Once Upon a Time in Baseball: My Pastime Summers

By Jan Sumner

Years after his baseball career was derailed by a violent accident, our national pastime reappeared in his life – and has remained to this day. What follows is his extraordinary journey – baseball has taken him on a ride from the little leagues to the major leagues, and all stops in between. Jan’s memoir, Once Upon a Time in Baseball: My Pastime Summers, is a nostalgic look back at the golden age of baseball through the eyes of a young boy growing up in the 1950s, to a man in his fifties throwing batting practice for the newest entry in MLB, the 1993 Colorado Rockies.

The book starts on the playground when, as a passionate fan, Jan was learning to play the game, and trading baseball cards, including the time he literally gave away one of the most valuable cards of all time. In high school, college and semi-pro, he discovered his talent as a pitcher, throwing a number of no-hitters. His dream was coming true – in the game he loved so much, and was on track for what he hoped would be a career in the big leagues. Then the summer following his sophomore year in college he was almost killed in a car wreck which ended his major-league dreams, or so he thought. Decades later he found himself back on the hill, throwing batting practice for the Rockies for six years, including throwing at Dodger Stadium and Wrigley Field, and culminating in the honor of presenting his book, Legacy of a Monarch – an American Journey, the biography of an all-star shortstop for the Kansas City Monarchs, at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in 2006.

Once Upon a Time in Baseball is a look back at the glory days of baseball, when it was sports king in America. Everyone who lived and loved the game back then will find this story brings back longing memories of days gone by.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665562898

Jan Sumner

Jan has written ten books, two of which received special recognition. He was honored to present his book Legacy of a Monarch-An American Journey at the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006, and his book Independence, Mantle and Miss Able was acknowledged by the Smithsonian in 2015 as part of their Home Town Team project and is also in the Baseball Hall of Fame.Jan also works with the homeless and teaches Sunday school.

Book preview

© 2022 Jan Sumner. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  06/23/2022

ISBN: 978-1-6655-6290-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-6289-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022911508

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or

links contained in this book may have changed since publication and

may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those

of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher,

and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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You see, you spend a good piece of your life

gripping a baseball

and in the end it turns out that

it was the other way around all the time.

Jim Bouton

The above picture was taken in the front yard of our small home in east Denver when I was around seven years old. Eighteen years later a Major League pitcher by the name of Jim Bouton would write a book titled Ball Four with that now famous quote. Of course I had no idea when I was seven, or eighteen years later, that it would be such an insightful statement on my life.

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Contents

Introduction

Part One

Chapter 1     The Duke, the Mick & Me

Chapter 2     The Patriots, Patty, Sonny Liston & Moving to the Mound

Chapter 3     Colorado State College baseball & Coach Pete Butler

Chapter 4     Pastime Summer—1964

Chapter 5     The NCAA Super Regionals & the end of pitching ... for 24 years

Chapter 6     Coaching Danni, the MSBL, Umpires & Major League Baseball

Part Two

Chapter 7     Major League Baseball... and I’m part of it!

Chapter 8     Coors Field, Art Howe, Joe Girardi, Bob Gibson, Walt Weiss, Randy Gradishar, Vin Scully & Throwing at Wrigley Field

Chapter 9     Dodger Stadium, Ken Griffey, Gene Glynn Mile High Baseball Camp, Hideo Nomo & Larry Walker

Chapter 10   Silver Bullets, Doug Moe, DU Baseball, MSBL World Series, Mark McGwire & Make-A-Wish

Chapter 11   The BOB, Darryl Kile, Todd Helton, Peak Sports Management, Malcom Farley & 1998 MLB All-Star Game

Chapter 12   Sammy Sosa, Don Baylor & End of an Era

Chapter 13   The Sports Agency, Jim Leyland, Jerry Dipoto & End of my career with the Rockies

Part Three

Chapter 14   Fat Pitch, Joe Cullinane, Fernando Valenzuela & For Love of the Game

Chapter 15   World Youth Friendship Games, London & Amsterdam

Chapter 16   Legacy of a Monarch, Buck O’Neil, Carlotta (Walls) Lanier & The Little Rock Nine, President Bill Clinton & Baseball Hall of Fame

Chapter 17   The Real Strike Zone, MLB Pitchers, Pitchers du jour

Chapter 18   Back on the hill, three home runs—four pitches, Littleton HS Baseball

Chapter 19   A Colorado Classic, Irv Brown, Seams, The Fish & National Ballpark Museum

Chapter 20   Independence Kansas, Going Home, Independence, Mantle and Miss Able & Neewollah

Chapter 21   Memories of Dad, Eureka, Kansas, Ralph Terry & Baseball Stories

Epilogue

About the Author

Introduction

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My name is Jan Phillip Sumner. I was born to two incredible and loving parents, Dixie Jane (Bates) Sumner and Phillip Warren Sumner in Independence, Kansas on March 19, 1945. My dad was a POW in Germany the day I was born. As a matter of fact my mom received the MIA notice that very day.

When Dad came home from the war he wanted to move to Oklahoma and go to work in the oilfields, but my mom convinced him to give Denver a try. She’d boarded a train in Independence not long after I was born and headed to Denver where her mom, my grandmother, resided following her divorce. The Mile High City would be my home, and I would not return to Independence for 70 years.

By the time I reached college all I wanted to do was pitch in the big leagues. I had the arm, but I know now I wasn’t at all ready mentally and emotionally. I went to Colorado State College in Greeley to play baseball and did for two years. My second year we won the NCAA Division 1 regional playoffs and moved on to play in Tempe against Arizona State University, ranked number one in the nation, for the right to go to the College World Series. We lost to them and they went on to win the CWS.

In the summer of 1965, between my sophomore and junior year at CSC, I was almost killed in a car wreck, and for all intents and purposes my dream of playing professional baseball ended that hot summer day on a stretch of highway between Denver and Greeley. The next year I married my high school sweetheart, Patricia Loos, and didn’t return to school until 1968 when I played one year of baseball for Irv Brown at Metropolitan State College in Denver. At the end of that season I just assumed I was finished with baseball. What I didn’t realize, however, was baseball was not finished with me.

In March 1971 we had our first daughter, Jacqueline Dawn, and in July 1973, our second Danielle Aubrey. They are, without question, the two greatest joys of my life! Sadly, Patty and I divorced in 1983, but remain great friends to this day sharing in the lives of our daughters and grandchildren.

Twenty-four years after finishing up what I was sure was the end of my baseball career, our national pastime reappeared in my life and has resided there ever since. What follows is my extraordinary journey—baseball has taken me on a ride from the major leagues to the little leagues and all stops in between.

Part One

Chapter 1

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The Duke, the Mick & Me

The year was 1953—I watched as President Eisenhower took a motorcade from Lowry Air Force Base to downtown Denver along 8th Avenue, one block from my house. Little did I know then that my future wife was sitting on the curb watching the same parade only six blocks away.

In baseball, on March 28th, Jim Thorpe, famed Native American athlete, considered by many as the greatest athlete in recorded history, died at the age of 64. Thorpe played six seasons of Major League Baseball between 1913 and 1919, mostly for the New York Giants. He also received Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon competition, and played and coached for a number of years in the National Football League. The Yankees won the World Series beating the Dodgers in six games with Mickey Mantle hitting a towering grand slam in game five at Ebbets Field. Rogers Hornsby, who’d been given another chance to manage Cincinnati late in 1952, left the team with eight games to go in the 1953 season after fighting all season with his players and the press.

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President Eisenhower’s motorcade one block from my house

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I could feel the sun frying the back of my neck, but it didn’t matter, I was mesmerized watching a giant army of red ants right in front of me trying to excavate a hole in the rock-hard earth we played baseball on during hot summer days at my elementary school. The school was Montclair Elementary, which was located in an older part of East Denver nestled among old Tudor-style brick homes, set amongst tall, stately shade trees and plush green lawns.

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Suddenly, I heard the crack of the bat and my name yelled in panic, Jan, look out! Luckily, at eight years old you have the reflexes of a cat. I put my glove up and snagged the line drive several inches in front of my face then, channeling Gil Hodges, the first baseman of the Dodgers, I rolled the ball, and I use that term loosely, back to the mound, (not truly a mound, but a flat spot on a cement hard gravel playground), and jogged into our dugout. The dugout at Montclair, where I matriculated kindergarten through sixth grade, was a small weather-worn splintered bench located behind some bent and sagging chain link fencing.

All summer and weekends in the late spring and into the early fall we’d be there playing with broken bats we had nailed and taped together and whatever baseballs we could get our hands on. We were playing with balls that flew through the air making very distinctive, thwap, thwap, thwap sounds. This was due to the fact that half, if not more, of the cover was hanging off. We’d use them until they would completely unravel, or got fouled off into Mr. Grant’s yard, which was unfortunately and strategically located right behind the backstop on the third base side. Mr. Grant, or the Baseball Burglar, as we nicknamed him, was apparently not a baseball fan and certainly no fan of ours. Any ball that found its way into his yard soon disappeared and his gruff tone, when he happened upon one of our horsehide jewels, gave us no hope of ever getting it back. We always wondered what he did with them, but we were too afraid to ask. Once the balls had taken on the shape of, well, I’m not sure what, but they were anything but round, dejectedly, and with a truly heartfelt reverence, we’d toss them in the trashcan up near the school.

This was my introduction into the timeless game of baseball. I was a mere lad of eight as were most of my teammates and baseball was sports king in America. The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the New York Yankees in the World Series that year four games to two and that established me as a diehard Dodgers fan. The Dodgers would get even two years later and I have a treasured picture of that 1955 Dodger team adorning my office wall.

My total devotion to the Dodgers waned some years later, in 1957, when they moved from iconic Ebbets Field to Dodger Stadium in California (where amazingly I would get to throw some 39 years later) and has, to some degree, faded away now, but back then Dem Bums were my team.

My love of the game, however, started with my mom, who I lovingly called Hon. She tried desperately, when I was still little, to have me call her Mom, Mother, Mommy and then one day I blurted out Hon. She was surprised, but we later determined it was because I heard my dad call her Hon or Honey and I was apparently emulating him. When I was able to sit up she would take me out to the backyard of our small home on Leyden Street and we’d roll the ball back and forth in the thick green grass. Eventually, we began to toss it back and forth until she finally had to turn the playing catch chore over to my dad when I began throwing it too hard for her. As I grew older, I spent hours throwing a tennis ball against the back wall of our house, catching line drives and fielding what seemed like millions of ground balls. I also figured out how to throw pop-ups. I’d bounce the ball a few feet in front of the wall and it would ricochet up into the air. The harder I threw it the higher it went, I couldn’t get enough. It was a great way to learn how to field, throw and catch and laid the foundation for what would become my life in baseball.

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Our first house in Denver was located at 860 Leyden Street in east Denver and lucky for me it was a mere six blocks to Montclair Elementary School. We’d either walk or ride our bikes through the well-manicured neighborhoods to the two-story brick schoolhouse. It was post WWII America and there was a feeling of unity and harmony in America that still echoes in my memory.

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Hon, dad and me—1949 at 860 Leyden

Little did I know that the year the above picture was taken, Mickey Mantle was playing his first year of professional baseball in the very town where I was born—Independence, Kansas—and that 66 years later I would become good friends with Bob Mallon, Mickey’s roommate in 1949, and write a book about Independence and its baseball history involving those very same Independence Yankees of 1949.

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The 1949 Independence Yankees—Mickey Mantle first row,

far right, Bob Mallon second row, second from the left

The house across the street from ours was owned by a man named Harry Pritts. He owned like half the block and had a big house, detached four car garage and a large grass area where he’d let us throw, catch and run the bases. He told us he played professional baseball and, when I researched it later, I found he was telling the truth. Of course our response at the time was, Do you know Babe Ruth? which, needless to say, he didn’t. However, at the very time that picture above was taken he was pitching for two Pittsburg Pirates minor league teams in Davenport and Keokuk, Iowa and would join the Denver Bears and pitch for them in 1953 and 1954. In retrospect I can’t believe how modest he was, never really making a big deal about playing professional baseball. In 1954, at age 9, I attended a baseball school sponsored by the Denver Bears and the Denver Post newspaper, and I’m sad to say, I don’t remember Harry being there, but in fact he was, as you can see by the diploma I received.

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Denver Bears—Denver Post Baseball

School Diploma—1954

I’m sure there were lots of kids there and since I had nothing to do with pitching at the time I probably wasn’t in his group. Of the 20 players listed, seven went on to play some major and minor league ball and one, Earl Weaver, made it to the Hall of Fame as the manager of the Baltimore Orioles, winning 1,480 games from 1968 to 1986 as well as four Pennants and one World Series in 1970.

Andy Cohen was the manager of the Bears that year, having played second base for the NY Giants from 1926 – 1929 and would then manage the Philadelphia Phillies for one year in 1960.

Bob Howsam, who founded the Denver Broncos as an original franchise in the American Football League, and later built the Cincinnati Reds’ championship teams, known as the Big Red Machine, was the president and general manager of the Denver Bears in 1954.

In a career spanning half a century as a sports executive, Mr. Howsam not only created a pro football team and ran two long-established baseball franchises, he also took part in the drive that started the Colorado Rockies as a National League expansion team in 1993.

When the AFL began play in 1960, Mr. Howsam became a member of the Foolish Club, as the league’s original owners were known, for their challenge to the long-established National Football League. The Broncos were sold in May 1961 to a syndicate but remained at Bears Stadium, the field that Mr. Howsam had built for his minor league baseball team on the site of a dump. It later expanded and became Mile High Stadium. I played one year of baseball with Mr. Howsam’s son Ed my junior year at George Washington High School in 1962.

Then there was Bobby Prescott, who like Moonlight Graham in Field of Dreams, had that one moment in the sun. He debuted with the Kansas City Athletics on June 17, 1961 and played his last game on July 1, 1961, getting 12 at bats and one hit.

All of us hopeful future Hall of Famers were big time into trading baseball cards back then, and as I would prove, had no skill or true knowledge of what we were doing, well, at least I didn’t. I never chewed so much bubble gum in my life. Whatever money we could scrounge up from running errands or doing odd jobs around the house went to the purchase of Topps baseball cards which were strategically hidden behind flat, delicious, sweet pink bubble gum wrapped in colorful wax paper.

All I wanted was to get my hands on Dodgers cards and I’d trade any and all other cards for them. If I could trade and get a Duke Snider I had truly died and gone to baseball heaven. Gil Hodges, Roy Campanella, Jackie Robinson or Pee Wee Reese weren’t far behind but the Duke was pure gold to me.

Blinded by my obsession and devotion to the Dodgers I made a trade that to this day still haunts me. We’d meet at Bobby’s house down in the cellar. It was dark, had a dirt floor and we had to bend over to get in and out, but it was cool in the summer and nowhere near any parents, and best of all it was just a long block from my house.

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Waiting outside Bobby’s house before

being taken to the cleaners

One warm summer afternoon, and I suppose feeling pretty cocky, Bobby taunted us with his new Duke Snider card. I remember staring at it as he waved it to and fro in front of our faces knowing full well I was the one who would cave and give him all my cards as well as my first-born child. Bobby was a little older than I was and obviously more adept at negotiating. He was a big baseball fan but held no allegiance to any one team. He just played off the weakness of team loyalty and certainly could recognize a sucker when he saw me.

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Bobby and me standing in my front yard

with our 1948 Buick behind us

I sat mesmerized watching the Duke sway back and forth in front of my weakening willpower. Suddenly, without a second thought I reached in my baseball card bag and pulled out a card I hoped he wanted. Okay! I said desperately, How about this card straight across for the Snider? Bobby leaned forward and I could see his eyes open wide. Sure! he said almost drooling. Ha-ha, I thought, he didn’t get the better of me this time. I had my new and pristine 1953 Duke Snider and he was left with the insignificant 1953 Mickey Mantle card. This was obviously beyond shrewd on my part! Today a 1953 Snider card will sell anywhere from $8 to $19.99, while my strategically disposed of 1953 Mantle card will fetch over $4,000. I hope you’ve had a miserable life Bobby!

Of course, none of us had any clue what these cards would be worth years later, so I guess I have to cut Bobby some slack, plus, several days after the transaction I think he had a little swappers remorse. He came up with this idea we all pick our favorite players and send them letters requesting an autographed picture. What a genius, I was all over it. This is where the remorse comes in. He convinced me I had to write a letter to Mickey Mantle, which I guess he thought would help relieve his guilty conscience. I agreed, and off went several letters, the first being, of course, to Duke Snider and lastly to Mickey Mantle. I even taped a dime to each letter to pay for the picture. Several weeks went by when suddenly, in the mail, there was a letter with a NY Yankee return address on it. I frantically opened it to find a letter from Mickey Mantle and my dime stuck on the bottom. There was no picture, but it said, Let my signature on this letter be my autograph to you! Unbelievable! An actual letter from Mickey Mantle! Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that I didn’t like Mickey Mantle it was that he played for the Yankees. There is no denying he was one of the greatest baseball players in the history of our national pastime.

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The letter from the...Mick?

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Now flash ahead 53 years (2006). I’m having dinner in New York with a large group of friends and family. We were on our way to Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame, where I was going to get to present my book, Legacy of a Monarch, for induction into that sacred hall. One evening, while still in New York, we all went to Mickey Mantle’s Restaurant. It was just off of Central Park and full of Yankees memorabilia, pictures, gloves, and not just of Mantle but all current and former Yankees. While walking around checking all this memorabilia out I noticed a signed letter framed and hung on the wall from Thurman Munson, the great Yankee catcher who’d died tragically at age 32 in a plane crash. I said to my buddy Jack, Hey I have a signed letter from Mickey Mantle back in 1953. I wonder if it could be worth something, still smarting from being taken when I was eight. There was a woman standing nearby who approached us and said, It might be. She told us she worked for the guy who was the Yankee expert on their memorabilia and was responsible for most of the items in the restaurant. She said that I should contact him, handing me his business card. I remember standing there looking at all this and thinking, Ah ha Bobby, maybe I’ll have the last laugh after all. When we got back to Denver I dug the card out and called the guy. I told him what I had and he suggested I fax a copy to him so he could authenticate it. I made a copy and shot it off to him, thinking, could this really be happening. The next day he called me back and told me, no, it could not be happening. He said many players of that day got so many requests, Mantle being one, that they had their secretary’s sign for them—that was the case here. He told me to check it against Mantle’s real signature on his website. I did, and of course they were not the same. The letter is actually of little financial value, but does hold some sentimental value. I still hope you had a miserable life, Bobby!

The schoolyard ballgames continued until we could play in an actual league. The head baseball coach at East High School in Denver, Pat Panek, started a summer baseball program called The Old Timers Youth League.

We were all 10 to 14 years of age so I have no idea where the name Old Timers came from but we didn’t care, it gave us a chance to play semi-organized baseball. We formed our own teams and coached ourselves, so, as you can imagine, some of the games were pretty interesting. Mr. Panek oversaw the league and hired some of his high school ballplayers to be the umpires. He also got local merchants to sponsor the teams supplying shirts and hats with their names on them.

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This was my first Old Timers team, Mile Hi Bowling

Center—Me second from right front row and the infamous

Bobby (the trading card wiz) back row far right—1955.

The team I played on in 1959 was sponsored by Palmer Johnson Apple Kings, so, as you can imagine, our team name struck no fear into the hearts or psyche of our opponents.

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Yours truly back row far right and Chuck Williamson

kneeling in front of me, who would catch my

losing high school no-hitter two years later

I had always played shortstop and loved it. Moving left or right and gunning the ball to first base was pure joy. This, coupled with my newspaper route, had given me a pretty strong arm. If I could get my glove on the ball I could usually throw the runner out at first. Our first season was a complete disaster, I’m not even sure we won a game, but we had fun riding our bikes the seven or so miles to and from the ball diamonds located in City Park near downtown Denver. There was a soda fountain shop about halfway home, so we’d stop and down malts, banana splits and milkshakes after the games.

One summer, on our own, we decided to ride our bikes to an elementary school just off of Quebec and 19th Avenue. There were some kids from that neighborhood, who also played in the Old Timers league, who wanted to play a pickup game, so we agreed. When we arrived they were already playing catch, fielding and hitting. There were no coaches or adults around. We got off our bikes and went out to right field to start playing catch. This was a gravel playground of an elementary school with one metal backstop and chain link fencing all around. They had a kid throwing batting practice, when suddenly we heard a terrifying scream. The hitter had smacked a line drive right back at the kid pitching and hit him square in the face. We ran over and he was lying on the ground unconscious, his nose cracked wide open and blood pouring everywhere. In retrospect I’m not sure he knew what happened. Another kid from their team ran across the street to a house and pounded on the front door. Luckily a woman answered and called for an ambulance. They got there pretty fast, put the kid in the ambulance and took him away. I have no idea who he was or what happened to him, but I will never forget how he looked lying there with his face covered in blood.

The first four years of Old Timers all started just like the previous one finished, badly. About five games into our last season, Bert, the kid who ran the team, and pitched, got us together before the game and asked if anyone wanted to pitch, he’d had enough. We all stood there silently until the umpire came up and told us to take the field. I felt sorry for Bert as he stood there beaten with his head down just hoping someone, anyone, would take over on the mound. I certainly didn’t know it then but this would be a life altering moment for me.