108 Stitches: A Girl Grows Up With Baseball

By Addie Beth Denton

With its sprawl of teams in major, minor, and independent leagues, with its narrative interwoven with our national history, with its catalog of larger-than-life characters, baseball is always a story.

The story of baseball is often told by the players and the managers whose faces we recognize. Those storytellers are always men.

But this baseball story is a girl’s coming-of-age memoir.

Addie Beth Denton’s 108 Stitches reminds us of the women and girls whose lives were shaped by America's national pastime. Denton’s father and uncle were baseball men: her uncle, Harry Craft, was a manager for major league franchises in Kansas City, Chicago, and Houston. As a minor league coach, Harry Craft was Mickey Mantle’s first manager.

108 Stitches captures the sights, smells, and sensations of growing up with baseball from Addie Beth’s unique vantage point. There are home runs, no-hitters, cantankerous old-timers, and ambitious young gunners, but there are also warmhearted family stories, adolescent melodramas, and the multifaceted experiences of girlhood lived within a man’s world.

Written for fans young and old, male and female, Addie Beth Denton’s memoir stitches together her heartfelt memories of a nostalgic period in American and baseball history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Texas Tech University Press
• Release date: Aug 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781682831410

Addie Beth Denton

Addie Beth Denton graduated in a class of twenty-eight in Throckmorton, Texas. She earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Texas in Austin, master’s degrees at Duke and SMU, and a PhD in clinical psychology at SMU. During her more than forty years in educational psychology and counseling, she has helped students of all ages become successful in school. She is a proud grandmother of five grandsons and lives in Dallas, Texas.

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108

Stitches

A Girl Grows Up with Baseball

Addie Beth Denton

Texas Tech University Press

Copyright © 2022 by Texas Tech University Press

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including electronic storage and retrieval systems, except by explicit prior written permission of the publisher. Brief passages excerpted for review and critical purposes are excepted.

This book is typeset in Crimson Text. The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997). ♾

Designed by Hannah Gaskamp

Cover design by Hannah Gaskamp

Names: Denton, Addie Beth, 1946– author. Title: 108 Stitches: A Girl Grows Up with Baseball / Addie Beth Denton. Other titles: One hundred and eight stitches. Description: Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University Press, 2022. | Series: Texas Sports Heroes | Includes index. | Summary: Memoir of a young woman’s experience growing up in Texas with a love for and family members involved in major and minor league baseball franchises—Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022002403 (print) | LCCN 2022002404 (ebook) |

ISBN 978-1-68283-140-3 (paperback) | ISBN 978-1-68283-141-0 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Baseball—United States—History—20th century. | Baseball—Texas—History—20th century. | Denton, Addie Beth, 1946– | Denton, Addie Beth, 1946–

Family. | Women baseball fans—United States—Biography. | Texas—Biography. Classification: LCC GV863.A1 D465 2022 (print) | LCC GV863.A1 (ebook) | DDC 796.3570973/0904 [B]—dc23/eng/20220623

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022002403

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022002404

Printed in the United States of America

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 / 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Texas Tech University Press

Box 41037

Lubbock, Texas 79409-1037 USA

800.832.4042

[e-mail]

www.ttupress.org

To the Baseball Gods, who always watched over me,

and to my grandsons Oliver and Sawyer Collins and Henry, William, and Teddy Denton,

scions of the next generation.

The game is absolutely magical. A spiritual event that people cannot get ahold of. It defies all of us. It’s historic, ageless, beautiful, and by and large it’s outdoors in the summertime.

—Fay Vincent, Major League Baseball Commissioner, 1989–1992

It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.

—A. Bartlett Giamatti, Major League Baseball Commissioner, 1989

The same is true on the double play. Bo [Jackson] doesn’t get there [to second] as fast as some other people, even though he is faster than everybody. I’m not as worried about Bo as I someday will be. Don Baylor used to be fast, and he got so he could get there quicker than anybody because he did things the right way.

—Calvin Edwin Cal Ripken Jr., Hall of Fame shortstop and third baseman for the Baltimore Orioles, 1981–2001

In those words—‘the right way’—the Ripken blood, and that of baseball, speaks.

—George F. Will, author of Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball, 1990

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

Introduction

1: Growing Up with the Game

2: Kansas City and Cincinnati

3: The Houston Colt .45s and the Astrodome

4: Honored in Throckmorton

5: Baseball and Academia

6: Ruben Puente and the Home Run Race

7: 9/11

8: The Healing Power of Baseball

9: Which Way Is McKechnie Field?

10: The Home Team Advances to the Playoffs

Epilogue: Lessons from Baseball

Notes

References

Index

Illustrations

Author’s father Tom Craft and his mother Emily Morrison Craft

Young Harry Craft in Cincinnati Reds uniform

Harry Craft speaks to radio journalist

Author at five years old with Harry Craft, family, and friends

Harry Craft wearing Houston Colt .45s uniform

Author’s grandmother in Victorian dress

Harry Craft posing for newspaper photo

Houston Colt .45s baseball team

Author’s daughter Liza and friends watching Texas Rangers game from Eddie Chiles’ box

Preface

My maternal grandparents Addie and Robert Pierce Lee traveled to Texas from Tennessee in a covered wagon. They had seven daughters. Their youngest, Beth, was my mother. My grandfather also had a ranch in New Mexico and was there frequently. I always wondered if he needed a break from all those women in the house.

Imagine then when a lanky fellow from Mississippi—and from a family of baseball players—came to Throckmorton, Texas, and met my mother at the First Methodist Church. She was the church organist. He was wearing a white suit.

They fell in love and got married. I was their only child.

While I could never pitch or play right field for my team—the Yankees—because I was a girl, the baseball gods made sure I would have a lifetime of baseball memories to tell my five grandsons.

This is my story.

As I approach my 76th birthday (time flies when you are having fun!), I realize I do not remember a day in my long life without baseball.

Although pitchers and catchers report for spring training at the end of February and the World Series ends in November (sometimes with snow on the field), the game stays with me each day of the year. I read the sports pages without fail and tune in to my favorite ESPN reporters. Depending on what they say, my respect for these announcers varies. At this time in 2022, I favor Mike Greenberg on TV and radio, and of course there is no one who compares with Randy Galloway of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, to whom in earlier years I would listen on 103.3 FM. I have met both these storied reporters. Just as an aside, even though he does not play baseball, to tell any sports reporter that I am from Bob Lilly’s hometown gains me instant respect.

Baseball—played in the US since before the Civil War—is an experience that is unforgettable. It begins when the weather is crisp, can be burning up in Texas in July and August, and may culminate in late October with snow on the ground in Boston’s Fenway Park. The sounds on the field and in the stands are predictable and unchanging: the crack of a bat, the infield chatter, the calls of the ump, hot dogs, popcorn, peanuts . . . beer here.

And now it comes time for me to hop on that train . . .

108

Stitches

Introduction

It’s summer! The train ride from Dallas, Texas, to Kansas City, Missouri, is always exciting. I relish the exhilarating feeling of the cars of the Kansas City Southern railway going faster and faster and the soothing, rhythmic hum of the train’s engine. The gently rolling hills of North Central Texas turn to piney woods as the train heads east to Shreveport, Louisiana, and then the landscape becomes flat and smooth as the train turns north into America’s heartland. I love running up and down the aisle, pausing to stare through the windows at the passing scenery, opening the doors between the cars with hot, dusty puffs of wind in my hair and deafening sounds in my ears. My small hands work hard to make sure the doors close behind me, and when I finally sit down to eat lunch, I save the colored plastic toothpicks from the small club sandwiches, stuffing them into the pockets of my light blue dress. By the end of the trip, I have a small collection, which returns with me to my hometown of Throckmorton, Texas, where a fruit jar waits to receive it, a colorful bouquet that is a remembrance of my trip and a testimony to several others.

The train station in Kansas City is old and crowded. Because I come from such a tiny West Texas town, I am temporarily frightened by the noise and confusion. Kansas City is where I hear my first ambulance siren, a sound I don’t recognize because we have no ambulances in Throckmorton. My dad patiently explains to me the purpose of the zooming van, pointing to the cars as they stop on the side of the road to let it pass.

Dad signals for a taxi, another form of transportation that I am unaccustomed to, and I ask to ride in the front seat, hoping for a better view of the city. I am only slightly disappointed when I am told I must sit in the back with my parents because I know that my favorite part of the trip still lies ahead of us.

Before we arrive, we stop at the Muehlebach Hotel, built by George Muehlebach, for whom Muehlebach Field was named. The baseball stadium, constructed in 1923, was the home of the minor league white Kansas City Blues and the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro League. In 1955, it became the home field of Major League Baseball’s Kansas City Athletics and was renamed Municipal Stadium. It is the place I have been waiting to see, but first we have to check into our rooms.

Inside the hotel I look up and admire the tall ceilings. The furniture in the lobby seems large to me, and when we finally arrive at our rooms, every fixture seems even larger. The bathtub has clawed feet! I love opening the tiny soaps and hanging my dresses on the big wooden hangers in the closet. My mother eyes the ironing board, and I know she will freshen up all my dresses, one by one, before we leave. A ten-year-old girl must be properly dressed to watch baseball games!

During our trips to Kansas City, my mother and I are beautifully attired. In addition to attending baseball games there, we always shop at Harzfeld’s, with its lovely clothing for women and children. For a little girl living in a small town with no clothing store, Harzfeld’s is heaven. At that store I choose wonderful dresses with floral appliqués on the top and fancy felt or corduroy skirts in my favorite colors, blue and green. I remember seeing these outfits in tiny brochures that arrive in Throckmorton regularly during the year, and I revel in poring over those catalogs. They give rise to my developing fashion sense—honed in a store in the Midwest beloved by so many little girls and their mothers.

I also learn about how fashion changes with the seasons as my mother teaches me never to wear white after the first day of dove season in the fall. I know dove season is approaching when outfits in dark colors arrive in the mail from Harzfeld’s. I joyfully unwrap bronze and deep brown felt dresses or corduroy skirts with pumpkins, witches on brooms, and even scarecrows in vibrant gingham or plaid for Halloween. I wear the same styles into November, but occasionally there is the special Thanksgiving frock with touches of rust, beige, and brown and a white Peter Pan collar in honor of the Pilgrims. Each holiday dress has a thin black patent leather belt and a full skirt, giving me just enough glamour. At Christmastime I treasure the burgundy velvet dresses with touches of white lace at the neck and sleeves. Occasionally something in satin—winter white or Christmas green—becomes my new favorite dress.

My shoes are not from Harzfeld’s but from a department store called The Fair in Fort Worth. They arrive in small orange boxes with a black pattern. I remember the boxes getting bigger with my feet. The boxes always contain the same style of shoe, and I never ask for anything else. I love to run to the mailbox in front of our Throckmorton home and rip into the box. Opening it up, removing the tissue, smelling the rich aroma of patent leather, and finding two little shoes are some of the real pleasures of my childhood.

To this day, I keep my shoes in boxes, experiencing the same enjoyment of opening up those boxes and finding the gift of leather shoes.

For our trips to Kansas City, I carefully pack the black patent leather shoes with my summer Harzfeld’s dresses. As soon as we arrive at the hotel, I lovingly arrange them in our closet, where they wait for my mother’s iron to smooth them. My mother then helps me select a special dress for our big day at the baseball game—a soft, light fabric, cotton, silk, and chiffon—from the closet. The dress floats around me as I parade back and forth across the room, anticipating our departure to the stadium. I never tire of dressing up for the highlight of our trip, baseball.

When we arrive at Municipal Stadium, it is always the same: the air is sweet, warm, and humid; the smells are salty from hotdogs and mustard and pungent from cigar and cigarette smoke; and the crowd is loud and bustling. There is a low roar from the fans in the stands, punctuated occasionally by squeals of delight and by the vendors selling their peanuts and popcorn, calling beer here! I walk through the big ballpark holding my dad’s hand, my slight but sturdy frame next to his tall, athletic one.

It is 1957, but the sights are the same every year, each game I attend in Kansas City. Upon coming to the edge of the steps, still holding Dad’s hand, I look down, and there is a perfect sight: the green field, beautiful in its diamond symmetry, punctuated by pristine white lines, four base plates, and men dressed in light colors. Their movements are fluid and poetic, beautiful,