One of the greatest catchers of his time,
Wally Schang spent his last years here in my little hometown of Dixon, Missouri, where I stll live and work as a radio newsman.
I am 53 now, and remember him well, but I kick myself for not asking him more questions when he was alive.
My dad, Ralph Goforth was the young editor/publisher of the Dixon Pilot, the local weekly newspaper, and Wally was a mentor to dad, who played minor league for a season before the war called.
My baseball career ended at age six when dad tossed me a fat knuckle ball and I fired it right through the plate glass picture window of our old white Victorian house on Oak street.
He understood that my interest was rockets and space travel, but he still took me to Sportsman's Park in St. Louis from time to time to see Stan the Man belt 'em into the bleachers.
(I remember his batting stance...like no other.)
Anyway, Wally would drop by the printing office and chat with dad as he set type for the next issue of the newspaper.
Wally was hyper and full of energy, balding, with a big toothy smile, and talked with a raspy voice in a short, gruff manor, much like the cartoon character Crime Dog.
"I remember Ty Cobb" he would say...."Sonofabitch would sharpen his cleats so he could get me slidin' into Home!"
He had a peck of stories about "The Babe", usually featuring drinking, hot dogs, train rides, and whore houses.
Mom usually sent me to the drugstore for a milkshake when Wally talked about "The Babe".
Wally liked to play golf, and he often pared up with the Methodist preacher, scorching the poor man's ears with fiery cussing that echoed against the green Ozark hills.
Wally had the easy manner of a man who had no need to prove himself among others...he already had, long ago and far away' on the dusty fields of his youthful summers.
He and his wife lived in a modest little house on the edge of the woods outside of town.
Shortly after Wally died, someone broke into his house and stole all his baseball stuff from the old days, but by then Wally was already with his pals in the field of dreams, adjusting his face mask and hunkering down for a summer that never ends.
We all think it is very sad and unfair that Wally Schang is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
I hope they vote him in while I'm still alive.
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Copyright © 2004 by Skip Goforth. Posted July 13, 2004.
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