#Baseball February 7

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This month for the 30-Day Poetry Coach4aday Challenge my friend Jeff Neelon posted a poem about BASEBALL.

On February 1st Jeff shared with everyone he had read “Casey at Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. It is a great tale, but it is not my favorite BASEBALL Story. That honor goes to funny moment that occurred because of an umpiring decision. The story was told to me by Earl Smith who was a legendary collegiate baseball coach in North Carolina.

Baseball Storyteller

When I started college in 1971, I made a quick decision to major in Physical Education and in 1973 I had a class instructor that became a friend until he died on August 5, 2012, at the age of 95. This college instructor’s name was Earl Smith, and he was a former coach at East Carolina University in two sports basketball (1959-1963) and baseball (1963-1972).

Earl graduated from East Carolina in 1939 and because of our age difference he was a great link to a lot of wonderful stories some about ECU, college coaching, recruiting, and some about life in general. He also liked to brag on Ray Pennington who was one of his players at ECU.

Over the years especially when he got into his 80’s he would call me up and say he was coming to Pembroke to visit. Earl lived in Fayetteville, NC and after he left ECU he worked as a pro scout for the San Diego Padres. His travels would take him near campus, and I enjoyed our visits and especially his stories about life, coaching, and baseball.

Umpire Story

Earl said that great semi-pro baseball was being played in North Carolina in the Negro Leagues up until the early 1960’s. He mentioned that one team that had talent was the Raleigh Tigers. The Tigers would play teams in Eastern NC from Tarboro and Rocky Mount, NC.

He said one of the great umpiring moments he had ever heard in his career occurred with a game between the Raleigh Tigers and Rocky Mount Black Swans.

Here is the play that Earl said made the umpiring Hall of Fame. The Raleigh Tigers had come to Rocky Mount to play the Black Swans and held a one run lead in the bottom of the ninth. The Black Swans with one out had gotten the tying runner on first base. The Rocky Mount crowd was excited about possibly pulling the upset.

The Black Swans had a speedster on first base and the Tigers Pitcher threw over to first base multiple times to keep him close to the bag. Finally, the Tiger pitcher throws a pitch, and the batter hits a “Baltimore Chop” down the first base line.

The play and the call

The summer heat has dried out the field and the ball goes 35 feet in the air half way down the first base line. The pitcher a lefty,  comes off the mound and fields the ball in the air and in fair territory. His momentum takes him into foul territory just as the runner goes past him. He plants and throws but being a lefty his throw is way off of first base onto the second base side.

The first baseman fields the errant throw but is way off the bag and notices the runner going to second Is heading back to him at first. The batter seeing his teammate is heading back to first base stops. The batter then turns and heads back to home and the Tiger’s first baseman almost on instinct throws the ball to the catcher. The batter seeing the ball going home to the catcher pivots and heads back to first. The catcher seeing, he is headed to first base throws down to first, but the ball is cut-off by the pitcher short of first base. Earl said it is the first ever pickle between home plate and first base.

The batter seing the pitcher with the ball turns and heads back towards homeplate. The Tiger’s pitcher gives chase trying to make the tag on the Black Swan batter. He can’t get to the Black Swan batter so he tosses it back to his catcher and the batter slides under the catchers tag. Everyone looks at the umpire for the call.

He shouts out and signals SAFE-then tell the Black Swan you bat again.

Nobody like Earl Smith telling a BASEBALL story.