Two-wheelin’ at the old Winnipeg Stadium

East Kildonan

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 04/12/2024 (607 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Lately, I’ve been reading some baseball books from my library. The new Pete Rose biography, Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball, by Keith O’Brien is quite good and timely, especially given its subject’s recent passing.

I’m particularly pleased with some of the older titles, especially those that chronicle baseball players’ daily lives. Jim Brosnan’s The Long Season is a diary of the 1959 season. Brosnan, who was a relief pitcher with the St. Louis Cardinals, describes bullpen tedium, family life, his trade and battles with his manager.

The Long Season is an early example of ballplayers taking fans “behind the curtain” to describe what baseball life is really like, as opposed to the sanitized versions they read about in newspapers and authorized biographies back then. That led to classics like Jim Bouton’s Ball Four and Sparky Lyle’s The Bronx Zoo, two efforts that included the bad with the good.

One less-heralded book that belongs with these titles is Pat Jordan’s A False Spring. It comes with a hitch, as it describes daily life in baseball – but from the perspective of a minor league player who never made it. Jordan signed with the Milwaukee Braves for a big bonus in the late 1950s, pitched for three years in obscure towns and quit before he turned 23. He became a freelance writer who frequently appeared in Sports Illustrated.

Winnipeg makes a lengthy appearance near the book’s end. Jordan had recently been demoted to Eau Claire of the Northern League to play for future Montreal Expos manager and general manager Jim Fanning.

It begins with Jordan describing a 12-hour overnight station wagon ride from Eau Claire to Winnipeg, to play the Goldeyes of the old Northern League (then a St. Louis Cardinal affiliate) with future all-star Rico Carty sleeping next to him. The team reached Winnipeg at noon and played at 7:30 p.m. that night.

Jordan said most pitchers didn’t like throwing here because of the weather. He described one game that started in sub-freezing temperatures and had players gathering scraps of paper to burn for heat.

However, one single hurler always volunteered. He learned the games were televised, so he volunteered to pitch as much as Fanning let him.

“Before every inning, he combed his hair in the dugout… and proceeded to walk the first batter he faced,” Jordan. “Then, (he) held him close to first base with long, repeated, darkly handsome glances over his left shoulder directly into the camera behind the coach’s box.”

Another teammate loved coming to Winnipeg so he could race the team station wagon around the concourse after games.

“After each game, Pat would force us all to wait for him in the car,” Jordan wrote. “Then he eased the station wagon onto the sidewalk, and while the rest of us pleaded with him, he floored the accelerator, and we went spinning around that oval on two wheels at his favourite speed of 90 miles an hour.

“We cursed and screamed at Pat to stop, hung on to the door handles for our lives… but Pat never even heard us. Then, he would jerk the steering wheel to the right, and the car would fly off the sidewalk, momentarily suspended in midair before its suspension sagged and its belly whacked the ground.”

Winnipeg was also the place where Jordan knew for sure his career was winding down. After a bad game, he bought a bus ticket back to Eau Claire. While the Braves talked him into trying his luck in Florida, he retired at season’s end.