"If it wasn't for baseball, I'd be in either the penitentiary or the cemetery." ----Babe Ruth
While I desperately try to hold fast to the old writing mantra - write what you know - here I go, jumping off in the deep. To be clear from the outset, what I know about baseball would fit in a thimble. My first trip to Fenway Park was for Billy Joel. However, my better half and I did subsequently return to see the Boston Red Sox play. Rodney had to explain everything, especially the Green Monster wall and scoreboard.
My dad never took me to baseball games like he did football. Yet, it would be an oversight while writing about Washington Parish to omit the legendary sport. For the experts on baseball out there - say, the Tageant family - I ask for leniency. Fortunately for all concerned, I'm conducting a cursory review of the local history, nothing recent and not the nuts and bolts, of the sport.
Organized baseball in Franklinton began in the early twentieth century with teams coached by J. D. Kerr before 1920 and J. Vol Brock in the late 1920s. The first baseball park was situated on a triangle near the Franklinton schools before it was relocated to the north side of Varnado Street, near the home of Mark Stafford. Local players during this early era included, but were not limited to, Olan Varnado, Charles "Big Zeke" Babington, J. O. Reese, John Richardson, N. J. "Pompey" Stafford, Judge Robert D. Jones, Arnold Simmons, Walter Jones, and Dr. A. G. Smith. Several of these players landed in Major and Minor league baseball.
Then, in the 1930s baseball grew under the leadership of Dr. William Russell "Doc" McGehee, and the Franklinton Doctors semi-pro team came into being - more on "Doc" in a minute. And once again, several of the players made it to the Major and Minor leagues. By this time, baseball was played where Rutter Rex Manufacturing was located and later on baseball diamonds on the Fairgrounds. After that, baseball relocated to Parker Street where even I remember the baseball park. My "Uncle" George Moore spearheaded the project to build these facilities while the V. F. W. donated the lights. It was there, in in my youth that I ferried Chris Foret - today a well-known physician and then the closest I would come to a little brother -- to the baseball park where he played Little League baseball. The Little Leagues, valuable for area youth, were started by Coach Armstrong and Coach Ray in 1957.
As for "Doc" McGehee, he was the husband of my "Aunt" Bea McGehee. She adored me, and the feeling was mutual. Aunt Bea and my mother communicated by mail until the very end. The McGehees raised their family - daughters Ann Scott and Rosemary and son William Russell - in Franklinton where "Doc" had set up his medical practice in 1933. Most all are familiar with his prolific practice, which spanned decades in the McGehee Clinic, better known as "the Clinic," on Main Street. "Doc" treated thousands and delivered hundreds more, in the Clinic which until its closing in 1992 was located in the historic T. M. Babington home (which "Doc" purchased in 1942 and where Citizens Bank is situated today). And he was also the first chief of staff at Riverside Hospital, in 1966.
But beyond medicine, "Doc" was known for baseball; he was responsible for reorganizing in 1946 "the Doctors" a semi-pro baseball team for which he played first baseman and also served as coach. For a decade, the team was wildly popular. My dad was part of the fan base, long before my time. Some of the players were Dennis Crowe, Paul Ray Knight, Larry Stafford, Jimmy Crowe, Lonny Myles, Wayne Seal, Barry Crain, Willie Reese, James Bankston, and Larry Barber. Mesmerizing write-ups in "The Era-Leader" featuring the Franklinton Doctors games appeared as front page news. The following description of Barry Crain's home run in the fourth inning of a critical game against the American Legion team from Ponchatoula caught my eye, "Crain really put the hardwood to horsehide & slammed the ball all the way out to the center field fence. This feat is seldom seen at the Franklinton ball park."
And one of the most famous players for the Doctors was legendary local baseball player Carl Dick. His beloved wife Jerry proudly told me his story when I visited her in June of 2017. The two met in fourth grade when his family moved to Franklinton. According to Ms. Jerry, "I had my eye on him then." High school sweethearts, they married in 1949. Before that, Mr. Carl had graduated from high school at the age of fifteen, and had begun playing for the Doctors in 1946 - he was a very good shortstop. He played with the Washington Senators, the Chattanooga Lookouts, and the Hammond Berries. After moving home, marrying, and beginning work at the paper mill in Bogalusa --- I was told that he and my dad commuted together --- Mr. Carl continued to play with the Doctors through 1957.
Baseball also had an interesting history in Bogalusa. In the mid-1920s the St. Louis Browns of the American League conducted their training in the spring in Bogalusa, near what became Bogalusa Junior High School. By the late 1920s, Bogalusa boasted a famous semi-pro team with Virgil Underwood, Bennett Boyd, Lefty Nichols, C. L. Black, and others on the team. The Pleasant Hill Ball Park in Bogalusa was quite popular back in the day.
By the early 1930s, the Industrial League had its start, but it didn't last through the Second World War. So, in 1946 outstanding players from the former Industrial League banded together and formed the Gaylords semi-pro team, becoming renowned between 1946 and 1962 -- the Doctors’ greatest rival. The manager of the team was Louis Wascom, and Warren Seal and C. V. Lupo were business managers. Both Laurin Pepper, Pittsburgh pitcher from 1954-57, and Jim "Peanut" Davenport, who played for the San Francisco Giants before becoming their manager, were members of the Gaylords. And they had played for the University of Southern Mississippi. (Bogalusa history taken from the sports chapter, written by my father's friend Brig. Gen. J. Coleman Knight, in the Bogalusa Diamond Jubilee book dated July 4, 1989).
Closing with some of my favorite song lyrics from 1985 -
"Oh, put me in, coach
I'm ready to play today
Put me in, coach
I'm ready to play today
Look at me, I can be centerfield."
---John Fogerty
