A BIG LEAGUE MYSTERY
by Bryce Martin
What are the odds of the 1929 Pittsburgh Pirates having two first basemen, both from the same small town in Kansas?
I have long wondered that question myself.
In 1980, I had a baseball encyclopedia, which I had borrowed from a friend. It listed in alphabetical order everyone who had ever played in the Major Leagues, even if it consisted of one at bat. I found many ways to use the massive book. I was living in Bakersfield. Calif., so I looked through every page to see who was born in that city. An intriguing find was W.H. �Buck� May, a pitcher going back to the 1920s and for whom no death date was listed. I looked in the Bakersfield phone book and there he was. I was able to set up an interview with him for a feature article later published in a local sports publication. I also used it as a chance to inquire about George Grantham.
Well before Mickey Mantle, the best-known big league baseball player to come out of the Joplin Mining District region was George Grantham.
As it turned out, �Buck� May knew Grantham but could offer no details other than he knew he had lived in Arizona (He died in Arizona in 1954.).
Grantham played 12-plus years in the Major Leagues with the Cubs, Pirates, Reds and Giants. He batted over .300 eight consecutive years. His lifetime average was .302.
He debuted fulltime in 1923 with the Chicago Cubs as a second baseman, and later became a first baseman. A left-handed batter and right-handed thrower, Grantham stood 5-foot-10 and weighed 170 pounds.
Born George Farley Grantham on May 20, 1900, at Galena, Kans., the son of Mr. and Mrs. B.F. Grantham, he moved to Goldroads, Ariz., with his family at the age of three and attended grammar school there and later high school at Flagstaff.
Grantham, although an outstanding batsman, was a notoriously bad fielder, thus the nickname �Boots.� He began in organized baseball in 1920 with Tacoma. The following year he went to Portland and in 1922 played with Omaha. In the latter part of the 1922 season, he joined the Cubs. After two years with the Cubs, he was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates where he stayed for seven years.
With Pittsburgh, Grantham played in two World Series. He was so popular in Pittsburgh a street was named after him.
I knew Grantham was from my hometown of Galena, Kans. I even had a 1933 Goudey baseball card of him that mentioned that fact on the backside, and had heard his name talked about in the family from an early age. I looked through the big book for anyone else that might be from Galena. That is when I found Bill Windle.
Willis Brewer (Bill) Windle. Born December 14, 1904, in Galena, Kans. Height: 5-111/2; Weight, 170. Died in Corpus Christi, Texas, on December 8, 1981.
Listed as a first baseman along with Grantham, Windle batted once (he hit a double) in 1928 with the Pirates and he went hitless in one at bat in 1929. That was his Major League career.
Did it just happen, two guys from Galena on the Pirates at the same time? From an odds standpoint, it is not likely. It sounds more like a �buddy plan� of some kind. Grantham, as popular as he was in Pittsburgh, could have arranged it. It remains a mystery.
TODAY'S FOLKSY EXPRESSION OVERHEARD: "Too poor to paint, too proud to whitewash."