Names Big and Small, Heroes All           Versions of the Alba Aces or the Purcell Pirates teams from Missouri came to town for contests against our Galena (Kansas) Merchants baseball team in the 1950s and into the early 1960s, during the Major League baseball offseason. Galena often played at home against a mishmash of players, including Roy and Ray Mantle, Mickey's twin brothers; Alton Clay, formerly with the Black Yankees in the Negro Leagues; and Baxter Springs' Barney Barnett Jr., a big-bodied giant in cut-off sleeves.      Treece and Baxter Springs, in Kansas; Miami, in Oklahoma, and nearly every town in the region fielded a baseball team. The Joplin Globe newspaper printed news releases of upcoming games at Miners Park, and those in the Alba/Purcell area for area fans to keep track of.        Some good, young players resided in the region, but deference was given to older, local players when it came to playing against the big boys. A veteran Galena pitcher, Jim "Scoop" Albright, employed a double windmill wind-up, a memorable motor movement passe even then.      Attendance for these exhibitions was moderate and the setting was informal.      In a game in 1956, a hefty Bub Woods from Galena, wearing his Sunday-best overalls and having no professional baseball experience and who hadn't played much anymore because of age and some added girth, was seated in the front row of the grandstands watching the diamond pursuits. Called in to pinch hit, with gripped ham-sized fists he belted a drive up the right alley that should have been a double, but Bub barely made it to first. He gave way to a pinch runner and returned to his grandstand seat.       Volunteers passed around straw hats to the small but attentive crowds for donations to pay the umps.      In another game, a rather routine ground ball slapped to third slipped past usually sure-handed Ken Boyer. We all found out the following season when the Cardinals switched him to leftfield that, at third, he had acquired the dreadful "yips."      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. He showed little prowess. 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.     The towns, the games, the names were many and memorable.   --- Bryce Martin, author of Kern County Sports Chronicles (History Press)