behind Helfrick, OPS- 2000 Way too soon!
? Coil - He could finally be an important lefty in the pen.
? Stolen base defense - Just an uneasy feeling…
Big ? - Are the Hogs a better hitting team than last year? (I hope so) They were near the bottom of the SEC in almost every positive hitting category in 2024 AND won the West!
BIG — Weather, we should probably get used to it.
— “FUN” with the RPI - These wins were costly! Hogs tied for 61st. This time of year the RPI is hard to predict. Go Monmouth! Look what 2-2 will get you!
Your turn: Plus, Minus, Questions?
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A Community of Baseball Historians
I was surprised when the number of subscribers to Backroads and Ballplayers reached 100, and amazed again in 2024, when the number passed 200. Now approaching 300, I am convinced that those numbers are due to the feeling of community we have created.
The 290-plus subscribers to these posts are probably here because they are unashamedly nostalgic about the baseball history of a time when baseball was Arkansas’ game. There are more “out there” like us. Help me find them
Last week’s numbers: Backroads and Ballplayers #92, read by 600+.
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February 2025 Mystery Photo ( Be the first to correctly name this player with an Arkansas connection)
Thanks to my bud, Ronnie Clay, we are starting a new game! Once each month we will post a mystery photo. Make a guess under the picture. If no one has gotten it by Thursday, we will offer a hint in the Update.
This week’s mystery photo. Post your guess in the comment tab below photo.
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Last week I wrote about Bill Dickey and Ray Winder. Several of you sent texts, emails, and photographs. My old friend, Kal Zitterkob, sent me a story. I met Kal once “Before Covid,” a measure of time which now seems to divide our lives.
When I wrote my first book, I was stumped by missing records in the career of a Greenbrier guy named Otis Brannan. Brannan survived an earthquake, a Ku Klux Klan War, a serious auto accident, a “nevous breakdown,” and a life-threating head injury that explained the missing stats.
He broke into pro baseball after success on the Greenbrier town team and Arkansas Normal School (UCA). He would eventually be the starting second baseball for the 1928 St. Louis Browns. On his way to that year in the majors his 1924 and 1925 seasons are missing from BasebalReference.com.
I share Kal Zitterkob’s research in the Otis Brannan story on page 47 of Backroads and Ballplayers.
The Brannan story fades into a mystery after the news of his assignment in Oklahoma. Baseball Reference.com, the authority on statistics, contains no information for 1924 and 1925 for Otis Brannan. Curious about Brannan’s early career, Kalvin Zitterkob, an assiduous Oklahoma baseball historian, set about to uncover the story of those “lost years.”
Zitterkob painstakingly researched small-town Oklahoma newspapers until he discovered that not only had Otis Brannan played minor league baseball in 1924, but an unfortunate event from that year changed his life and his baseball career forever.
Zitterkob discovered that Brannan had indeed started the season with Ardmore in the Oklahoma State League, but by early May, he was sent to Duncan, another member of the ill-fated OSL. After the Oklahoma State League folded in mid-season, he was promoted back to Muskogee, and on July 8, Brannon made his first appearance for the Athletics. He got off to a spectacular start, homering in his first at-bat in Muskogee. On July 12, after five games with the Athletics, Brannan was hitting .474 with three home runs when disaster struck.
Zitterkob’s meticulous research uncovered the event that nearly cost Brannan his life and career. While taking infield practice, Brannan was struck in the head by an errant fungo intended for the outfielders. He was taken unconscious from the field and rushed to a local hospital in serious condition. Although Brannan survived, he would not return to professional baseball for almost two years. Kalvin Zitterkob, The Lost Years of Otis Brannan, Presented to the Arkansas Chapter of SABR, August 2017
Brannan did not report back to Muskogee in the spring of 1925 but continued to recover back in Greenbrier, where he rejoined his old friends on the local semi-pro team. By July, “the sensational infielder from Greenbrier” was the leading hitter in the Faulkner County League. Log Cabin Democrat 7-9-1925 p. 2
On August 23, 1925, the Arkansas Gazette reported the Little Rock Travelers were trying out prospects from the Faulkner County League. Several would sign, the best of which was Otis Brannan. —From Backroads and Ballplayers p.47
Back to Ray Winder - Kal shared this funny story:
In 1924 Ray sold his Joplin team and bought Muskogee (another story). He put in a new scoreboard with light and road scores. So, very up to date. One day Okmulgee was in town to play the Athletics, and Joe Bratcher, Okmulgee's right fielder gets thrown out trying to steal second base. The Muskogee paper says he spends about fifteen minutes tiring his shoelace still upset about the call before he leaves the field. At the start of the next half inning Bratcher, goes out to right field and breaks some of the new light bulbs in the new scoreboard. to say the least this chaps off Ray, and at the end of the inning he goes to the Drillers dugout with the stadium cop and demands that Bratcher, pay for the light bulbs. Joe replies by throwing baseballs at Ray. The home plate umpire comes over to see whit the trouble is, and tosses Winder and the cop from the dugout. The paper says when he returned to home plate he had a very bemused look on his face. I never found out if Joe paid for the bulbs.
Note: Joe Bratcher apparently played in the Western Arkansas League earlier in 1924. He is mentioned as a second baseman for the Clarksville Reds.
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The Lost Story of Costen Shockley
Earlier this month at the Robinson-Kell SABR meeting, Bob Anderson did an in-depth presentation on the 1964 Little Rock Travelers. Little Rock was a Philadelphia Phillies farm club that season, a marriage that was not popular in Cardinals’ country. It was a strange year. The Travs, at some point in the year, were the best team in minor league baseball. Finding that point is the trick.
The 1964 Travelers were the Phillies’ second roster, where a dozen or so major-league quality players were called up or sent down without regard to Little Rock’s pennant race. By playoff time the comings and goings had reduced that “best team in minor league baseball” to a mix of leftovers. So desperate were the Travs that they called on an unproven starter named Ferguson Jenkins to start a playoff game.
These leftovers were pretty good, but not the generational team that had played much of the historic season. One of the most promising players on that team was a “sure-thing” major league prospect named Costen Shockley. His short career remains one of Arkansas baseball's most inexplicable lost stories.
According to his biography in the SABR Bio Project, Costen Shockley had been a highly regarded high school prospect in Delaware before a life-threatening bout with hepatitis cost him most of his senior season. Many of the big-league clubs that had been courting him as both pitcher and power hitter backed off from pursuing the once-promising teenager. The Philadelphia Phillies, however, remained among the major league teams still interested in Shockley and eventually signed the 18-year-old to a $50,000 bonus in July of 1960.
Shockley’s ascension through the Phillies’ minor league system seemed to indicate he was exactly the “can’t miss” future major league star the Phillies had expected when they signed him after high school.
In his first pro campaign, Shockley hit .360 at Magic Valley in the Class C Pioneer League. The next season he was promoted to Class A Williamsport, where he batted .282 and was second on the team to Dick Allen in most power categories.
In 1963, he moved up to Chattanooga in the South Atlantic League. Shockley hit .335 with the AA Lookouts and led the team in RBIs. His next stop would be the 1964 Boom Boom Travelers.
Costen Shockley was the best player on what most baseball pundits agreed was the best team in AAA baseball. The 1964 Arkansas Travelers led minor league baseball in most offensive categories and posted the most victories in the Pacific Coast League. Despite missing 15 games during call-ups to the Phillies, Shockley hit 36 home runs and drove in 112 runs, league-leading totals in both categories. His next destination seemed sure to be Philadelphia, but, behind the scenes, the Phillies had decided Shockley was not their future first baseman.
The first public indication that Shockley’s place in the Phillies lineup was not assured came on November 29, 1964, when Philadelphia traded promising young pitcher Dennis Bennett to the Boston Red Sox for veteran first baseman Dick Stuart. Trading for an experienced first baseman was a clear indication that Costen Shockley was not in the Phillies’ long-range plans. Predictably, he was traded to the California Angels a week later.
The Angels had traded for Shockley to replace aging first baseman, Joe Adcock. Adcock did not get the message that he was not capable of being the Angels’ everyday first baseman. Forty games into the season Adcock was hitting .286, and veteran Vic Power, a defensive wizard at first base, was playing the late innings as Adcock’s backup.
Shockley had gotten off to a miserable start. He had been given a 40-game trial and was hitting .187 when the Angels optioned him to AAA Seattle with the hope that in the minors where he could play every day Shockley would regain his hitting skills. Shockley refused to report to Seattle and announced that he was going back to Delaware.
In bold headlines, the Arkansas Gazette announced the retirement of the Arkansas Travelers’ celebrated first baseman from the 1964 PCL Division Championship team. Costen Shockley had led the Pacific Coast League in home runs and RBIs that historic season, and he seemed to be on the fast track to major-league stardom. The bizarre news that he was quitting baseball came on June 19, 1965. John Costen Shockley was only 23 years old. After his outstanding 1964 season, Shockley played a total of 40 professional games.
In an interview with biographer Nelson Greene, Shockley explained his decision. “In June, when I approached Rigney and asked if I was going to stay with the Angels, he said yes. So, I moved my wife and baby out to California. Then they asked me to go to the minors instead, to Seattle.”
Rather than move his family again, Shockley went home, and on July 1 the Angels placed him on the disqualified list for failure to join Seattle. His baseball career was over.
Shockley said of his decision, “I never really adjusted to the big-league atmosphere. I wasn’t making any money then, only $1,000 a month. It cost me $600 to rent an apartment; I was using up my bonus money; the major-league minimum was only $6,000 . . . So, I quit. I took my family over baseball.”
Costen Shockley lived near his boyhood home in Delaware for the rest of his life. He stayed active in the local youth baseball programs and coached his son’s 1981 Senior Little League team to the World Senior Little League Championship. The home run king of the Boom Boom Travelers died on May 20, 2022.
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Jim