a strong season at AAA in 1965, he was called up in September, seeing little action. For the next few seasons, he fought for playing time behind All-Star Tom Haller. He recalls earning starts mostly against teams with great base-stealers. He credits his ability to gun down runners to his basketball experience, which taught him how to catch and release a ball quickly and accurately, a skill he worked on throughout his career. But sitting on the bench for days and even weeks between starts made it tough to hit well.
After the 1969 season, he was traded to the Padres, where he finally nabbed a starting job in 1971 and enjoyed his best MLB season. When the next season began, following the players’ strike, he found himself back on the bench. He contends that the reduced playing time was due to his role as the union rep.
By that time, he had begun building a financial services business and, at 30, was preparing for life after baseball. When he learned of the trade to the Reds, he retired rather than report to AAA Indianapolis. “I said, ‘You tell those boys I’m not coming,’” he says. And he didn’t. He sat out the remainder of the season. Then, around Christmas, Reds manager Sparky Anderson called, explaining that a spot had been found on Johnny Bench’s lung and the team was unsure about their catcher’s future.
Skeptical of the game’s business side, Barton insisted on a guaranteed contract. He says he was happy to be coming home, but wanted to protect himself in case Bench proved to be okay. Bench played in 152 games that season, Barton in just three. He had no hits in two plate appearances, walking once. With a healthy Bench and a strong backup in Bill Plummer, the Reds released Barton on June 17. The following spring, the Padres signed him to back up young Fred Kendall and then released him at the end of the season.
Barton has worked ever since at his financial services business, settling just north of San Diego, where he still lives with his wife, Connie. Always a talkative, happy-go-lucky guy, he maintains a reputation as a great storyteller, which keeps sports journalists coming to him, even though his playing days are long past.
JIM BECKMAN
MARCH 1, 1905–DECEMBER 5, 1974
Major League Career
1927–1928
Time as a Red
1927–1928
Position
PITCHER
THE QUESTION “WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE REDS?” was heard frequently in the first half of the 1927 season, according to historian Lee Allen in his 1948 book The Cincinnati Reds. The year before they’d nearly won the pennant, finishing just two games behind the Cardinals after a hard-fought race. They’d put together five straight winning seasons, finishing in second place three of the previous five years. But after a wretched start, they remained in last place in mid-July.
Before the season they’d traded away their biggest star, centerfielder Edd Roush, but the surprisingly slow start was the result of surprisingly poor pitching. Throughout the 1920s, the Reds had boasted one of the best staffs in the game, but heavy workloads on the big three starters—Eppa Rixey, Dolf Luque, and Pete Donohue—had taken a toll. In casting about for help they signed a local boy who had never even pitched in the minors.
Reinhardt Boeckman grew up in a big family in Norwood, the youngest child of Frank and Clara Boeckman. His father was a streetcar conductor, his mother a German immigrant. At some point he Anglicized his name, going by Jim Beckman. A 5′10″ right-hander, he gained local attention as the ace of Comello’s Clothiers, a strong amateur team that won the NABF (National Amateur Baseball Federation) championship in 1926, beating Detroit Checker Cab 6–5. He likely began the next year with Comello’s, but the Reds signed him in late July to provide bullpen help. At the age of 22, he made his Major League debut on July 27, 1927, pitching two shutout innings against the Boston Braves in the first game of a doubleheader at Redland Field, surrendering two hits and a walk.
He settled into the role of mop-up reliever, but the Reds didn’t give him a whole lot to do, as by August they had turned the season around and were moving up the standings—too late for a pennant run, but safely above the cellar. Beckman gave up more than his share of walks and hits, but not until August 21 did he give up a run, when Edd Roush, now with the Giants, clubbed a two-run homer.
On September 25, with the team entrenched in fifth place, Beckman finally made a start. His former teammates on the Comello’s showed up before the game at Redland Field to give him a “traveling bag” and wish him well. Facing the last place Phillies, who lost 103 games that year, he probably felt confident, but not for long. “They hammered Jimmy Beckman hard enough to drive him out of the box,” the Enquirer reported. The Phillies scored four in the second inning, though not all the runs were earned. Beckman, however, made the error that caused them. He also made a low throw to second on a sacrifice bunt in hopes of getting a double play. He settled down and cruised into the eighth, but once there he surrendered three more runs. In all, he gave up eight runs on 14 hits in seven and two-thirds innings, walking a batter and hitting another.
A bad ending to a surprising season. He didn’t make the team out of spring training, but the Reds signed him again in June, and he remained on the team until the end of the year in the mop-up role, and performed well until his final appearance, on September 22, in a doubleheader in Boston. The Reds lost the first game 11–4, Beckman pitching the final 1.2 innings and giving up no runs. Then in the second game he relieved Harlan Pyle in the second inning and shut down the Braves until the eighth, when he suffered a meltdown, giving up six runs. Though he was only 23, he never pitched professionally again. Did he suffer an arm injury in that one terrible inning?
He remained a bachelor for the rest of his life, working mostly as a car salesman while living with his mother and various siblings, eventually sharing a residence with his sister Marie, who also never married. When he died at the age of 69, they were living in Montgomery. Why he left behind the game while still so young and with two years of Major League experience remains a mystery.
BUDDY BELL
AUGUST 27, 1951–
Major League Career
1972–1989
Time as a Red
1985–1988
Position
THIRD BASE
AS A KID, Buddy Bell didn’t so much dream of playing for the Reds as plan on it. His dad, Gus, was one of the team’s biggest stars in the 1950s, and Joe Nuxhall, Wally Post, and other players came frequently to the Bell home in Monfort Heights. “It’s not like I took it for granted,” he says, “but I didn’t know what the process was.”
He found out about the process at a Reds’ tryout held at Crosley Field during the summer of 1968 between his junior and senior years at Moeller High School, where he was already a star. Approximately 100 hopefuls showed up for running, fielding, throwing, and hitting drills, followed by an intra-squad game. Bell felt he played well, even knocking one off the scoreboard, but when the scouts called out the players they wanted to see again, his name wasn’t mentioned.
