CYBER-CAT FANS
University of Kentucky Basketball Season
2005/2006
Preface:
This will be my fifth book since 2001. I’m a retired University of Kentucky
metallurgical engineer who started my books upon retirement in 1998. I’ve chosen
topics I know somewhat about, but, normally pick interviewees who know the
topics much better than I do. This will not be a team insiders’ view of the program,
rather it will be a copying and pasting of threads or posts onto my book site,
mainly, if not entirely, from the www.wildcatnation.net site.
I’ve been a fan of Kentucky basketball since my Highland schoolyard basketball playing
days (in Portsmouth, Ohio) around 1946, when Kentucky perennially led the nation in college basketball.
It is no secret that Kentucky is still a team to beat in college basketball.
Wildcat fan sites have proliferated in the nineties and the two thousands
because of UK’s continued success with a variety of coaches and players and the growth of the internet.
I’ve solicited the approval of a few UK friends whom my wife, Jeanie, and I have
met through the web sites and through attendance at Kentucky games at many
different venues. Jeanie and I were very fortunate to meet Mel McCane, the
originator of www.wildcatfaithful.com , who died in November 2005 at too young an age (in his
fifties). God, please rest our beloved benefactor.
My intent in beginning this current venture is to select pertinent and
interesting posts by the many different posters. I must apologize to those
journalists (I am not a journalist), who report every incident about a topic,
good or bad, so long as it is sensational. I am looking for the good and will
stop the project, rather than write anything which embarrasses the great
University of Kentucky or the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
I am a Portsmouth Ohio native whose dad migrated eastward about 30 miles to
from Vanceburg, Kentucky. Dad , Forest E. Kegley, Sr., was only ten years old then.
After attending Ohio University Portsmouth Branch for four years to obtain a year
and a half of credits for engineering, I transferred to UK to obtain my Bachelor of Science in Metallurg-
ical Engineering. After a thirty -seven year engineering career, I retired and began
by writing my unpublished memoirs for my then too-young -to-read grandchildren, with hopes
that they may read them with a little interest later on in their lives.
I have always enjoyed Studs Terkel’s writings. Studs became 93 years old on
May 16 , 2005 and has interviewed over 9,000 people to write their stories in his books.
Of course he is a Pulitzer Prize winner and a very well known Chicago author and
radio host. I’m sure that my mother must have listened to him because he was also an
actor on radio soap operas.
As a young reader, I read many sports hero’s books (such as those written by
Clair Bee and Matt Christopher) where the main character would
usually attend a small fictional college and excel to win the big game-with
small conflicts and resolutions along the way. I also enjoyed listening to
Friday night Bill Stern sports stories on the radio. My four previous books have been
interview stories of the people I have chosen, depending upon the topic I have chosen. I have interviewed just over 150 people to date.
I am 73 now, and young, relative to Studs.
The love of Kentucky basketball is, more or less, a sickness, which, when people
are inflicted with it, they are not likely to seek nor desire a cure during
their lifetime of sports entertainment. With no disrespect for the
great “esprit de corps” of the United States Marines (I was a draftee onto the
Army during the Korean conflict), I declare that Kentucky basketball fans, with their extreme loyalty
for Kentucky basketball teams, have the similar dedication I believe each marine has for our great free country.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is attracting the most
exceptional athletes today with its big, big money, while
the college coaches must continue to swim in shark infested waters (scouts
seeking talent for the big leagues); however, college basketball always presents
better entertainment in my honest opinion. Coaching in the pros takes
special talent, but the players appear often to have condescending attitudes to their
professional coaches who are often paid a salary that is lower than themselves.
This will be a different book for me because the threads or posts by the individual posters on the
internet will actually be the story presented, rather than interview stories. If our glorious God in Heaven grants me
continued living and lets me be able, the book should not be completed and
published until the Spring of 2006 after the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) season Final Four. I know that
Jeanie and I will enjoy Kentucky basketball, but none of us knows what this season will bring the
University of Kentucky basketball team, or any other college team. We will see what occurs and how the
posters portray the events.
Sam Kegley aka SamKat -
Preface written in the spring of 2005- edited by Sam in the spring of 2006
Saturday, April 19, 2008
My Books- W.C.Denison "A 20th Century Entrepreneur
W.C. (Bill) Denison:
The Man
and
His Company
I am a metallurgical engineer who went to work for Abex/Denison Division in March 1967, about four years after the death of W.C. (Bill) Denison. Mr. Denison began the Denison Engineering Company in 1931 and sold it in 1955 to American Brake Shoe. American Brake Shoe, later renamed Abex, manufactured brake shoes and owned and operated more gray iron foundries than any other company in the world.
I learned from other Denison workers that although W.C. didn’t always pay the highest wages in Columbus, Ohio, his company was well respected as a place to work. One employee said it was considered second in the city only to General Motors’ Ternstedt Division. John Fairchild, an employee for a short time in 1946 and later a sales manager for PPG, told me that a newspaper article in the late ’40s listed W.C. as one of the ten highest-paid executives in Ohio, at $275,000 per year.
My interviews of other Denison workers for this book confirmed my impression of W.C. as a benevolent boss, but one who had high expectations for each and every employee. Once, he called the plant from California, and the young operator answered the phone with a simple “H’lo.” W.C. asked, “Whom am I calling?” “Oh, Denison,” the operator replied. “Who do you work for, young lady?” W.C. asked. “Denison,” she replied again. “Not anymore, you don’t!” Bill said. “I am W.C. Denison. Please go to personnel and tell them I just fired you. I expect our operators to answer the telephone in a friendly, businesslike manner, with ‘Hello, this is the Denison Engineering Company.’ ”
I guess I had repeated that story to a few friends in and out of Denison without being sure that it was true until John Cox verified it for me. “Oh, yes,” John said. “That was a true story. In fact, the company president called me into his office and effectively said, ‘John, I want you to fire so and so,’ ” referring to the operator, who worked for John at the time. John steadfastly refused, but the operator---a good employee, according to John--- was let go.
John, now 96, was close to Mr. Denison because of his ability to execute W.C.’s wishes expediently. Mr. Denison was cosmopolitan and lived well wherever he traveled in the pre- and post-World War II era. Like most successful entrepreneurs, he was an eclectic thinker and did not confine his operations to the United States. John, as export manager, was extremely valuable to him in setting up a network of European distributors and also helped arrange his overseas itineraries. John established such a niche for himself that he was almost immune to direction from the man who succeeded Mr. Denison as company president.
After W.C. was graduated from Culver (Indiana) Military Academy, he worked as a salesman for the Willard Storage Battery Company in Cleveland. He met and married Naomi Wilson of Toledo before returning to his hometown of Delaware, Ohio, as general manager of Cook Motor Co. in 1921. He acquired the company---in which his father was a major stockholder---in 1925 and reorganized it under the name of the Denison Engineering Company in 1931.
Frank Norris, Francis Cavanaugh, Howard Levenhagen, and Eulala Smith were among the the company’s first employees. Frank was W.C.’s first shop foreman. His sons Bob and Paul became manager of the Delaware plant and company president, respectively. Clarence “Ducky” Hughes was an early manufacturing leader for W.C., and Ducky’s son, Jack, was later a plant manager. Among others interviewed for this book, Vic Blasutta was a vice president of Abex/Denison Division; Bill Bohannan was manager of the Marysville plant and later vice president of manufacturing; Vic Preidis was a service center manager; and Bruce Horne succeeded Paul Norris as president in 1970.
One of the company’s first products was a hydraulic pusher rod for propelling cars through ceramic kilns. The application not only solved a long-standing problem for the Denison family’s ceramic company in northern Ohio (which was managed by Bill’s brother George) but became used throughout the ceramics industry.
Bill Denison was an entrepreneur in the pure sense of the word. Beyond the pusher rod, he envisioned the widespread application of fluid power to all industrial needs. He watched hydraulic developments closely and pushed his research department for new products. As World War II began, he obtained contracts from the military and began developing an expanded line of hydraulic presses, pumps, motors, and valves to provide the “controlled muscle” of hydraulics to ships’ steering and a wide variety of military applications. Denison presses, since used by most manufacturers all over the world, were used to load shells for the military. The presses were manufactured at the 1160 Dublin Road facility. The plant and the property it sat on, in Columbus’s “Golden Finger” along Dublin Road, has since been sold and converted to other uses.
Denison’s government work served the war effort and added to W.C.’s wealth. The Denison line of piston pumps became recognized as the “Cadillac of its industry.”
Bill Denison made it a point to get into his factory and become acquainted with each worker. He would converse with longtime employees and address them by their first name no matter where he ran across them, even at the famous downtown Columbus intersection of Broad and High.
Year-end bonuses were given at the discretion of Mr. Denison. Cecil Adams’s bonuses were reportedly among the highest because of the brilliance W.C. recognized in him. Cecil was not an engineer, but he was aptly described by Ellis Born, a graduate engineer, as “an intuitive genius.” Mr. Adams was posthumously named Ohio’s Inventor of the Year in 1976, an honor Ellis himself received in 1992. Cecil held more than 100 patents in the United States and a similar number of hydraulic patents overseas.
W.C. liked to gather the employees and hand out awards. According to Bill Alexander, Art Scott, a dedicated employee, was so moved by one of the boss’s benevolent gestures to his workers that he stood up and said something like, “Mr. Denison, if you aren’t the kindest employer in the world, I don’t know who would be.” As he was sitting down after his declaration, Mr. Scott missed his chair and landed right on the floor.
By the time W.C. sold the company to American Brake Shoe, Denison had three manufacturing plants in central Ohio (in Columbus, Delaware, and Marysville), a Service Center and the Denison Research Center in Columbus, and manufacturing and/or distribution outlets in Europe and Japan. Denison products were marketed through a wide array of distribution channels in the fluid power industry.
Away from work, W.C. loved ham radio operations. Ken Goodman, Bill Bohannan, Bob Clouse, and Dan Umberger provided the ham station at Mr. Denison’s farm with many “voluntary” hours of service. W.C. later donated the station to the original Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus, itself a great idea that Mr. Denison supported. COSI reopened in 2000 at a new location in downtown Columbus and remains one of the finest facilities of its kind in the world.
W.C. also loved amateur softball of the fast-pitch kind and sponsored a fine team in a highly competitive league in Columbus. Bill “Tink” Taylor, who worked in the Columbus plant and had been a star quarterback and all-around athlete for Grandview Heights High School, was one of the finest second basemen of his day and in the summer of 2000 was inducted into the Ohio Softball Hall of Fame. Mr. Denison used to invite Tink into his office to talk about softball and other interests. Tink was an affable conversationalist and knowledgeable about many things, especially sports.
This book will discuss W.C. Denison’s company from its inception through 1978, when I left it. Although I have borrowed from company histories written by marketing manager Bill Alexander, I’m sure that many of the important contributors to Denison manufacturing and the fluid power business have gone unmentioned. I apologize for that. This book is not a comprehensive history, and much of it must be taken as hearsay, long-ago incidents as remembered by the interviewees, many of them, including me, now in their sixth through tenth decades of life.
Mr. Denison knew how to live well and enjoyed rich living, but he also maintained a sincere respect for those who contributed to the company’s success. I hope that the stories in this book convey that.
Sam Kegley
December 2001
The Man
and
His Company
I am a metallurgical engineer who went to work for Abex/Denison Division in March 1967, about four years after the death of W.C. (Bill) Denison. Mr. Denison began the Denison Engineering Company in 1931 and sold it in 1955 to American Brake Shoe. American Brake Shoe, later renamed Abex, manufactured brake shoes and owned and operated more gray iron foundries than any other company in the world.
I learned from other Denison workers that although W.C. didn’t always pay the highest wages in Columbus, Ohio, his company was well respected as a place to work. One employee said it was considered second in the city only to General Motors’ Ternstedt Division. John Fairchild, an employee for a short time in 1946 and later a sales manager for PPG, told me that a newspaper article in the late ’40s listed W.C. as one of the ten highest-paid executives in Ohio, at $275,000 per year.
My interviews of other Denison workers for this book confirmed my impression of W.C. as a benevolent boss, but one who had high expectations for each and every employee. Once, he called the plant from California, and the young operator answered the phone with a simple “H’lo.” W.C. asked, “Whom am I calling?” “Oh, Denison,” the operator replied. “Who do you work for, young lady?” W.C. asked. “Denison,” she replied again. “Not anymore, you don’t!” Bill said. “I am W.C. Denison. Please go to personnel and tell them I just fired you. I expect our operators to answer the telephone in a friendly, businesslike manner, with ‘Hello, this is the Denison Engineering Company.’ ”
I guess I had repeated that story to a few friends in and out of Denison without being sure that it was true until John Cox verified it for me. “Oh, yes,” John said. “That was a true story. In fact, the company president called me into his office and effectively said, ‘John, I want you to fire so and so,’ ” referring to the operator, who worked for John at the time. John steadfastly refused, but the operator---a good employee, according to John--- was let go.
John, now 96, was close to Mr. Denison because of his ability to execute W.C.’s wishes expediently. Mr. Denison was cosmopolitan and lived well wherever he traveled in the pre- and post-World War II era. Like most successful entrepreneurs, he was an eclectic thinker and did not confine his operations to the United States. John, as export manager, was extremely valuable to him in setting up a network of European distributors and also helped arrange his overseas itineraries. John established such a niche for himself that he was almost immune to direction from the man who succeeded Mr. Denison as company president.
After W.C. was graduated from Culver (Indiana) Military Academy, he worked as a salesman for the Willard Storage Battery Company in Cleveland. He met and married Naomi Wilson of Toledo before returning to his hometown of Delaware, Ohio, as general manager of Cook Motor Co. in 1921. He acquired the company---in which his father was a major stockholder---in 1925 and reorganized it under the name of the Denison Engineering Company in 1931.
Frank Norris, Francis Cavanaugh, Howard Levenhagen, and Eulala Smith were among the the company’s first employees. Frank was W.C.’s first shop foreman. His sons Bob and Paul became manager of the Delaware plant and company president, respectively. Clarence “Ducky” Hughes was an early manufacturing leader for W.C., and Ducky’s son, Jack, was later a plant manager. Among others interviewed for this book, Vic Blasutta was a vice president of Abex/Denison Division; Bill Bohannan was manager of the Marysville plant and later vice president of manufacturing; Vic Preidis was a service center manager; and Bruce Horne succeeded Paul Norris as president in 1970.
One of the company’s first products was a hydraulic pusher rod for propelling cars through ceramic kilns. The application not only solved a long-standing problem for the Denison family’s ceramic company in northern Ohio (which was managed by Bill’s brother George) but became used throughout the ceramics industry.
Bill Denison was an entrepreneur in the pure sense of the word. Beyond the pusher rod, he envisioned the widespread application of fluid power to all industrial needs. He watched hydraulic developments closely and pushed his research department for new products. As World War II began, he obtained contracts from the military and began developing an expanded line of hydraulic presses, pumps, motors, and valves to provide the “controlled muscle” of hydraulics to ships’ steering and a wide variety of military applications. Denison presses, since used by most manufacturers all over the world, were used to load shells for the military. The presses were manufactured at the 1160 Dublin Road facility. The plant and the property it sat on, in Columbus’s “Golden Finger” along Dublin Road, has since been sold and converted to other uses.
Denison’s government work served the war effort and added to W.C.’s wealth. The Denison line of piston pumps became recognized as the “Cadillac of its industry.”
Bill Denison made it a point to get into his factory and become acquainted with each worker. He would converse with longtime employees and address them by their first name no matter where he ran across them, even at the famous downtown Columbus intersection of Broad and High.
Year-end bonuses were given at the discretion of Mr. Denison. Cecil Adams’s bonuses were reportedly among the highest because of the brilliance W.C. recognized in him. Cecil was not an engineer, but he was aptly described by Ellis Born, a graduate engineer, as “an intuitive genius.” Mr. Adams was posthumously named Ohio’s Inventor of the Year in 1976, an honor Ellis himself received in 1992. Cecil held more than 100 patents in the United States and a similar number of hydraulic patents overseas.
W.C. liked to gather the employees and hand out awards. According to Bill Alexander, Art Scott, a dedicated employee, was so moved by one of the boss’s benevolent gestures to his workers that he stood up and said something like, “Mr. Denison, if you aren’t the kindest employer in the world, I don’t know who would be.” As he was sitting down after his declaration, Mr. Scott missed his chair and landed right on the floor.
By the time W.C. sold the company to American Brake Shoe, Denison had three manufacturing plants in central Ohio (in Columbus, Delaware, and Marysville), a Service Center and the Denison Research Center in Columbus, and manufacturing and/or distribution outlets in Europe and Japan. Denison products were marketed through a wide array of distribution channels in the fluid power industry.
Away from work, W.C. loved ham radio operations. Ken Goodman, Bill Bohannan, Bob Clouse, and Dan Umberger provided the ham station at Mr. Denison’s farm with many “voluntary” hours of service. W.C. later donated the station to the original Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus, itself a great idea that Mr. Denison supported. COSI reopened in 2000 at a new location in downtown Columbus and remains one of the finest facilities of its kind in the world.
W.C. also loved amateur softball of the fast-pitch kind and sponsored a fine team in a highly competitive league in Columbus. Bill “Tink” Taylor, who worked in the Columbus plant and had been a star quarterback and all-around athlete for Grandview Heights High School, was one of the finest second basemen of his day and in the summer of 2000 was inducted into the Ohio Softball Hall of Fame. Mr. Denison used to invite Tink into his office to talk about softball and other interests. Tink was an affable conversationalist and knowledgeable about many things, especially sports.
This book will discuss W.C. Denison’s company from its inception through 1978, when I left it. Although I have borrowed from company histories written by marketing manager Bill Alexander, I’m sure that many of the important contributors to Denison manufacturing and the fluid power business have gone unmentioned. I apologize for that. This book is not a comprehensive history, and much of it must be taken as hearsay, long-ago incidents as remembered by the interviewees, many of them, including me, now in their sixth through tenth decades of life.
Mr. Denison knew how to live well and enjoyed rich living, but he also maintained a sincere respect for those who contributed to the company’s success. I hope that the stories in this book convey that.
Sam Kegley
December 2001
My Books- Softball "It Don' Matta" Introduction
Softball
January 5, 2003
I want to write about softball people because I believe it is an understated game. Men and women of any station in life can play the game; however my oldest son, Jay, calls it a blue-collar sport. It certainly isn’t in the elite category of golf or tennis, although I have known some truly fine individuals to play softball.
I’ve made my pre-list of several people that I want to interview and I hope to get in touch with at least 30 of them, which seems now to be enough length for my books.
At age 70, I’ve nearly waited too long for some I consider to be truly great in my softball experiences. An early softball hero to me in Portsmouth, Ohio was Bill Berry. In getting in touch again after 35 years away from town, I find that the 82 year-old Bill has Alzheimer’s, but I did get an abbreviated interview with the help of his son, Jeff. Fortunately long time memory is maintained better in cases of dimentia and Bill could remember some names and teams from his experience.
Portsmouth had many fine athletes and Harry Weinbrecht was a good one who spent most of his coaching and teaching career there after growing up in Chillicothe, Ohio, halfway between Portsmouth and Columbus. When I contacted Harry, he said he would be happy to help, but he recommended that I get with Harry Swope, who started the baseball/softball Tri-State Hall of Fame, with Gary Nyland. I did and Harry has already been a tremendous help to me.
I’ve been fortunate to play with some fine people in Portsmouth, Westerville and Columbus, Ohio and watch my sons, Jay and Jeff, play in many games as well.
Years ago, I had read Lowell Thomas, the great adventurer-writer’s, 1940 book on softball. Each spring I’ve thought of these words in the book:
“…Groups of large, small, paunchy, bald-headed, misshapen gents with rare roast beef complexions and in the prime of life began collecting on the meadows of the world to make huge fools of themselves, but to have a whale of a good time.” Yes, I am bald-headed and paunchy and I’ve made a fool of myself more than once, but I have had a whale of a good time. This book is so much less about me than the softball characters I have met or been told of over the 60 years I have watched and 54 years I have played the game.
Columbus has had some of the finest Open, B and C teams in the nation over the eighties and nineties. I contacted Orfeo Angelo who gave the names of some great contributors to the game here. The Lou Berliner diamonds have 30 fields and many have been upgraded in recent years, to make it the largest and one of the finest softball complexes in the world. Orfeo claims that Lou was a 5’7” Jewish fellow who covered amateur athletics in Columbus for one of the three local newspapers in the 50’s and 60’s. Orfeo says that he will help, but he also recommends Jim Wharton, John Fleeman, the black gentleman named Gene (with the unlit stogie always in his mouth), and Shorty Lewis as well as many others.
There was a Bates Chemical “C” team in Westerville, whom my son, Jay, played for, which was managed by Michael Wasylik, the best slow-pitch pitcher I’ve ever seen. That is, admittedly, a subjective call. I want to interview “Was”. He fielded the position extremely well and always made smart and quick managerial decisions.
I brought the King and his Court up on Google. Jim Henry, Joplin Globe Assistant Sports Editor, reported in July of 2002 that Eddie Feigner, the King, was 77 years old and had barnstormed across the country for 57 years out of Richland, Washington. Feigner quit keeping track of his records three years earlier, but it is mind boggling:
· Won 8,270 games of more than 10,000 games he pitched against all comers.
· 930 no hitters
· 238 perfect games
· 1,916 shutouts
· 132,070 strikeouts, including 14,400 blindfolded
In an exhibition game in Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium, Feigner struck out, in order, major leaguers Willy Mays, Willy McGovney, Brooks Robinson, Maury Wills, Harmon Killebrew and Roberto Clemente. In the Houston Astrodome, Feigner fanned Hank Aaron, Mays, Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams.
At 77, Feigner’s fast ball had slowed to 84 mph from 114 mph in his prime. “I still throw as hard as I ever did,” Feigner says. “It just doesn’t get there as fast.”
“How much do you think Joe DiMaggio made during his best year? Or Ted Williams?” Feigner asked Doug Clark of the Spokesman-Review in 1999. “I’ll tell you. They made $125,000 a year. Well, I used to make that every month.”
It is also my intent to interview key sponsors of some of the finest teams in Columbus. I’d also like to talk with people in the various halls of fame throughout the state. We’ll see how it goes. The stories will have occasional comments by me, but will mostly be the stories of the people whom I interview.
January 5, 2003
I want to write about softball people because I believe it is an understated game. Men and women of any station in life can play the game; however my oldest son, Jay, calls it a blue-collar sport. It certainly isn’t in the elite category of golf or tennis, although I have known some truly fine individuals to play softball.
I’ve made my pre-list of several people that I want to interview and I hope to get in touch with at least 30 of them, which seems now to be enough length for my books.
At age 70, I’ve nearly waited too long for some I consider to be truly great in my softball experiences. An early softball hero to me in Portsmouth, Ohio was Bill Berry. In getting in touch again after 35 years away from town, I find that the 82 year-old Bill has Alzheimer’s, but I did get an abbreviated interview with the help of his son, Jeff. Fortunately long time memory is maintained better in cases of dimentia and Bill could remember some names and teams from his experience.
Portsmouth had many fine athletes and Harry Weinbrecht was a good one who spent most of his coaching and teaching career there after growing up in Chillicothe, Ohio, halfway between Portsmouth and Columbus. When I contacted Harry, he said he would be happy to help, but he recommended that I get with Harry Swope, who started the baseball/softball Tri-State Hall of Fame, with Gary Nyland. I did and Harry has already been a tremendous help to me.
I’ve been fortunate to play with some fine people in Portsmouth, Westerville and Columbus, Ohio and watch my sons, Jay and Jeff, play in many games as well.
Years ago, I had read Lowell Thomas, the great adventurer-writer’s, 1940 book on softball. Each spring I’ve thought of these words in the book:
“…Groups of large, small, paunchy, bald-headed, misshapen gents with rare roast beef complexions and in the prime of life began collecting on the meadows of the world to make huge fools of themselves, but to have a whale of a good time.” Yes, I am bald-headed and paunchy and I’ve made a fool of myself more than once, but I have had a whale of a good time. This book is so much less about me than the softball characters I have met or been told of over the 60 years I have watched and 54 years I have played the game.
Columbus has had some of the finest Open, B and C teams in the nation over the eighties and nineties. I contacted Orfeo Angelo who gave the names of some great contributors to the game here. The Lou Berliner diamonds have 30 fields and many have been upgraded in recent years, to make it the largest and one of the finest softball complexes in the world. Orfeo claims that Lou was a 5’7” Jewish fellow who covered amateur athletics in Columbus for one of the three local newspapers in the 50’s and 60’s. Orfeo says that he will help, but he also recommends Jim Wharton, John Fleeman, the black gentleman named Gene (with the unlit stogie always in his mouth), and Shorty Lewis as well as many others.
There was a Bates Chemical “C” team in Westerville, whom my son, Jay, played for, which was managed by Michael Wasylik, the best slow-pitch pitcher I’ve ever seen. That is, admittedly, a subjective call. I want to interview “Was”. He fielded the position extremely well and always made smart and quick managerial decisions.
I brought the King and his Court up on Google. Jim Henry, Joplin Globe Assistant Sports Editor, reported in July of 2002 that Eddie Feigner, the King, was 77 years old and had barnstormed across the country for 57 years out of Richland, Washington. Feigner quit keeping track of his records three years earlier, but it is mind boggling:
· Won 8,270 games of more than 10,000 games he pitched against all comers.
· 930 no hitters
· 238 perfect games
· 1,916 shutouts
· 132,070 strikeouts, including 14,400 blindfolded
In an exhibition game in Los Angeles at Dodger Stadium, Feigner struck out, in order, major leaguers Willy Mays, Willy McGovney, Brooks Robinson, Maury Wills, Harmon Killebrew and Roberto Clemente. In the Houston Astrodome, Feigner fanned Hank Aaron, Mays, Mickey Mantle and Ted Williams.
At 77, Feigner’s fast ball had slowed to 84 mph from 114 mph in his prime. “I still throw as hard as I ever did,” Feigner says. “It just doesn’t get there as fast.”
“How much do you think Joe DiMaggio made during his best year? Or Ted Williams?” Feigner asked Doug Clark of the Spokesman-Review in 1999. “I’ll tell you. They made $125,000 a year. Well, I used to make that every month.”
It is also my intent to interview key sponsors of some of the finest teams in Columbus. I’d also like to talk with people in the various halls of fame throughout the state. We’ll see how it goes. The stories will have occasional comments by me, but will mostly be the stories of the people whom I interview.
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