Mantle, Boyer brothers and hometown baseball
by Bryce Martin

In the 1950s, during the Major League baseball off-season, my Galena, Kan., townteam often played at home against a ragbag of players, including Roy and Ray Mantle, Alton Clay, Floyd Woolridge, Cliff Mapes, Red Rose, and Barney Barnett Jr, some current and some former big leaguers. Miami, Okla., had a team, with Max Mantle in centerfield. The Joplin Globe newspaper printed news releases relating to the dates and times of the off-season baseball games at Miners Park in Joplin, and those in the Alba/Purcell area that included the Boyer brothers. Even Mickey Mantle played in some of the contests. I saw games in Miami, Galena, Joplin and the Alba/Purcell region. Some good, young players resided in these regions, but deference was given to older, local amateur players when it came to playing against the big boys. A Galena pitcher, Jim Albright, employed a double windmill wind-up, a memorable motor movement passé even then. Attendance for these exhibitions was moderate and the setting was informal. In a game at Miners Park in 1956, a hefty Bub Woods from Galena, who had no professional baseball experience and who didn't play much anymore because of age and some added girth, was seated in the front row of the grandstands watching the festivities in his overalls. He was called in to pinch hit. He belted a drive up the right alley that should have been a double, but he barely made it to first and gave way to a pinch runner. He returned to his seat. In the same game, sure-fielding Ken Boyer of the St. Louis Cardinals let a rather routine groundball go under his glove at third, and was unsteady on some other chances. As a young kid, I could not imagine a major leaguer of his stature being so far off in his fielding. That was memorable, because the next year St. Louis moved Ken to leftfield. Associated Press stories in the Globe reported that Ken, for reasons unknown, could no longer field his third base position. An image of the cleanest uniform I had ever seen is still vivid in my mind. Mickey Owen Jr. wore a bleached-white home uniform of the Reds. Usually, if a player wore a ML uniform in one of the exhibition contests, it was of the traveling gray sort. Owen Jr., a catcher, like his father, seemed a fish out of water to my young eyes. He showed little ability. His dad, remembered for a World Series slip-up, always stood behind the screen and watched his son's every move. I felt a little sorry for the elder.

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