Hardball Legends and Journeymen and Short-Timers

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Sample file Hardball Legends and Journeymen and Short-Timers 333 Illustrated Baseball Biographies

Written and Illustrated by RONNIE JOYNER

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McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, North Carolina, and London LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Joyner, Ronnie. Hardball legends and journeymen and short-timers : 333 illustrated baseball biographies / written and illustrated by Ronnie Joyner. p. cm. Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-7864-7052-5 Samplesoftcover : acid free filepaper 1. Baseball players—United States—Biography. 2. Baseball— United States—History—20th century. I. Title. GV865.A1J69 2012 796.3570922—dc23 [B] 2012007785

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

© 2012 Joseph Ronald Joyner. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Cover illustration by Ronnie Joyner

Manufactured in the United States of America

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Box 611, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640 www.mcfarlandpub.com Contents

Acknowledgments vi Preface 1

Assorted Legends, Journeymen, and Short-Timers 5 Big Boppers 8 1 Natural Born Hitters 107 Armed and Dangerous 1 28 Tragedies and Near Tragedies 1 65 World War II 1 78 Korea and Vietnam 209 Men of Desegregation 2 1 5 Music, Movies, and TV 225 Speedsters 249 Cool CouplingsSample file 260 Wholly-Worthy Half-Pagers 27 2 Black Sox: 1919 Chicago White Sox 280 Whiz Kids: 1950 Philadelphia Phillies 292 Pinstripers: 2009 New York Yankees 305

Index 321

v Acknowledgments

The bio-illustrations featured in this book were produced con- tinually from 1997 through 2011, and were published in a variety of publications. The graphic nature of these illustra tions does not lend itself to traditional bibliographic forms of reference notation, but conscientious efforts were made within the text to give credit when information used or quoted was uniquely tied to specific sources. Credits for ordinary data like statistics or game details were impossible to accommodate in this graphic presentation. That information, none the less, was as important as any to the storytelling. The following sources were of great value in fleshing out the details: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Sporting News, Baseball Di- gest, The Baseball Encyclopedia, Sports Illustrated, The Asso - ciated Press, United Press International, Topps, baseballin wartime. com, sabr.org, retrosheet. org, baseballlibrary.com, baseball- almanac.com, and baseball-reference. com. Gratitude must alsoSample be expressed file to the countless authors of other books, magazines, periodicals, websites, interviews—and all other manner of baseball writing—whose recording of baseball history was also invaluable. Lastly, thanks go out to Sumner G. Hunnewell, Jr., for his hard work in compiling the index.

vi Preface

Hello baseball fans! Or is it art fans? paper sports cartoonists of the early- to Maybe you’re both. If you are, then you’re mid–20th century. Sports cartooning for a lot like me. What follows in this book are newspapers was already a nearly-extinct 333 illustrated biographies of baseball art form by the time I started creating my players, mostly major leaguers, written bio-illustrations in 1997. Bill Gallo was still and drawn by me. These illustrations are keeping the genre alive up at The Daily the confluence of two of my favorite News in New York, but for the most part things—baseball and art—and I am lucky the era of newspaper sports cartoonists to have found a way to squeeze two of had long since been laid to rest by 1997. my biggest passions into one activity. And when Gallo himself passed away at People have referred to my work as age 88 in May of 2011, it could be viewed caricatures, or cartoons, or other similar as the official last gasp of a bygone art categorizations, but none of those de- form—at least on a mainstream level. scriptions really seem to hit the mark. The Sure, there will always be a few hard- dominant element of my graphic biogra- headed people who continue to work en- phies is the player portrait. Since these thusiastically in the old style, but it most portraits do not exaggerate the players’ likely will be enjoyed only by niche audi- facial features in a comical way, theSample term ences. file And you never really know. If there “caricature” never really fit. And while ever comes a day when the masses tire of these graphic biographies are peppered all the busy, over-the-top, hi-tech graphics with small cartoons, the overriding ele- splashed everywhere, good old-fashioned ment is still the portrait, thereby ren - sports cartooning might find its way back dering the term “cartoon” inadequate in into the mainstream. defining them. And then there’s the text. While sports cartooning has likely There is a lot of text in most of my pieces, been around as long as there have been so it seemed important to reference that sports (imagine a cave drawing of Cro- in whatever term I settled on to describe Magnon skull bad-hopping through legs my work. Sometime between 2000 and of surprised Neanderthal 1st baseman), 2005 I started to use the term “bio-illus- the “modern” age of sports cartooning for tration” to describe my graphic biogra- news papers can be traced to the early phies, and that seemed to be the perfect 1900s as an offshoot of the editorial car- resolution. toon. It was artists like Bob Edgren, E.W. There’s no denying that my bio-illus- Kemble, Thomas A. Dorgan (“Tad”), Burris trations owe everything to the great news- Jenkins, Jr., and Rube Goldberg who

1 Preface began to inject life into rather drab news- my bio-illustrations have generally been paper layouts with their flashy illustra- seen by relatively small audiences in the tions. Limitations in the newspaper print- grand scheme of things. Still, I have re- ing technology of the time led to ceived numerous comments on how less-than-stellar results in reproducing much my work reminds them of the car- photographs. Yet the crisp black-and- toons they saw in the sports pages of white high-contrast nature of these art- their youth, and to me that is the ultimate ists’ illustrations reproduced very well, compliment. making them jump off the page for read- One way in which my bio-illustrations ers whose eyes were weary of wall-to-wall differ from those of golden age sports text and mushy, detail-void halftones. cartoonists is the amount of text. My bio- The golden age of the sports cartoon illustrations feature much more text. Years was the 1930s, ’40s, and into the mid–’50s ago I sent a few samples of my work to as the genre was elevated by talented legendary sports cartoonist Murray Old- artists like Leo O’Mealia, Bob Coyne, Tom erman to seek his opinion as to where I Paprocki (“Pap”), John Pierotti, Lenny could improve. Not one to lavish false Hollreiser, Alan Maver, Lou Darvas, Karl praise on any artist, Mr. Olderman com- Hubenthal, Murray Olderman, and the mented that while my illustration tech- grand daddy of them all, Willard Mullin. nique was very good, my work would This is just a small sampling of the sports benefit by reducing the amount of text. cartoonists working in that period. Most That was sage advice from an illustrative papers had an artist on staff in the pre–TV point of view—which was Mr. Olderman’s boom era of newspapers, and the com- intent—but I felt it wasn’t the best direc- petition among them resulted in amazing tion for me. Here’s why: advancements in technique, layout, and The contemporary artists of the gol - creativity. Sampleden file age of sports cartooning were docu - As television grew in popularity in the menting current events. That allowed mid–1950s, newspaper readership began them to be much briefer with the text. For to decline—in the process taking down example, when Lou Darvas wanted to il- many of the sports cartoonists who’d lustrate the great year reliever Jim Kon- come to prominence during the glory stanty had just logged for the 1955 Yank- days. Some took to writing sports col- ees, he was able to do so with a large umns to supplement their dwindling illus- portrait, a handful of cartoons, and just a tration assignments. Some began draw- few blurbs of text. My bio-illustrations, on ing traditional editorial cartoons. Some the other hand, almost always recount the got out of the business all together. By entire career of the featured player. the 1970s there were just a handful of My bio-illustrations are said to have a sports cartoonists holding down the fort, vintage look. I chalk that up to two things— like the great Bruce Stark of The Daily my illustration style and the media I use. News, but the writing was on the wall. My style is a by-product of countless While I have worked diligently for the childhood hours spent poring over the last 15 years to keep the old style alive, works of the sports cartooning masters,

2 Preface then trying to emulate their techniques. wanted the gray tones to appear. There End result: my work looks more like that were two different developers with Duo- of the sports artists of the 1940s and ’50s shade—one bottle activated the light tone than that of many other present-day lines, and the second bottle activated the artists who are influenced more by mod- dark tone lines. The end result was an il- ern trends, like the manga style, for ex- lustration with a dynamic range of tones ample. And, the media in which I work that was actually “camera-ready” line art. also contribute greatly to the vintage This allowed the piece to be enlarged or look. All of the bio-illustrations in this reduced without any loss of quality. In book were produced using now-anti- other words, a Duoshade illustration re- quated media commonly used by sports produced wonderfully in the newspaper cartoonists of the past. regardless of size, and that couldn’t al- Approximately 90 percent of the bio- ways be said about newspaper halftone illustrations in this compilation were photos. produced on Duoshade board. The re- Coquille board had all the reproduc- mainder were done on coquille board. tion benefits of Duoshade, but it had Duo shade was a cartoonist’s staple for quite a different look. Illustrations done decades until discontinued around 2009 on coquille board have a much softer look by the product’s only manufacturer. De- than that of a Duoshade illustration. This mand for Duoshade declined significantly is because coquille board drawings utilize over the last decade with the advance- a soft black pencil to achieve the gray ment of computer graphics. Eventually, tones. As with Duoshade, the artist first the only artists left using the stuff were inked his black line-work, then used the crusty old timers who refused to let go, black pencil to render the tonal areas. Co- and there simply weren’t enough of us to quille board had a pebbly finish to it, so save Duoshade from extinction. SampleDuo - the filepencil only took to the high areas of shade artists suddenly found themselves the rough finish. Light pressure gave the scrambling to find sources who still had artist light gray tones, while heavier pres- “new old stock.” Now, to the best of my sure gave him darker grays—but the na- knowledge, there are no stashes left, and ture of the pebbly finish ensured that the Duoshade has gone the way of the dino - grays would never be too dark. saur. As with Duoshade, a completed co- Duoshade was really an ingenious quille board cartoon is camera-ready, product. It was a bristol board with barely- meaning the cartoonist could rest easy in visible lines printed at 45-degree angles. the belief that his work would not be First, the cartoonist inked the black line- compromised by a production glitch. work of his drawing onto the Duo shade There are manufacturers who still make board. Most guys used a combination of coquille board, but none make the “fine” brushwork and pen work. I pretty much grade used by the artists of the golden strictly use a brush—a Windsor-Newton age. The fine grade was ideal for creating Series-7 Number-1 sable. Then, the art ist all the subtle tones necessary for a good painted on clear developer where he portrait. The “coarse” grade that’s still

3 Preface produced will do, and I’ve used it on a all of the bio-illustrations in this collection number of pieces in this book, but it’s a are of major league players, there are, far cry in quality from the original fine however, an assortment of interesting ex- grade. ceptions—minor leaguers, negro leaguers, All this shop talk about artist’s media female players, entertainers, et al. wouldn’t mean beans if I had to use these My bio-illustrating began when the materials to illustrate backyard grills, lawn folks at the Washington Baseball Histori- mowers, or washing machines in the cal Society asked me to contribute to newspaper’s weekend sales insert. In- their quarterly newsletter. The historical stead, I’m using these materials to illus- society was a group dedicated to pre- trate baseball history. It’s hard to say what serving the legacy of the Washington I enjoyed more while growing up—playing Senators. This was a very exciting oppor- baseball or drawing. I have notebooks tunity for me because having been born filled with baseball cards that I collected in Washington, D.C., and raised in the avidly from 1970 to 1975. But I also have nearby Maryland suburbs, I was a rabid notebooks stuffed to capacity with my Senators fan until their departure for childhood drawings of ballplayers and Texas when I was nine years old. comic book superheroes. In any case, Within a few years I was creating bio- whatever dreams I had of playing ball be- illustrations for publications of the St. yond high school evaporated quickly after Louis Browns Historical Society, the Phila- tearing up my knee playing centerfield in delphia Athletics Historical Society, and my senior year. My art, on the other hand, the Boston Braves Historical Society. This always gave me better opportunities for eventually led to my work with Sports advancement than did my baseball skills. Collectors Digest, a weekly memorabilia So I set my sights on a career in art and publication out of Iola, Wisconsin. SCD ventured off to the University of SampleMaryland ran file one of my bio-illustrations every week. to get the necessary schooling. No longer confined to drawing only Sen- My love of baseball history led me to ators, Browns, Athletics, or Braves, the dedicate my abilities to documenting the sky was the limit—and it is my bio-illus- colorful stories and characters of the trations for all of the aforementioned game. As for who to draw, I never really publications that make up the bulk of cared whether a ballplayer I was illustrat- what is in this book. ing had a 20-year career or a 20-minute I like a lot of pictures in the baseball career. My personal compulsion was to books I read. Yet here I’ve already violated choose subjects based on interesting my own axiom with this long, picture-less story lines, and I found those could come preface. So enough said—page forward from Hall of Famers (the Legends from and enjoy. And in the words of 1950s Reds the title of this book), the every day players outfielder Jim Greengrass (was there ever (the Journeymen), or the cup-of-coffee a better baseball name?), many happy in- guys (the Short-Timers). And while almost nings!

4 Assorted Legends, Journe ymen, and Short-Timers

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