The Local Boys: Hometown Players for the Cincinnati Reds

by Joe Heffron, Jack Heffron, Chris Welsh (Foreword by)

Overview

The Local Boys by Joe and Jack Heffron tells the stories of men who achieved the boyhood dream of playing for the hometown team. From Ethan Allen to Don Zimmer, they're all here, including Charlie "Bushel Basket" Gould, who played on the first team in 1869 to Junior Griffey, soon to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Alongside big-name stars like Dave Parker and Buddy Bell, fans will find those like Eddie Hunter, who played only one inning in 1933, never got to bat, and never fielded a ball. Every player receives a one- or two-page profile, many of which are based on original interviews with the players or surviving family members. Going beyond statistics, each profile brings the player to life through stories that have never before been told in print. An indispensible look at Cincinnati baseball history, The Local Boys makes an ideal gift for any Reds fan.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781578606191
Publisher:	Clerisy Press
Publication date:	07/01/2018
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Joe and Jack Heffron have been Reds fans all of their lives. Jack has written about the team for Cincinnati magazine, winning two American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) awards for sports writing. He has edited numerous books on baseball for several publishers. He also is the author of three books on writing and has ghostwritten a number of other books ranging in subject from history to marketing to sports. His writing has been published in many magazines and has won numerous awards, including being named in Best American Travel Writing. He works at a marketing agency in Cincinnati and teaches in the Department of Journalism at the University of Cincinnati. Joe worked as a local umpire for many years and attended the Bill Kinnamon Umpire School in St. Petersburg, Florida. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of the game and of the Reds. He works at Bankhardt’s Luggage and Gifts. Both Joe and Jack are members of the Society of American Baseball Researchers, and they live in Cincinnati.

Read an Excerpt

ETHAN ALLEN

JANUARY 1, 1904–SEPTEMBER 15, 1993

Major League Career: 1926–1938

Time as a Red: 1926–1930

Position: Outfield

WITH A NAME LIKE “ETHAN ALLEN,” a boy has to meet pretty high expectations. And Ethan Allen (the ballplayer, not the Revolutionary War hero) did just that. Born in Cincinnati, he grew up on the east side of town, in the Mt. Washington area. He graduated from Withrow High School (called East High School at the time), where his outstanding athletic ability first began attracting the city’s attention. He then attended the University of Cincinnati, where his local fame quickly grew. Tall, handsome, and an excellent student, Allen would be tough to top if you were looking for an All-American Boy circa the 1920s. At UC, he starred in three sports—baseball, basketball, and track. In 1926, his senior year, he captained the baseball team and hit .473, which stood as the school record until, with the gradual addition of more games to the college season, his number of at-bats fell below the minimum required.

The Reds knew a local star when they saw one and signed him that summer (giving him, according to Lee Allen’s The Cincinnati Reds, a signing bonus of $8,598.43) and placed him immediately on the major league roster, obviously feeling he needed no minor league seasoning. The move wasn’t a desperate effort by a struggling team; the Reds spent 75 days in first place in a close pennant race with the Cardinals that year, eventually finishing second by two games. After the season, the team thought highly enough of Allen that they traded Hall of Fame centerfielder Edd Roush, who had been their biggest star for a decade, and gave Allen the job.

Though he lacked power, he quickly established himself as an excellent contact hitter and all-around polished player. Given his good looks, affable nature, and growing reputation as a smart player who rarely made mistakes, he became a fan favorite. Unfortunately, Reds owner Sidney Weil lost much of his fortune in the 1929 stock market crash, and had he to sell off or trade his best talent to pay the bills. He traded Allen and star pitcher Pete Donohue to the New York Giants for mediocre infielder Pat Crawford, who appeared in just 76 games for the Reds. Allen played eight more seasons, hitting an even .300 in a 13-year career. His lack of homerun power (he hit only 47) during that long-ball era kept him from being considered one of the top players in the game, but he was known as a tough out and often was slotted near the top of the batting order.

While a member of the Philadelphia Phillies, he came back to town to become the second player ever to bat in a major league night game, held at Crosley Field on May 24, 1935. After retiring in 1938, Allen became the National League’s Director of Motion Pictures. He then coached Yale University’s team from 1946 to 1968, winning five Ivy League championships and twice reaching the national championship game (losing both, in 1947 and 1948). Future president George Herbert Walker Bush was his first baseman on those teams. Allen also wrote several highly respected baseball instructional books, including Major League Baseball (1938) and Baseball Play and Strategy (1964) and produced baseball instructional films.

He is best known, however, for creating Ethan Allen’s All-Star Baseball, the most popular baseball tabletop game of the post-War decades. First issued in 1941, the game featured paper disks filled with what looked like pie charts breaking into sectors each player’s percentages of getting a hit or making an out, which would be determined by a flick of a spinner. Though Allen designed it as a game for kids, many adults played it, too, even creating leagues with friends.

After retiring from Yale in 1968, Allen settled in North Carolina. In 1970, he was elected to the American Association of College Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame. He continued to refine his board game, adding new seasons of players, until his health began to decline. He then moved to Brookings, Oregon, to be near his son, and that’s where he died at the age of 89, having lived up to his heroic name.

Table of Contents

viii Foreword by Chris Welsh

x Introduction

2 A Brief History of Local Reds

The Player Profiles

• 14 Ethan Allen
• 16 Linwood “King” Bailey
• 18 Clarence “Kid” Baldwin
• 20 Skeeter Barnes
• 22 Bob Barton
• 24 Jim Beckman
• 26 Buddy Bell
• 28 Mike Bell
• 30 Larry Benton
• 32 Todd Benzinger
• 34 Jim Blackburn
• 36 Jim Bolger
• 38 Amos “Darling" Booth
• 40 John “Honest Jack” Boyle
• 42 Cornelius “Neal” Brady
• 44 Jim Brosnan
• 46 Mike Burke
• 48 Jack Bushelman
• 50 Charlie Case
• 52 Bob Clark
• 54 Billy Clingman
• 56 Pierce “Percy” Coleman
• 58 Lorenzo “Ren” Deagle
• 60 Charles “Dory” Dean
• 62 John Dolan
• 64 Charles “Red” Dooin
• 66 Bill Doran
• 68 Leon "Bull" Durham
• 70 Norman “Kid” Elberfeld
• 72 William “Buck" Ewing
• 74 Maury Fisher
• 76 Cornelius “Carney" Flynn
• 78 Hank Gastright
• 80 Bob Geary
• 82 Charlie Gould
• 84 Ken Griffey, Jr.
• 86 Emil Haberer
• 88 John “Chink" Heileman
• 90 Chris “Crese” Heismann
• 92 Bill Hobbs
• 94 George Hogriever
• 96 Thomas Howard
• 98 Miller Huggins
• 100 Eddie Hunter
• 102 Bill Irwin
• 104 Larry Jacobus
• 106 Scott Klingenbeck
• 108 Brian Koelling
• 110 Ralph Kraus
• 112 Al “Moose” Lakeman
• 114 Barry Larkin
• 116 Stephen Larkin
• 118 Mark Lewis
• 120 Larry Luebbers
• 122 Louis “Red” Lutz
• 124 Lee Magee
• 126 Charles “Lefty” Marr
• 128 Billy McCool
• 130 George Miller
• 132 Bobby Mitchell
• 134 Dick Murphy
• 136 Dan Neville
• 138 Chris Nichting
• 140 Al Niehaus
• 142 Jack Niemes
• 144 Joe Nuxhall
• 146 Ron Oester
• 148 Claude Osteen
• 150 Dave Parker
• 152 George Pechiney
• 154 Edward “Icicle” Reeder
• 156 “Long" John Reilly
• 158 Bill Rodgers
• 160 Pete Rose
• 162 Pete Rose, Jr.
• 164 Jeff Russell
• 166 Admiral Schlei
• 168 Gene Schott
• 170 Amos “Dick' Scott
• 172 Scott Service
• 174 Chris Sexton
• 176 Gus Shallix
• 178 Jimmy Shevlin
• 180 Eddie Sicking
• 182 John “Chick” Smith
• 184 Joe Sommer
• 186 Jake Stenzel
• 188 Clarence Stephens
• 190 Ricky Stone
• 192 Jack Sutthoff
• 194 Len Swormstedt
• 196 Jesse Tannehill
• 198 Kent Tekulve
• 200 Eddie Tiemeyer
• 202 Henry “Farmer” Vaughn
• 204 Clyde Vollmer
• 206 Herm Wehmeier
• 208 John “Podge” Weihe
• 210 Chris Welsh
• 212 Bill Whitrock
• 214 “Wild Bill” Widner
• 216 Dale Williams
• 218 Orville “Sam" Woodruff
• 220 Don Zimmer

222 sources

224 Acknowledgments

227 About the Authors

Editorial Reviews

" The authors should be proud of this book and their contribution to documenting Reds history. Sometimes in our fast paced world we forget where we came from and our history gets lost in the shuffle. Reds fans will truly enjoy this as well as other regional fans."
—Gregg Kersey - Gregg's Baseball Bookcase Blog

From the Publisher