Roger's Revenge

Forget Boston. Ignore Chicago.

Cincinnati? Pffft.

North Dakota is baseball country. Or it was in the cognitive past.

As my father, Bruce Berg, related in his book, "Common Ground", there's a long history of amateur and minor-league ball in North Dakota. Little known fact - NoDak was a stop on the old Negro League circuit in the twenties and thirties. Satchell Paige played for Bismark, and most of the other old Negro League greats played for Fargo, Jamestown, Valley City or any of the other legendary teams that played along what are now I94 and I281.

The greatest moment came in 1934, when the Major League All-Stars, on their way to Japan for an exhibition series, stopped in North Dakota for a three-game stand against a hastily-assembled team of semi-pros, both Negro-leaguers and locals.

This was no slouch team of big-leaguers:

The All-Star team, managed by Connie Mack's son, Earle, was a great one with Foxx (.334, 44 homers and 130 RBIs in 1934), Heinie Manush (.349, 42 doubles, 89 RBIs), Roger "Doc" Cramer (.311, 202 hits), Pinky Higgins (.330, 37 doubles) and pitchers Rube Walberg (6 wins, 7 losses), Monte Weaver (11-15), Ted Lyons (11-13), and Earl Whitehill (14-11) .

North Dakota combined the Bismarck, Jamestown, and Valley City teams to face the big-leaguers but were weakened when Desiderato had to return to Chicago and Trouppe left for his home in St. Louis. Double Duty was also missing for the first game when he returned briefly to his home in Chicago. Luckily the pitching was bolstered when Chet Brewer of the Kansas City Monarchs was added to the team.

The Big-Leaguers arrived in Valley City for the first game and the North Dakota semipros jumped on White Sox' hurler Lyons for 11 hits and six runs in five innings and won, 6-5. Foxx, who started in professional baseball as a pitcher, hurled the last three innings for the big-leaguers and struck out six without allowing a run. Barney Brown pitched well and got the win, despite giving up homers to Cramer and Red Kress.

The two teams moved on to Jamestown and Brewer completely dominated the big-leaguers, shutting them out on four hits with six strikeouts--Manush three times. Double Duty, back from Chicago, singled twice, Steel Arm Davis belted a double and two homers, and Art Hancock added a double and two singles.

The following day at Bismarck, Duty matched up against the Washington Senator's Whitehill and North Dakota exploded for three runs in the first two innings, added four in the fifth, and four in the eighth to win, 11-3. Double Duty led the offense with a double and two singles, followed by Hancock who tripled and homered. The Big Leaguers' only runs came in the ninth inning when Duty walked two batters ahead of a Pinky Higgins home run. In all, Duty allowed eight hits and struck out three. After the blowout one Major Leaguer was reported to have remarked, "I knew there were a lot of good colored players. I just didn't know they were all in Bismarck!"

NoDak 3, Major League 0.

It was about twenty years later that Roger Maris came out of North Dakota American Legion ball to the Yankees. He went on to set the most-contested record in Major League history, his 61-homer season in 1961; he took eight more games to set the record than Babe Ruth did to hit 60 circuits.

Of course, from 1998 on the record was as porous as Nick Coleman's fact-checking; Doug Grow relates the story in today's Strib:

Between the 1998 and 2001 seasons, Maris' record was surpassed six times. The Cubs' Sammy Sosa hit more than 61 homers in three seasons. The St. Louis Cardinals' Mark McGwire hit more than 61 twice. And the San Francisco Giants' Barry Bonds set the current record, 73, in 2001.

Baseball doesn't have quite the same prominence in North Dakota life that it did 70 years go - but it's still a big deal.

Especially when you mess with Maris.

This movement to restore Maris as the record holder started a couple of weeks ago. Joel Heitkamp and a few of his pals were having a beer at the VFW club in Mantador, N.D. Their pleasant conversations about nothing important were interrupted by TV news reports about what really matters: baseball.

In particular, the subject of the reports was about appearances of big-time ball players before a U.S. House committee inquiring about steroid use. McGwire, once a baseball hero, was asked whether he had used steroids.

"My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my family or myself," he told the committee.

The boys at the VFW were so furious they almost spilled their beers.

"They were telling me, 'Geez, Joel, you gotta do something,' " Heitkamp said. "They got on me pretty hard."

Heitkamp, a Democratic state senator, responded to the challenge.

Last week, he introduced the resolution in the North Dakota Senate that calls for baseball to put Maris, an honest, if never fully appreciated, man, back at the top of the single-season home run list. That resolution is expected to zip through the North Dakota House this week.

Heitkamp, who loves baseball, doesn't really expect baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to respond to the North Dakota resolution. In fact, Selig already has made it clear that baseball will not try to clean up its record book. The alleged cheaters will be allowed to hold on to some of the game's most treasured records.

"But maybe this will remind baseball that fans are concerned about integrity," Heitkamp said.

If only Bud Selig cared as much.

Roger Maris. He may have had a notional asterisk, but he was never dragged in front of Congress as party to a scandal. That's gotta count for something.

Posted by Mitch at April 5, 2005 08:45 AM | TrackBack