Barnstorming to Heaven: Syd Pollock and His Great Black Teams

27. The Clowns in Cooperstown

27 The Clowns in Cooperstown For 1960, the Clowns signed two important pitchers, right-hander John Whitehead and left-hander Freddie Battle. A power hitter as well as a power pitcher, Battle also played first and outfield and served as bus barber and as one who made bus society palatable. Any society preserves sanity by relying in part on those laughing at societal problems. Freddie Battle was such a stabilizing force in the early '60s society of the Clowns bus, or Big Red, as the Clowns now called her. He lightened the drag of the road. Whitehead managed the 1960 and 1961 New York Royals and the 1962 New York Stars, all Clowns touring partners. The Clowns and Royals carried 28 players between them on the Clowns bus in 1960. Throw in The GreatYogi and Chauffplus occasionaltryouts, and a sizeable society rumbled down the road inside Big Red. Carl Forney managed the Clowns for the first time that season. On June 8, the Clowns played in Niles, Michigan. The Niles Daily Star reported : Last night before a large crowd at Thomas Stadium, an independent baseball team known as the Indianapolis Clowns played up to expectation , as it thrilled and amazed those who watched them perform. The Clowns toyed around with and practically made a rout of the game in downing the out-classed South Bend Sherman's Cleaners team by a sound 9 to 4 margin. Getting right off to a slam-bang start, aided greatly by fabulous "Natureboy" Williams, there was almost never a dull moment in the entire game.... 318 PAR T S I X THE S I X TIE S The third inning saw Natureboy pull his famed bat routine, as he pulled all sorts of odd-shaped bats such as a huge coke bottle, a midget bat and even a wooden leg from his pants.... He also taped a "for rent" sign on the ump.... From the fifth inning on, the pranksters from Indianapolis went into their world-famous funshow, with almost everyone getting into the act at one time or another.... June 12, 1960, was a day unique in baseball history. Before more than 2,000 paid in Louisville, Clowns ambidextrous hurler Ulysses Grant Greene pitched a complete doubleheader, the first game a 3-2 win over the New York Royals, left-handed, the second a 5-2 loss to the Royals, right-handed. That was the only loss for the Clowns in 33 straight games. On August 1, 1960, the Clowns became the only black team ever to play in Cooperstown's Doubleday Field in honor of Baseball's Hall of Fame. For the record, Grant Greene pitched an ambidextrous two-hit shutout in Doubleday Field and Ed Craig homered as the Clowns beat the Cooperstown Indians 10-0 before about 500 fans. The Oneonta Star reported: The Indianapolis Clowns presented their two-diamond circus Monday to the squealing delight of fans in Cooperstown and Oneonta who for a change didn't seem to mind that their local heroes were getting clobbered. . . . Holding their attention instead was a weird brand of baseball that featured rock 'n' roll dancing, a shadowball show and a guy named Yogi who could teach his Yankee namesake a thing or two about the art of squatting. . . . The piece de resistance was the Clowns' famed shadowball show. While a record player blared out dixieland jazz rhythms, the infield went through a perfectly executed practice session-without a ball. Then followed an Elvis Presley number that had Nature Boy and an ambidextrous pitcher named "Doubleduty" Greene swinging like coed cats at a Hartwick Hop. THE CLOWNS IN COOPERSTOWN 319 But the more important story was how the Clowns players felt about it all. In 1996, Carl Forney described that: When they found out they was booked in Cooperstown, I ain't never seen nobody in my life so happy as those Clowns ballplayers, 'cause, you know, that's something you can talk about the rest of your life.... I tell people now, I've been to Cooperstown you know, they don't believe me.... I'll tell you though, that Cooperstown was really something . That made me feel good.... the thing special to me was the ball park.... When I went to home plate ... that's the best feeling I ever had in my life 'cause the big boys had been there, Mays and all the Hall of Famers...