Bucky graduated from high school in the Spring of 1938. He liked football, baskeball and track. He pole vaulted between 10-11 feet with the old stiff cane pole. He also played baseball and that seemed to be his passion.
I’ve always tried to “piece together” Bucky’s baseball exploits after high school and it has been difficult. Some of his mother’s (my Grandma Myrna) scrapbooks establish some time lines for the baseball career.
Bucky joined the Greenbush baseball team of the Kettle-Morine League in the summer of 1938. They won the league championship that year. He did everything left-handed. He pitched a little but his permanent position was right field.
My Grandpa Chalk was an ardent supporter of Bucky’s baseball career. Chalk was a Director of the Plymouth Athletic Association. There was a deeply shared interest.
In 1939, the Greenbush baseball team played in the State Baseball Tournament and the General Manager of the Milwaukee Brewers baseball club had noticed Bucky. “Bucky is a ball hawk and his batting was excellent. His speed had accounted for many stolen bases”. I know he was fast. As a result of his performance in that tournament, Bucky was offered a contract to play professionally. Bucky was 19 at the time and legal age was 21. His contract was “approved and signed by his father”. Grandpa Chalk continued support. Remember this was 1939. I don’t know what the relationship of the Brewers was to major league baseball. I thought at one time they were a major league club but I could be wrong. The Brewers might have been a AAA Club.
Bucky was to report to Hopkinsville (Kentucky), a Class D Club of the Southern League in the Spring of 1940. His opportunity was to advance to the class D team in Bloomington (I think Indiana) and then on to the Brewers.
The story gets a little hazy here because in the spring of 1940, he reported to the Brewers farm club in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Eau Claire was in the Northern League of Class D ball. That is where he met Andy Pafko who went on to have a 15-16 year major league career with the Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Braves.
The Spring of 1940 is when I was born. Bucky was off playing baseball for Eau Claire and my mother had to walk from her Mother & Dad’s home to the Plymouth Hospital to give birth. It sounds bad, but the walk was one block. My birth certificate identifies my dad as a professional baseball player. I don’t want to say I was an unexpected surprise, but my parents were married in February of 1040.
1940 was the transition year. A marriage in Februay followed by a baseball tryout that Spring and my being born in April must have created a “busy” time. I think Bucky was “cut” in late April or early May of 1940. Reality was about to set it in. He got a job at a local cheese business as a clerk-accountant. He managed the Plymouth baseball team of the Kettle-Morine League for several years including playing with the team. Baseball remained in his life as he continured to play for local teams and coached little league teams as his own kids grew up. In 1957 he was feted as one of the “all-time Plymouth baseball greats”.
The lesson Grasshoppers is that Bucky had a chance at the “brass ring”. How many people in life have an opportunity to pursue their passion and get paid for it? I know that Bucky lamented all his life about the missing the “Big Leagues” but he was one of the very few to even get a chance. He passed on his knowledge of the game to many including his own sons. He continued to be involved in baseball in some way. He may have thought he failed but I think he was fortunate to have had the chance to chase his dream. He followed his passion. He lived! Oh, how he lived!
Love,
Dad