Cassville has always been a good baseball community. Even as far back as Mineral Springs playing Star City, the true Blues of the semi-pro KOMA league, the town team Blues, and the American Legion team.
It’s the last one that is subject of today as it originated in 1946, sponsored by Ford Motor Co. and Bill Hailey Motors of Cassville
I played on this team, first coached by Paul Young, Charley Bashe and Chan Griffin. It was teams during the later years that produced the best records and recognitions.
Player’s note
It is a note from one of the players of that later era that sparked this column. He was a member of the combined Monett-Cassville team, which was an excellent idea at the time.
His note had to do with coaches at the time, Jerry and Jeremy Marple, Roger Brock and myself as manager.
The text: “I wanted you guys to know that this morning I was offered the head baseball job at Webb City. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you all asking me to coach nearly 20 years ago. I will also say that I don’t think I’d be where I am today without you guys sitting me down in a motel in Lamar, Mo., and laying the law down about how I needed to start acting. I am glad that I had you all as a positive influence in my life at that age. I really needed everything you have done for me.”
His name is Andrew Doennig, his parents are Mr. and Mrs. David Doennig. The father was once Barry-Lawrence Library director.
Many of the conversations we had with him will be good material for his coaching career.
Another success
There is another success story from this Legion team that was a Wildcat stalwart and played Legion ball.
He later played at School of the Ozarks and served that staff as an assistant. After coaching at a few lower level class schools, he is now head coach in baseball at Pierce City.
His name is B.J. Curry, the son of the Mr. and Mrs. Charles Curry who resided nearly on the banks of Roaring River upstream from Eagle Rock.
When he wasn’t pitching, he was playing shortstop.
B.J. presented the four of us with a plaque of appreciation at the end of the season.
B.J. pitched a home game win over Joplin, their lone loss of the year in 15th district play, which sent Cassville to regional play.
Another coach
As part of another combined team, a left-handed thrower played with Cassville and is now coaching the Aurora ’Houn Dawgs. His name is Austin Lawrence.
Regional honors
Outside the Joplin win, the Irwin-Easley Legion team participated for three or four years in the Van Buren, Ark., tournament, a prestigious event that chooses Legion teams from throughout the Southwest. They once came home with the championship.
There was no way the legion post could afford the two-or three-day stay of the team and adult staffers. It was Jerry Marple who financed most of the expenses that gave the young men the experience of some bigtime baseball competition.
What came later
For recruiting against Legion rules, Joplin was later expelled from the league. Whether they were ever reinstated or not isn’t known at this time.
Irwin-Easley dropped the program due to lack of funds.
The program was one of the best for baseball players who had not reached their 18th birthday during the playing season.
A memory of those first years was riding to a game in Nevada with Les Sims in his open grain-bed truck.
Transportation was always a problem in those days. Our vehicle quit at Yonkerville one Sunday, and we hitchhiked to Joplin where a taxi took us to the ball field and the driver would not accept a fee.
Bob Mitchell is the former editor and publisher of the Cassville Democrat. He is a 2017 inductee to both the Missouri Press Association Hall of Fame and Missouri Southern State University’s Regional Media Hall of Fame.
