Update 10-10-2024
Leaving something behind...
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
Pericles
I do love baseball, especially the colorful history of the Arkansas men and women who played the game in the 20th century. I have also come to realize the importance of baseball in our grandparent’s day and discovered that there are many people in our state with this same affliction. I found some of these like-minded folks at the Robinson-Kell Chapter of SABR. Last week we lost one of those baseball lives with the passing of Dr. Robert Reising.
Sharing a Love of the Game
I attended my first SABR meeting about eight years ago. Mike Dugan invited me, as was likely the case with at least half of the group. Mike was the unofficial social director of the Robinson-Kell Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research. He seemed to know everyone in Arkansas who admitted to being a baseball fan. It was inevitable that he would find most of us.
The first person to welcome me was an outgoing fellow wearing a Boston Red Sox cap named Terry Turner. Although Terry was somewhere in his seventies, he reminded me of a kid at Disneyland. The SABR meeting was obviously one of Terry’s favorite places. Terry Turner had been a very good baseball player as a young man and he never lost his love for the game. I found out later that he literally wrote the book on the Arkansas Travelers.
We lost both Terry Turner and Mike Dugan in February 2021. Mike was not only “Mr. Baseball History” to the members of the Robinson-Kell chapter of SABR, but he played the same role in his hometown.
Hot Springs, Arkansas, is the baseball capital of Arkansas, and Mike Dugan was an invaluable leader in the process that made the Spa City a baseball destination. He worked with other historians to create the Hot Springs Baseball Trail. He led the ambitious plans to host a special gathering of major league baseball players and fans to celebrate Hot Springs Baseball Weekend. HSBW has grown into one of the premier sports events in Arkansas.
When the city proposed to establish a first-class baseball facility at the site of what was Majestic Park, Mike also got behind that effort. Today the facility he dreamed of is a reality and hosts the Dugan Invitational each January. Mike Dugan had no acquaintances. Everyone he met was immediately his personal friend.
At a meeting at the Little Rock Library, Mike introduced me to another person who shared my love of baseball history. Dr. Robert Reising was a retired college professor, most recently the Supervisor of the Academic Success Center at UCA. I was immediately taken by a baseball guy who was obviously a scholar, something that not many of us claim to be.
Dr. Reising attended Michigan State University and was a catcher on the 1954 Michigan State baseball team that finished third in the College World Series.
In 1961 he coached the Defiance College baseball team to the College World Series. He later was Head Baseball Coach at Duke University, Furman University, Tennessee Tech, and the University of South Carolina.
Dr. Reising was perhaps the most respected authority on the life of the legendary Jim Thorpe. He was named Professor Emeritus of American Indian Studies at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke after teaching there for 34 years. In 2002, he was inducted into the Order of the Pine Needle, the highest honor for people who have made a significant impact on their state and community by the governor of North Carolina.
In 2011, Dr. Reising received national attention for his book about the legendary Archibald Graham. He was coauthor of Chasing Moonlight: The True Story of Field of Dreams' Doc Graham. Dr. Reising was often called on to consult on the true Dr. Graham story. The jovial guy the SABR guys called “Dr Bob,” had led a Baseball Life.
Although he retired from university work at age 80, Dr. Bob continued his life’s work as an author and researcher. If I knew my friend, I think he would like to be remembered for his writing.
His most recent project was a collection of lost stories about remarkable athletes from the 501 Area Code. These can be found in Central Arkansas publication 501 LIFE Magazine. In April of 2023, Dr. Reising was named Person of the Month by 501 LIFE.
A link to that work can be found below. Bookmark these stories and return often to this remarkable collection in 501 Life.
In case you missed this week’s Backroads and Ballplayers Weekly #74, there were stories about the LA fans’ reaction to Jurickson Profar’s “catch,” and a similar incident in the 1934 World Series.
Link to Backroads and Ballplayers #74
See you Monday with Playoff thoughts and some lost stories about “town teams.”