For more than five decades, minor league baseball was a way of life for many in Joplin.
The era that seems to still resonate with “horsehide aficionados” is the one involving the Joplin Miners. For many years the Miners were affiliated with the most successful franchise in professional baseball: the New York Yankees.
The 1941 season was a memorable year for the Miners as they finished in first place in the Western Association. That association was made up of eight regional teams: Joplin Miners, Springfield Cardinals, Topeka (Kan.) Owls, Hutchinson (Kan.) Pirates, Fort Smith (Ark.) Giants, Muskogee (Okla.) Reds, Salina (Kan.) Millers and the St. Joseph Ponies. By midseason, the St. Joseph team, which was affiliated with the St. Louis Browns, relocated to Carthage. The year was also noteworthy because local fans got a glimpse of a player who possessed considerable talent.
The Miners’ season opened April 30 in Springfield at White City Park. The outcome was gloomier than the cold spring weather as the Miners were trounced 13 to 1 by the Cardinals. The Cardinals had a new cleanup hitter named Stanley Musial. He also seemed to have a live arm gunning down a Joplin runner at second base.
The Springfield Cardinals continued their winning ways, and by mid-July had a substantial lead in the Western Association. The Joplin Miners were comfortably in second place but failed to have a player such as Musial on their team.
Missouri State University professor James Giglio chronicled Musial’s short stint with the Springfield Cardinals in his book, “Musial: From Stash to Stan the Man.”
According to Giglio, “fans were fascinated with his exceptional hitting, resulting in line drives that pounded the Coca-Cola or 7-Up signs in right field; with his fielding, which included somersaults and other acrobatics on the outfield grass; and with his daring base running, characterized by his savvy delays between bases before advancing on ground balls.”
By mid-July the Miners and the six other teams in the Western Association received a gift when Musial was called up to play Double A ball for the Rochester Red Wings of the International League. Management made a wise decision, for in his first game Musial hit a home run, a double and two singles. Apparently the guy could hit in any league.
Musial’s final statistics as a Springfield Cardinal were impressive: batting .379 with 26 homers and 94 runs batted in.
The beautiful thing about baseball is the ever-tedious season is full of peaks and valleys.
Never giving up, the Miners continued to claw their way back, continually chipping away at the Cardinal lead. Time was running out, though.
The Miners’ season hinged on a doubleheader with the Springfield Cardinals. The question everyone was asking in Joplin: Could their team sweep the remaining two games at Miners Park? The largest crowd of the season came to cheer on the home team in hopes of seeing history unfold. Nearly 4,000 fans saw the Miners win the first game easily, 7-0. The final game was a nail-biter. After two hours and three minutes, the scoreboard read Joplin Miners 6, Springfield Cardinals 4. The Joplin Miners had won the pennant!
Joplin baseball fans were ecstatic and rightly so, since a Joplin team had not won a championship since the 1920s.
The Miners’ offense was led by outfielders Russell Burns, Al Lyons and George Leyrer. Miners left fielder Burns closed the regular season with a .312 batting average while driving in 103 runs. Lyons, who played right field, hit .304. Fast-of-foot centerfielder Leyrer led the league with 56 stolen bases.
The Miners were also blessed with some outstanding arms. Pitchers Marvin Brown, Bill Davis and Jesse Hamm combined to win 50 games with only 17 losses. In addition, all three of them averaged more than 100 strikeouts.
The Joplin Miners added to their regular season first-place finish with another triumph by winning the Western Association playoff. Joplin shut out the Fort Smith Giants 2-0. The final victory was lucrative for the winning team, as $600 was placed into the Miners’ organization and players’ pockets.
No one will ever know if the Miners would have been victorious with Stan Musial playing the full season in Springfield. However, reflecting back, Joplin baseball fans were the real beneficiaries as they witnessed a championship as well as one of the greatest players to ever play baseball.
Porter Wittich, in his Joplin Globe column “The Globe Trotter,” recalled a conversation he had with Fort Smith players and manager Herchel Bobo during the playoffs. When asked who was the best player during the season, Wittich wrote: “Everybody admitted he (Musial) looked like the best player in the league this season.”
Regardless of where he played, Stan the Man would always be ranked as the best player in the league.
