By Greg Grisolano

ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com

PITTSBURG, Kan. — Before he prowled center field for the New York Yankees and won World Series championships, Mickey Mantle crushed balls out of parks in area towns including Pittsburg, Carthage, Mo., and Miami, Okla.

Mantle’s first season of professional baseball came when he was a 17-year-old shortstop for the Independence Yankees in the Kansas-Oklahoma-Missouri League.

“At that age, he didn’t weigh about 165 pounds and he could run like a deer,” his cousin Max Mantle said. “And he was the best bunter you’d ever seen in your life. He’d lay down a bunt, and nobody could touch him.”

Start the player below to view a slide show of baseball artifacts from the Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri (KOM) Baseball League and listen to Jim Van Becelaere talk about his memories.



KOM League/b

While Mickey Mantle was its most renowned player, the KOM League served as a starting point for several major leaguers, including former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Cloyd Boyer and Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Bill Virdon.

Today, visitors can find several of the old ballparks from the glory days of the KOM League, which lasted from 1946 to 1952. They may even glimpse future Hall of Famers play.

Rock Park in Carthage, JayCee Ballpark in Pittsburg and the ballpark at the fairgrounds in Miami are still around. Rock Park (now known as Carl Lewton Stadium in Municipal Park) and JayCee Ballpark still are sites of baseball games.

The KOM League was considered a Class D league, equivalent to rookie ball in today’s minor league system. The teams had affiliations with major league clubs, including the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs. The St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns also had affiliations with the league.

Max Mantle, now of Joplin, Mo., played in another Class D league in Oklahoma, known as the Sooner State League, but like his cousin, he spent several summers playing baseball throughout the area.

“Every town had a team back then, and they played all over,” he said.

The KOM League started out with six teams: Pittsburg, Carthage and Miami, as well as Iola and Chanute, and Bartlesville, Okla. Two teams were added to the league in 1947, from Ponca City, Okla., and Independence.

Batboy to historian

John Hall was 9 years old when he went to his first baseball game at Rock Park in Carthage. At 10, he got his first taste of the KOM League as a batboy for visiting clubs. He became a batboy for the Carthage team in 1950.

“You had to go out and hang uniforms, knock off the mud and shine the shoes,” said Hall, who now lives in Columbia, Mo. There was a lot more to being a batboy than just getting bats.”

Upon retirement, Hall said, his wife urged him to write a book about “something you know about.”

“The only thing I knew anything about was the KOM League,” he said. “I could name you a big-league team by position of former KOM leaguers. That wouldn’t be hard at all.”

His first book, “Majoring in the Minors,” provided readers with “a glimpse of baseball in a small town.”

“It became pretty amazing,” Hall said. “The people that I met, the stories I heard, the excitement they felt at being found again.”

The book also prompted the establishment of annual KOM reunions, beginning in 1996.

Hall has since published two more books about baseball in that era: “Mickey Mantle — Before the Glory” and “The KOM League Remembered.”

He also started publishing an e-mail newsletter, “The KOM Flash Report,” in 1999, and it continues today.

Not quite famous

Like Hall, Jim Van Becelaere Sr., of Pittsburg, got his first taste of the KOM League as a youth, selling 25-cent scorecards during Pittsburg Browns games at JayCee Ballpark.

“I hung on to that job because the guys in concessions had to work the whole game, but after about the seventh inning, I could watch the game,” he said. “I protected that job. It was a fun time.”

Van Becelaere said he can recall many of the players giving away worn-out cleats, broken bats and autographed balls to kids, and to families who gave them room and board during the summer. Van Becelaere still has a collection of souvenirs from the league, including an autographed baseball from an early Browns team, a team photo and an ink-blotter schedule.

While he remembers as a youth seeing Mickey Mantle play, Van Becelaere said the biggest thrill he got back then came from watching the games themselves.

“Mickey Mantle was just one of the ballplayers then. We didn’t have any idea who he was,” he said. “You remembered everybody on an equal basis because they weren’t famous then.”

‘We would’ve paid to play’

Homer Cole remembers his stint with the Iola Indians in the KOM League during the summer of 1948. Now 83, Cole recalled trying out as an outfielder for the Indians, who at that time were a minor league affiliate of the Cleveland Indians.

“I could hit, but I couldn’t run,” he said. “I only played for about a month because I couldn’t run. I had to put a metal plate in my ankle (due to injury), and that was that.”

Cole said some of his fondest memories from that period revolve around the camaraderie shared among teammates, who roomed and traveled together.

“It was just like in the service; you get close-knit,” he said. “To me, you lived it, you felt the game and everything. Everybody’s dream was to go up (to the major leagues).”

Once players had proved themselves in the KOM League, they were promoted to Class C, with leagues that included teams in Joplin, Springfield, Mo., and Topeka. Joplin’s Joe Becker Stadium (then known as Miners Stadium) was home to many such games during this era.

After his playing career, Cole worked as parks and recreation director in Joplin and later became mayor of Pittsburg. He still lives in the Pittsburg area, where he remained active in coaching and organizing youth sports.

“You got the whole sum of $90 a month for playing (in the KOM),” he said. “We would’ve paid to play back then. But the idea of playing it for the love of the game is gone.”

Vanishing past

By 1952, only six teams remained, and the KOM League folded up after the 1952 season. An overabundance of minor league teams after the post-World War II boom years and the popularity of television are cited as reasons for the decline of leagues such as the KOM. TV in particular brought major league baseball into the homes of millions.

“TV really hurt it,” said Bob Mishmash, a baseball enthusiast and collector from Pittsburg. “Before TV and everything, they would move a game back so people could get out to the ballgame after work. It was so important. If you look at the newspapers and photos from that era, every day there would be a photo.”

For Mishmash, the appeal of the KOM League is its connection to local baseball, not just the major leagues.

“I’m just crazy about Southeast Kansas ballplayers and the history,” he said. “Cherokee County, Crawford County ... they had more players in this area in the early 1900s than from any other part of Kansas.”

While various museums and libraries in places such as Joplin, Pittsburg, Carthage and Baxter Springs have artifacts or exhibits devoted to Mickey Mantle or to local baseball, most of the mementos from the KOM League are in boxes and photo albums in the homes of family members of former players or enthusiasts such as Hall, Mishmash and Van Becelaere. Many of the men who played are no longer living, while others such as Cole are in their 70s or 80s.

Hall expressed some frustration at what he perceives as a lack of interest in the league.

“Nobody has an interest in it. Nobody cares,” he said. “The only interest that you’ll ever get, pure and simple, is the connection that Mantle had to it.”

Cole said he believes the price of today’s game, and the players’ salaries, have made it impossible for small towns to support minor league baseball as they once did.

“A lot of people loved it back in those days,” he said. “It would be ideal if it would come back, but I don’t think it will.”

Community field

The stories of former major leaguers leaving their marks on places such as JayCee Ballpark are among the things that make the site such an appealing one to Kyle Wolf.

“It’s neat when you hear those stories, because you get to walk on the field and imagine the history of the place,” said Wolf, an assistant baseball coach for the St. Mary’s-Colgan High School Panthers and an assistant coach for Pittsburg’s American Legion Post 64 baseball team. “You don’t know who played here, but you can start to imagine the stands, and you can start seeing the old-time baseball and the players who went through here.”

For Wolf, JayCee Ballpark and others like it are where youngsters make the memories of a lifetime.

“From our young kids on up to the older kids, this is where they play. This is their home,” he said. “It’s a community field, and I think it holds a special place in the community. And more than anything, it’s the history of it that makes it special.”





See the parks



* JayCee Ballpark, 900 W. 12th St., Pittsburg. From Joplin, head north on Highway 171 to Pittsburg. Turn right at the intersection of U.S. Highway 69 and continue north on the Highway 69 bypass. Turn right at the sign for Lincoln Park and 12th Street. The park is visible from the highway.

* Carl Lewton Stadium at Municipal Park, 12244 Civil War Ave., Carthage. From Joplin, head to Carthage and U.S. Highway 71. Take the Civil War Road exit. Turn left on Civil War Road. The park is on the right.

* Miami Fairgrounds ballpark, 1129 E St. S.W., Miami. From Joplin, head west on Interstate 44 to the Miami exit. Take exit 313 (Oklahoma Highway 10) to Miami. Turn left at East 100 Road. Turn left at South Main Street. The park is on the left.