Raisins, Rockwell, and Rowell
Bygone baseball: The unfamiliar, the unusual, the dramatic
By C. Philip Francis
Earl Oliver(!) Whitehill had a 17-year, major league pitching career mostly with the Tigers and Washington from 1923 through 1939. The handsome but fiery Whitehill was called The Earl because of his temper and flamboyant clothes. He accepted nothing less than perfection from his teammates and umpires, and once threw the ump’s pocket whiskbroom over the grandstand following a questionable call. The former soccer player is the only major league pitcher to win 200 games with a ERA (earned run average) higher than 4.00 every 9 innings. The Earl finished his ML years with a record of 218 wins, 185 losses and an ERA of 4.36.
In Elden Auker’s fine baseball book, Sleeping Cars and Flannel Uniforms, the former Tiger relates one story when he and Whitehill were playing golf in Tucson, Arizona where the Detroit team then held their spring training. After an errant golf ball came bouncing beween Earl’s legs, he was ready to go back and punch out the unknown golfer. Others cooled off the unhappy Whitehill, and later they found out that the hitter was no other than Jack Dempsey, the world heavyweight champion.
Illustrator Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was as much a part of Americana as apple pie and baseball. Rockwell’s paintings usually told stories of humorous incidents supported with a myriad of detail, and much of Rockwell’s popularity came from his work on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. The painter often used baseball as a theme, and one was called “The Dugout”. The spring issue of the Boston Braves Historical Association newsletter tells us that “The Dugout” portrays the visitors’ bench at a Braves doubleheader with the Chicago Cubs on May 23, 1948. The Cubs were in last place at that time, and a number of Cubs were used in the sketch: Pitcher Bob Rush who was in five games that rookie year; manager Charlie “Jolly Cholly” Grimm who had a very successful managerial career; and pitcher Johnny Schmitz, a winner of 18 games that year. The Cub batboy was really the Braves batboy who was asked to “look sad”, and earned five dollars for his effort. “The Dugout” was the cover for the September 4, 1948 issue.
The celebrated artist did a charcoal preliminary sketch, another with oil on canvas, and also a watercolor version that is now in the Brooklyn Museum. The charcoal piece was once sold for $175,000, and the futile Cubbies did finish in last place that year.
In Brooklyn-born Bernard Malamud’s fictional novel The Natural, later a movie of the same name starring Robert Redford and Glenn Close, Roy Hobbs helps the New York Knights win a pennant by hitting a mammoth home run into the clock high over the outfield stands. The real Bama Rowell who played for the Boston Braves and Philadelphia Phillies in the 1940’s was actually the inspiration for that extraordinary incident.
Carvel “Bama” Rowell, was born in Citronelle, Alabama in 1916, and began his professional baseball career with Cordele in the Georgia/Florida League in 1937. After the usual additional stops, the Braves brought him up in 1939. He was their regular second baseman for the next two seasons, and then spent four years in the Army during World War 2. Bama was back with the Braves in ’46 and ‘47, and finished his career the following season with Phillies.
Few would remember the name of Carvel Bama Rowell, but on Memorial Day in 1946 the Braves were in Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field when Bama crushed the Bulova clock atop the right field scoreboard with a towering home run. The shattered glass fell on Dodger right fielder Dixie Walker, and it took an hour before the clock stopped running.
The Bulova Watch Company had promised a watch to anyone who hit the stadium timepiece, but it took 41 years before Rowell was able to collect his batting prize. Bama was out of baseball by 1949, and died in 1993 at the age of 77. At least he had the opportunity to enjoy the Bulova watch during his last six years.