left-field fence at Poncey went as far as left center; then there was an open area that led to a terrace where there grew a magnificent magnolia tree. What a tree. A Cracker center fielder named Country Brown had become a legend by going, yea unto the base of the magnolia tree, to haul in fly balls.
There was a row of signs that was the right-field barrier. Above it sat a high bank that led up to the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, where the northbound Silver Comet, bound for Washington and New York, would pass sometime around the bottom of the first inning.
The Crackers were known as the Yankees of the Minors. I eventually would read somewhere that they had the most league championships of any minor-league franchise in the country, and I just thought of some more names:
Bob Thorpe, Bob Sadowski, Buddy Bates, the manager, Beans Hadley, the groundskeeper, Ken McKenzie, Don Nottebart, Ray Moore, the TV announcer, and Hank (the Prank) Morgan who did the radio play-by-play, recreating the road games by tape.
It was the television that summoned me first to the Crackers, but it was that copy of the Constitution Aunt Jessie and Uncle Grover brought home each day at noon that sustained my interest and affection. And one day, when I was reading of a Cracker sweep of a doubleheader in faraway Little Rock, it finally occurred to me:
The guy who wrote the story I was reading got to go to all the Cracker games, home and away, and ride trains, and actually got paid for doing it. What a revelation! My life set its course at that very moment.
I would be a sportswriter! Wasn’t I sitting in my aunt’s living room with my grandmother as she watched TV Ranch, and didn’t I arise and declare, “Mama Willie! I’ve decided I want to be a sportswriter!”
And did she say, “Hush, Boots and Woody are about to sing ‘Beulah Land,’ ” or did she say, “So that means you’re not going to make a preacher?,” or did she ask, “What’s a sportswriter?”
I honestly can’t remember, but from that day I had but one ambition, and that was to be the guy who covered the Atlanta Crackers, home and away, rode trains, and got paid for it.
There was something about that newspaper. Something that said to me it knew everything that was happening in the whole world but would kindly share it with me.
I cannot describe the anticipation I felt during the summers as I waited for Uncle Grover to drive into his driveway in the Pontiac with that paper.
I would begin my daily paper watch about eleven-thirty. It would seem a lifetime until a few minutes from noon when I would see Uncle Grover’s Pontiac heading down the street.
Aunt Jessie usually held the paper, while Uncle Grover drove the car. She would never make it into her house with the paper, however. I would meet her as she stepped out of the car, and she would hand over that precious folding of newsprint.
I must mention The Atlanta Journal here, as well. The Constitution and the Journal were both owned by the Cox family of Ohio. The Journal was the afternoon paper.
My friend Bob Entrekin’s father took the Journal, which I always read when I went to visit my friend.
I didn’t understand how newspapers worked at that point, and I thoroughly enjoyed the Journal because it had all the stories and box scores from night games that the early edition of the Constitution didn’t have.
What I didn’t know was the early edition of the Constitution closed before night games were finished, but the Journal didn’t close until the next moning.
I also became quite found of the Journal because the sports section included sports editor Furman Bisher’s column. It was funny. It was biting. It was a daily treasure. I made up my mind that when I became a sportswriter, I would write like Furman Bisher, and if it ever came down to a choice, I would rather work for the Journal than for the Constitution. You have to work out the details of your career early.
The odd thing is, now that I look back, after making my decision as to what to do with my life, it really wasn’t that difficult achieving it. Maybe it’s because I was just lucky. Maybe it’s because my decision was just so right. I don’t really know. I do know that most everything that has happened to me afterward in the newspaper business has felt natural and that must mean something.
My first sportswriting job came when I was ten. Moreland and the surrounding hamlets had no organized Little League program, as they did in the county seat of Newnan, where the well-to-do, not to mention the pretty-well-to-do, all lived. Out in the county, we were not-well-to-do-by-any-means.
What happened when I was ten was that the Baptist churches in the county decided to start a baseball league for boys. I was a Methodist at the time, but I showed up at the very next Baptist baptismal and was immersed in the name of the Lord, as well as in the name of a nicely turned double play or a line drive in the gap between left and center.
I was a pitcher. When our coach asked me, “What position do you play?” I simply said, “I am a pitcher,” and that was that.
It also occurred to me it would be a fine thing to have the results of our league printed in the local weekly, the Newnan Times Herald, which always carried all sorts of news about the fancy-ass Newnan Little League, where all the teams actually had uniforms. They also got a new baseball for every game.
For the first time in my life, I attempted a phone deal. I called the editor of the paper and told him of my desire that he run results of my baseball league.
The Times-Herald did run bits of news from the outlying areas, normally in a column under a thrilling heading that read, “News from the Moreland Community,” which would be followed by something along the lines of the following:
Mr. and Mrs. Hoke Flournoy were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Lon Garpe at their lovely double-wide home, located in the Bide-A-Wee Trailer park, Sunday afternoon. Iced tea was served and a watermelon was cut.
Miss Jeanine Potts visited her mother, Elvira Potts, this weekend. Jeanine is currently a student at the Kut ‘N’ Kurl beauty school in Macon. Jeanine said Macon is a nice place to visit, but she was having troubles meeting fellow Christians.
Hardy Mixon and his wife, Flora, have returned home after their vacation to Panama City, Florida. Hardy said he enjoyed the air conditioning in the motel, the Sun ‘N’ Surf, but that Flora made him turn it down because it made her feet cold.
Narkin Gaines caught a possum last week and promptly ate it.
Brother Sims, the Baptist preacher, brought us a lovely message Sunday morning at the worship hour concerning the coveting of thy neighbor’s ass.
As it turned out, it wasn’t that difficult a proposition talking the paper’s editor into carrying the results of our games.
“You get ’em to us by Tuesday,” he said, “and we’ll have ’em in the paper on Thursday.”
I had my very first sportswriting job. And the very first week, I ran into my very first journalism ethics problem. In Moreland’s opener, I happened to no-hit Macedonia Baptist in a 14-0 rout in which Dudley Stamps hit three home runs.
We hosted the opening tilt (“tilt” being one of the first sportswriting clichés I ever learned). For some reason, “tilt” can be used as a replacement for “game,” “contest,” or “showdown.” At the
