Frosty Kennedy

Here are some stories from the Plainview Daily Herald
that I found on their web site.
From the Plainview Daily Herald

´Frosty´ Kennedy hits a homer for hype
By Danny Andrews
Herald Editor

Anyone who lived in Plainview in the mid-1950s probably knows the name “Frosty” Kennedy, even if they never saw him play a game for the Plainview Ponies.

That was the minor league team that moved here in 1953 when the Lamesa franchise folded in the old West Texas-New Mexico League.

Twenty-seven-year-old outfielder Forrest Kennedy, who hit .403 for Lamesa, came along in the package and was an instant hit - no pun intended.

Many folks enjoyed summer evenings at Jaycee Park, watching the local team which finally folded after the 1961 season, briefly having an association with the Kansas City Athletics.

“He was a real character,” longtime Plainviewan Luther Bain recalled with a hearty laugh, echoing the remembrance of many others about Kennedy who died June 5 in Covina, Calif. at the age of 72.

Frosty sported massive arms and showed them off by wearing cutoff sleeves as did another more famous slugger of the day - Cincinnati first baseman Ted Kluszewski.

He always had a big chaw of tobacco, which liberally stained his uniform, and former Plainviewan Tom Locke recalls Frosty removing his chaw, wadding it up and rolling it toward the opponents´ dugout when he´d hit one out of Jaycee Park.

Discretion being the better part of valor - and arrogance - he probably didn´t do that on the road.

Those hometown homers earned him a wad of money stuck in the wire mesh screen by appreciative fans - he said he collected $269 for a game-winning shot against Clovis in the 13th inning of a playoff game.

Walt McAlexander, a 1962 PHS grad who served as the Ponies´ bat boy one season, says he used to listen to veteran KVOP sports announcer Tut Tawwater do the games - “live” here and by “re-creation” from the Western Union wire for road games. Walt recalls Frosty rumbling toward the mound after striking out his last time up on a night where he already had three or four hits.

Rather than fighting, Frosty wanted to congratulate the pitcher on finally getting him out.

Walt, who was a sports writer for the Lubbock paper for 14 years, then worked in sports information at Texas Tech, was excited about seeing Frosty´s name and picture at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. for being one of the 11 men to ever hit 60 or more homeruns in a season.

Of course, the first to do it was Babe Ruth, the legendary “Sultan of Swat,” in 1927, the year after Frosty was born.

Tut Tawwater alleges the league´s pitching in 1953 and again in 1956 when Frosty hit 60 round-trippers in the restructured Southwestern League, “was pathetic. . . about like high school.”

Former Herald Sports Editor Bob Carroll said Frosty took advantage of “invitingly close” fences at Jaycee Park (358 feet to center compared with about 400 now) for a number of “cheap” homeruns.

When I mentioned that to Frosty in a feature story I did back in 1985, he snorted, “Hell, I didn´t hit no cheap ones.”

He claimed he could have hit 120 homeruns in a well-lighted major league stadium.

Frosty recalled that he hit his Babe-matching 60th homer in San Angelo on the last evening of a 144-game season. Trying to help him, the San Angelo catcher was telling him what pitches were coming, but Frosty says he went 1-for-8 in a doubleheader the night before and it really didn´t help him.

His history-making homer in the third inning hugged the leftfield foul line and the umpire called it fair on a close decision.

In 1953 Frosty hit .410 with a 40-game hitting streak, 224 hits and 169 RBIs. Three years later (he played in Amarillo in 1954 and Yuma, Ariz. in 1955), he batted .327 with 184 RBIs (the major league record is 190) and scored 151 runs.

Playing for 12 different teams, Kennedy averaged .342 during a 10-year minor league career that began in 1948, hit 228 homers with 1,083 runs batted in and 1,572 hits.

Although he signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, he never made it to the majors in an era when there were more than 400 minor league teams in America - soon to greatly dwindle with the popularity of television.

Frosty also said something else pretty brash in that 1985 interview: “I´m the greatest player ever. Babe Ruth hit 60 homers but never batted .400. Ted Williams and a lot of other guys hit .400 but never hit 60 homers. I did both.”

Considering that Joe Bauman hit an all-time record 72 homeruns and batted over .400 for Roswell in 1954, Frosty might have been just a bit, shall we say, off base about being “the greatest.”

But give him a homer for hype - and no cheap shot either.

(Danny Andrews is editor of The Herald.)
____________________________________________6-8-98 Local baseball legend ´Frosty´ Kennedy dies
By DANNY ANDREWS
Herald Editor

A Plainview baseball legend has died in California at the age of 72.

Forrest “Frosty” Kennedy, a minor league slugger who was one of 11 baseball players to hit 60 home runs in a season, died Friday night of a heart attack in Covina, Calif.

Kennedy hit 60 home runs in a 144-game season while playing for the Plainview Ponies in the Class B Southwestern League in 1956.

He hit his 60th homer on the last day of the season in San Angelo - a ball called fair right at the foul line.

He batted .327 that year, with 184 RBIs, and scored 151 runs.

In 1953 at Plainview he hit .410 with a 40-game hitting streak, 224 hits and 169 RBIs.

Kennedy averaged .342 during a 10-year minor league career that began in 1948, hit 228 homers with 1,083 runs batted in and 1,572 hits.

In addition to Plainview and Riverside, he also played in Pensacola, Fla., Atlanta, Ga., Hartford, Conn., Miami Beach, Lamesa (in 1952), Oklahoma City, Burlington, Iowa, Amarillo (1954), Yuma, Ariz. and Boise, Idaho.

But he never made it to the major leagues in an era when there were about 400 minor league teams in America. He hit .411 at Riverside, Calif. in 1949 and again in 1953 at Plainview.

Known for his big chew of tobacco and muscular arms - displayed in cutoff sleeves like Cincinnati slugger Ted Kluszewski of the same era - Kennedy also was famous for his brashness.

“I´m the greatest player ever,” he said in a feature story in The Herald in 1985. Babe Ruth hit 60 homers but never batted .400. Ted Williams and a lot of other guys hit .400 but never hit 60 homers. I did both.”

Former Herald Sports Editor Bob Carroll said Kennedy took advantage of Jaycee Park´s “invitingly close” fences for some “cheap homers,” but Kennedy responded: “Hell, I didn´t hit no cheap ones.”

He claimed he could have hit 120 homeruns in a well-lighted major league stadium.

While

As was typical of minor league baseball when Kennedy played for the Ponies, he passed by the wire-mesh screen to collect cash stuck through the openings by appreciative fans following a homerun.

He said he collected $290 after hitting a 13th-inning homer in a 1953 playoff game with Clovis.

Kennedy said of Plainview: “I think of the people in Plainview all the time. I´ve said many times two of the best years I ever had were in Plainview and the best fans were there. It was my favorite city in the 10 years I played.

“It´s No. 1 in my heart. You couldn´t tell a cotton farmer from the guy who owned the bank. The people were very friendly. The best people I´ve ever known were from West Texas.”

Retired from Douglas Aircraft, in recent years he was the owner and operator of the BMX bicycle track at Whittier Narrows.

A standout in football and baseball at El Monte High School, Kennedy served three years in the Navy. Later, Kennedy played semi-pro baseball and softball, and signed a contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

He was a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Minor League Hall of Fame, and his photo and statistics are displayed in the Babe Ruth Wing at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown
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Maris, schmaris: What about Joe Bauman?



Everybody´s talking about Mark McGwire of the Cardinals and/or Sammy Sosa of the Cubs breaking Roger Maris of the Yankees´ 37-year-old major league homerun record of 61 in a season.

But neither of them hold a candle to Joe Bauman who hit 72 - that´s right, Seventy-Two - in 1954 while playing for second-place Roswell, N.M. Rockets in the Longhorn League.

It´s still the all-time record for professional baseball.

Now 76 and still living in Roswell where he operated a Texaco station for many years, Bauman was a 6-5, 235-pound lefthanded-hitting first baseman - a little smaller than the righthanded McGwire and playing the same position - when he sent those 72 homers out of the park.

Answering the inevitable questions of “how´d you do that?,” Bauman said the key was the same for McGwire and Sosa, who also bats righthanded, to break the record they´re shooting for: “Everything has to fall in place.

“I think it´s inevitable” that the record will fall but he figured lefthand-swinging Ken Griffey Jr. of Seattle would have the best shot at the homerun record because there are more righthanded pitchers in the majors and he plays home games in a more inviting park.

Lefties Ruth and Maris both benefited from Yankee Stadium´s short rightfield porch.

Bauman said the pitching he saw was “good to average”; the ballparks regulation with decent lighting, except for a smallish Big Spring field (“I couldn´t hit much in that park - I hated it”) and the ball probably less “jazzed” than it is now.

Roswell had 140 games scheduled that year but played only 138. Bauman - never sidelined by injury or fatigue - played in all of them (almost always night games with few doubleheaders).

His best game was four homers at home against Sweetwater. However, he remembers having few multi-homerun games.

While Maris´ benchmark was Babe Ruth´s 60 homers in 1927 - thus, his record has stood longer than Ruth´s did - Bauman was shooting for the 69 belted by Joe Hauser of the Minneapolis Millers in 1933 and matched by Bob Crues of Amarillo (where Bauman played for two seasons) in 1948.

He got to Ruth´s mark of 60 with about 20 games left and hit three on the last day of the season in a doubleheader to break and pad the all-time record.

“I probably picked up $700 or $800 (money was stuck in the fence behind home plate as the tradition of the time dictated for a homerun) that day,” Bauman recalls.

“I liked the low pitches,” he says, recalling that he was frequently walked.

He also batted an even .400 in 1954. Told that former Plainview Ponies star Frosty Kennedy, who died earlier this summer, said he (Kennedy) was the greatest player ever because he hit 60 homeruns AND batted over .400 in his career - feats accomplished individually by Ruth and Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams - Bauman chuckled, “Frosty was pretty confident.”

But he didn´t comment on whether, by Kennedy´s yardstick, he would be the best player of all time, especially since he did both in the same season.

Bauman says he has no idea what his longest homerun was but believes the balls are livelier now because “even middle-sized guys get fooled on pitches and hit them out of the park with one hand.”

Bauman, whose exploits are recorded on a plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. (which he has never visited), played for Capitol Hill High School in his hometown of Oklahoma City, then signed with independent Little Rock.

Although his contract was eventually purchased by the National League´s Boston Braves, he never played a day in the majors, ending an off-and-on 15-year career when he refused to have surgery on his ankle after the 1956 season.

“There were just 16 major league teams then (and about 400 minor league teams after the war, so too much talent) and you could make as much or more money in a decent job in the business world,” he said.

Bauman also says he lost four prime years to military service in World War II.

He agrees players are more physically developed now due to better training and nutrition methods. “The evolution of mankind kind of takes care of some of that,” he surmised. “When I was playing, the clubs wrote you letters forbidding you to swim because they didn´t want you to get muscle bound.”

Bauman figures his record probably will never be broken - at least at the minor league level: “If somebody was hitting a lot of homeruns, they wouldn´t leave them down in the minors long.”

Even if it does fall, he can be proud of having held it for more than 40 years and he´ll be in some mighty fine company.

(Danny Andrews is editor of The Herald.)