Then and Now by Jim McConnell, SGVN 1997

The following column ran in the San Gabriel Valley News on Saturday, April 26, 1997. I am running it complete and unedited as it was when first published.

In minors, less often can be more

I believe it was former Governor Jerry Brown who coined the phrase, "Less is more." Then again, maybe it was Linda Ronstadt.

Be that as it may, the motion that less is more is handy for this column. For this column is about minor league baseball. Modern minor league baseball isn't worth a column, but the minor league baseball of 50 years ago, well, now you're talking.

So I went to one of the world's great talkers, Covina's Frosty Kennedy, to get the skinny. Kennedy, 71, is a Hall of Famer.

There is a display at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. , dedicated to those who have hit 60 or more home runs in a season. It's been done by 11 men in the history of organized baseball, and Kennedy is one. Babe Ruth and Roger Maris, you know. The other nine, you should.

Kennedy hit his 60 home runs for Plainview, Texas, in the Southwestern League in 1956. The Southwestern League was a Class B league in the old minor league classification system, which ran from AAA down to D.

Now, before you freeze out Frosty with the thought that his accomplishment is merely a popsicle in the chocolate mousse of life, remember that less is more. And listen to the man.

"people knocking the minor leagues. I hear that stuff all the time," said Kennedy. "I even hear it from ex-players. Pete Rose told me that once. I told him, okay, so how many times did you hit 60 home runs in a season?'

"Believe me, I had a much more difficult time hitting my 60 than Ruth or mares. A shorter season, rotten lights at rotten little ballparks, rotten pitchers who couldn't or wouldn't throw me a pitch to hit, freezing weather in he spring, hat as hell in the summer.

"Don't let anyone ever tell you there was anything cheap about my getting 60 home runs. I was there, Charlie."

Kennedy, as you might guess, is not the shy, retiring sort. And that made him a home-town hero in Plainview, Riverside, Pensacola, Lamesa, Yuma and Amarillo, in small towns throughout the south and southwest in days before shopping malls and multiplex theaters, days when the only game in town was the local ball team.

In 10 years in the minors, 1948 to 1975, Kennedy had a .342 batting average. He hit 228 home runs and stole 122 bases. No one in the major leagues has hit .400 wince Ted Williams in 1941. Kennedy hit .410 at Riverside in the Sunset League in 1949 and .410 at Plainview in 1953.

Yet, Kennedy never played an inning in the major leagues. In fact, he never played an inning in Triple-A.

"I had a couple chances to go up, but what was the point?" he says. "I would have made the major league minimum salary, $5,000. Shoot, I was making more than that in the minors. How? Well, back then, if a team wanted to keep you -- and believe me they wanted to keep me because I put fans in the stands -- they could find a way to do it. I'd be listed on the payroll as a groundskeeper or bus driver or something like that, which got me some dough, in addition to my player's contract.

"Another thing to know: If you went out and had a great game, or hit a game-winning home run or something, the fans would give you money. One time, I hit a game-winning home run and the fans stuffed dollar bills in the backstop screen for me and, by the time I had collected 'em all, I had over 200 bucks. That stuff happened all the time.

"Plus which, in the little towns where I played, the people always wanted to buy me dinner, buy me drinks. I made out real well right where I was at."

"Another thing that tees me off: People say Plainview was a small ballpark and the air was thin and the ball carried forther and all that stuff. Oka, maybe it was. So why didn't 10 other guys, or 20 other guys, hit 60 home runs there?. I wasn't the only player who ever played in that ballpark, for cripes sake. But I was the only one to hit 60 home runs. So you figure it out."

To prove his point, Kennedy loaned me a book. It's calle "Minor League Baseball Stars" and was published by the Society for American Baseball Research in 1978. It's out of print, which is a shame, because it makes for fascinating reading.

Virtually every major league record has been bettered at some point, by someone in the minors. Maris' 61 home runs? Heck, Joe Bauman hit 72, in only 138 games, for Roswell, N.M., in the Longhorn League in 1954. Bauman, at 6-foot-5 and 235 pounds, was the next-best thing to Frank Howard, or Frank Thomas. But, by 1954, he was already 32 years old.

"Hey, I played against Joe, and he was one of the greatest hittes I've ever seen," said Kennedy. "But he was an older guy, and he owned a couple gas stations there in Roswell, so he was happy to stay right where he was."

Turning the paes of "Minor League Baseball Stars" at random is an absolute joy, like discovering your boyhood baseball cards in the attic. Here's Harry Chozen, a native of Pasadena. Chozen played briefly in the majors, but had a long minor league career as a catcher. And he's in the book. it seems that in 1945, while playing for Mobile in the outhern Association, Chozen hit in 49 straight games. That year, he struck out only three times in 88 games. Billy Ahley, are you listening?

Arnold "Jigger" Statz played center field for the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League for 18 years. He first played for the Angels in 1920, then spent several years in the majors.Statz returned to L.A. to say in 1929 and played through the 1942 season, when he was 44 years old. To this day, many old-time players regard him as the greatest defensive center fielder they ever saw. In 24 seasons in organized baseball, Statz played in more than 3,500 games and had more than 4,000 hits.

"I saw Statz play when I was a kid," said Kennedy. "He was great. Heck, every kid in Southern California wanted a Jigger Statz model gloveor bat. He was a legend out here. So why would he want to go back to the majors?"

The glory time of the minor leagues ended by 1958, with the major leagues' expansion westward and the demise of the independently owned minor league teams.

Kennedy's final year in pro ball was also 1957, and it was the only year he actually had a major league contract.

"That year, i was property of the Cincinnati Reds," Kennedy said. "They talked about bringing me up and using me as a righ-handed pinch-hitter, but I wasn't interested. I wanted toplay, and play every day.

"I was a king in the minor leagues. Why go up the majors and be just a spear-carrier?"