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GEORGE CROWE

smart, he's level-headed, he has a sense of was speculation he might become the first I lived in a one-room log cabin fo r eleven responsibility and he fe els a concern fo r black major league manager, but Crowe years without electricity, running water,

. youngsters com1ng up. " said he was never offered a managerial central heating, or anything." Eventually By 1960 Crowe was one of 's post. "There was some talk in the newspa­ his old knee problems took their toll, and most effective pinch hitters. On May pers," he recalled, "but nobody ever said after replacement surgeries he moved into 25 he set a major league record when he anything to me about it." Mt er several what he described as "a regular house." socked his eleventh career pinch-hit home seasons as a scout fo r Saint Louis, Crowe Reflectingon his baseball days, Crowe . Crowe again came through in the moved to San Francisco. He worked acknowledged some remorse. Bigotry had dutch on July 16 when his homer with a briefly fo r Pan American Airlines and delayed his big-league career and, once he runner on base gave the Cards a 2-1 win then took a job in the insurance industry. got there, he always seemed to be in the over the Cubs. He finished the year with He went back East in the late 1960s to shadows of an incumbent. "I regretted that fo urteen career pinch-hit home runs. become a high school physical education I didn't get to play enough when I was In 1961 Franklin Community High teacher at Lawrence High School in Ce­ young enough to play," Crowe said. "That's School's new baseball diamond was chris­ darhurst, New Yo rk. "Those kids drove me one of those born-too-soon things." tened George Crowe Field. He had one crazy," he told Rick Morwick of the Frank­ Mt er more than three decades in the hit in seven at bats as a that lin Dailyjournal in 200 1, "so I retired to Adirondacks, Crowe moved to northern

"' a: 0 year when the Cardinals released him on the mountains." California in 2002 to be closer to his >-

w3: z May 9. "I'm not bitter, but I think I would During his playing days, Crowe had daughters, Adrienne Crowe of Gold River, z 3: 0 r­ have been of some value to them," Crowe been attracted to the wilderness of upstate California, and Pam Fortune of Palo Alto. (fj a: w c.. 0 told reporters, "but that's not my decision New Yo rk, where he hunted and fished Weakened by a pair of strokes in 2008, 0 u >­ a: to make. Thesethings do happen. They've during the offsea son. Divorced by now, Crowe moved to an assisted-living facility <>: a: CD :J w happened to me before." Crowe had hit he moved to Long Eddy, New Yo rk, a near Sacramento. He died the day after the ::; <>: u.

u. 0 eighty-one homers and averaged .270 in rustic hamlet on the Delaware River just 20 11 celebration of the birth of Doctor -' -' <>: I his nine-year major league career. He spent across from the Pennsylvania border. Martin Luther King Jr. Crowe lives on as -' <>: CD w (fj the remainder of the 1961 campaign in A 1981 Inside Sports article described a member of three Hoosier pantheons: the <>: CD -' <>: z the minors, toiling fo r Charleston, We st Crowe's "Robinson Crusoe existence" in Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame (Class of 0 >= <>: z Virginia, of the International League the Catskill Mountains, portraying him 1976), the University of Indianapolis Hall before deciding to retire. as a kind of Henry David Thoreau who of Fame (1987), and the Indiana Baseball With his playing days over, Crowe "thrives on loneliness." Crowe responded: Hall of Fame (2004). And, of course, as rejoined the Cardinals as a scout. There "I don't know about Robinson Crusoe, but Indiana's first black major leaguer-a good

� player, too, when he was finally able to get Crowe made a memorable 0

w� his chance. appearance in best-selling author z David Halberstam 's classic f Sports historian Pete Cava is a frequent 1- baseball book October 1964, contributor to Traces. His article on the �0 0 where the author described him � Indianapolis Hoosiers of the Federal League <( as wearing slippers in the dugout � appeared in the magazines summer 2010 to help soothe his aching fe et as :::; � issue. • 0 he waited to pinch hit. -' -' <( I -' -' <( co w (fj <( co -' <( z 0

z�

FOR FURTHER READING

Halberstam, David. October 1964. New York: Villard Books, 1994. I Moffi, rry,La and Jonathan Kronstadt. Crossing the Line: Black Major Leaguers, 1947-1959. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1994. I Riley, James A. The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues. New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 1994. I Robinson, Frank, and Barry Stainback. Extra . New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988. I Swaine, Rick. The Black Stars Who Made Baseball Whole: The Generation in the Major Leagues, 1947-1959. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006.

TRACES I Summer 2011 I 55