*Aug. 12, 1954—BETWEEN YOU AND ME by Harry Gilstrap---I Wish the Gold Sox Management had Given me a couple of days’ notice on “Frosty Kennedy Night,” for I’d like to have run this letter before, rather than after, the event. It’s postmarked Baldwin Park, Calif., reached this desk while I was on vacation, and is self-explanatory: “You may wonder at this letter from Southern California, baseball’s national playground, and who could be interested in the Gold Sox Baseball team.** “Mr. Editor, may I introduce myself—I am Forrest E. Kennnedy,Sr., Frosty’s proud father, and just a few days past I was informed of the latest blessed event to Frosty and Jan, so I now am also a very proud Granddad. I gave the greatest admiration and love for little Frosty’s mother, Mrs. Jan Kennedy, now residing in Amarillo.
WEST COAST FEELS ATTENDANCE SLACK, TOO
“I AM A SUBSCRIBER OF YOUR Amarillo News, the reason being, of course, to follow the baseball destiny of Frosty. This year is the first time during the baseball season that his mother, Mrs. Vivian Kennedy, and myself have not visited him where he was currently playing. We certainly miss this season’s visit to your fair city. “ A few days ago one of your co-workers at the sports desk(Editor’s Note: That was Leon Bert) wrote an article concerning the absence of the paying customers at the ball parks in every section of the U.S.A. I must concur with him in all of his observations. It was a masterful analysis of a sinking condition of baseball attendance in general. His terminology of “characters” in baseball seems to be the missing link.*** “Here on the West Coast, the same condition exists, and maybe the Amarillo News heard of this one, and example: the series between the Los Angeles Angels and the fabulous Hollywood Stars is always a bitter cross-town rivalry, but attendance at Hollywood’s Gilmore Field was not quite up to previous par. Now whether the beef between the teams that day was really meant to be, I do not know, but both teams came at each other with bats a-flying for a few minutes. Local police and management finally parted the belligerents. Of course television and all the newspapers had a field day. From then on during the balance of that series there was “no standing room’ for the fans in Gilmore Field. “Baseball fans—you have just such a “character” playing his very level best for the Gold sox in Amarillo. He is doing everything he can to make the game as entertaining and interesting as on player is capable of doing. He has Babe Ruth traits, you know, leading the league in home runs; a little of Stan Musial, batting average .398, a little likeDiMaggio, a lot of runs batted in; quite a few stolen bases last year, I don’t know what he does with them all. His association with umpires is a little like Durocher’s. He carries a good name brand of chewin” tobaccy, but he never chews away from the park.
Real Proud of This “Character,” Frosty
“A little incident in his sunset League days: His Riverside Dons were in Reno playing the Silver Sox: there were about 25 or 30 fans and his father and mother. Other citizens of Reno were playing other games. Frosty and the field umpire got into a friendly argument and had a few loud words. Well! One of Reno reporters made a headline of it. Next night about 300 fans showed up to see a real ball game. By the, Frosty led the league that year, batting .407 , I have a case full of baseball trophies that he has won in past years. “YES, MR. SPORTS Editor, you have quite a “character” playing for our Gold sox team, and win or lose, hero or goat, his father and mother love that baseball “character,”Frosty.”*** This department gladly goes along with the proud Mr. Kennedy in rating Frosty a baseball “character,” and even will add that he’s one of the great ones of West Texas-New Mexico League history. There’s an old sports saying, “He came to play.” It means that the subject is a competitor to the hilt. It applies admirably to Frosty Kennedy, who arrived in Amarillo about an hour before game time one night in early May, bone-weary after driving 800 miles from Burlington, a., without rest and pulling a house trailer, and insisted on getting into a Gold sox uniform and playing both ends of a double header. He hit a home run in one of ‘em, too. He probably should be playing better ball than this, next season. But unless he is, I sincerely hope he’s back with the Gold sox in 1955.
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