Addie Beth Denton - 108 Stitches: A Girl Grows Up with Baseball

Jorge Ib er, Editor

Also in t his series

Se or Sack: The Life of Gabr iel Rivera

Jorge Iber

108
Stitches

A Girl Grows Up wit h Baseball

Addie B eth Denton

Texas Tech Univer sity Press

Copyright 2022 by Texas Tech Univer sity Press

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including electronic storage and retrieval systems, except by explicit prior written permission of the publisher. Brief passages excerpted for review and critical purposes are excepted.

This book is typeset in Crimson Text. The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39. 48-1992 (R1997).

Designed by Hann ah Gaskamp

Cover design by Hann ah Gaskamp

Names: Denton, Addie Beth, 1946 author. Title: 108 Stitches: A Girl Grows Up with Baseball / Addie Beth Denton. Other titles: One hundred and eight stitches. Description: Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University Press, 2022. | Series: Texas Sports Heroes | Includes index. | Summary: Memoir of a young womans experience growing up in Texas with a love for and family members involved in major and minor league baseball franchisesProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022002403 (print) | LCCN 2022002404 (ebook) |

ISBN 978-1 - 68283-140 -3 (paperback) | ISBN 978-1 - 68283-141 -0 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: BaseballUnited StatesHistory20th century. | BaseballTexasHistory20th century. | Denton, Addie Beth, 1946 | Denton, Addie B eth, 1946

Family. | Women baseball fansUnited StatesBiography. | TexasBiography. Classification: LCC GV863.A1 D465 2022 (print) | LCC GV863.A1 (ebook) | DDC 796.3570973/0904 [B]dc23/en g/20220623

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ 2022002403

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/ 2022002404

Printed in the United States of America

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 / 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Texas Tech Univer sity Press

Box 41037

Lubbock, Texas 7940 9-1037 USA

0.832.4042

tt up@ttu.edu

www.tt upress.org

To the Baseball Gods, who always watche d over me,

and to my grandsons Oliver and Sawyer Collins and Henry, William, and Ted dy Denton,

scions of the next g eneration.

The game is absolutely magical. A spiritual event that people cannot get ahold of. It defies all of us. Its historic, ageless, beautiful, and by and large its outdoors in the su mmertime.

Fay Vincent, Major League Baseball Commissioner, 19891992

It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fa ll alone.

A. Bartlett Giamatti, Major League Baseball Commissi oner, 1989

The same is true on the double play. Bo [Jackson] doesnt get there [to second] as fast as some other people, even though he is faster than everybody. Im not as worried about Bo as I someday will be. Don Baylor used to be fast, and he got so he could get there quicker than anybody because he did things the r ight way.

Calvin Edwin Cal Ripken Jr., Hall of Fame shortstop and third baseman for the Baltimore Orioles, 19812001

In those wordsthe right waythe Ripken blood, and that of baseball , speaks.

George F. Will, author of Men at Work: The Craft of Base ball , 1990

Contents

Ill ustrations

Authors father Tom Craft and his mother Emily Morri son Craft

Young Harry Craft in Cincinnati Re ds uniform

Harry Craft speaks to radio j ournalist

Author at five years old with Harry Craft, family, a nd friends

Harry Craft wearing Houston Colt .45 s uniform

Authors grandmother in Victo rian dress

Harry Craft posing for newsp aper photo

Houston Colt .45s bas eball team

Authors daughter Liza and friends watching Texas Rangers game from Eddie Ch iles box

Preface

My maternal grandparents Addie and Robert Pierce Lee traveled to Texas from Tennessee in a covered wagon. They had seven daughters. Their youngest, Beth, was my mother. My grandfather also had a ranch in New Mexico and was there frequently. I always wondered if he needed a break from all those women in the house.

Imagine then when a lanky fellow from Mississippiand from a family of baseball playerscame to Throckmorton, Texas, and met my mother at the First Methodist Church. She was the church organist. He was wearing a w hite suit.

They fell in love and got married. I was their o nly child.

While I could never pitch or play right field for my teamthe Yankeesbecause I was a girl, the baseball gods made sure I would have a lifetime of baseball memories to tell my five grandsons.

This is my story.

As I approach my 76th birthday (time flies when you are having fun!), I realize I do not remember a day in my long life without baseball.

Although pitchers and catchers report for spring training at the end of February and the World Series ends in November (sometimes with snow on the field), the game stays with me each day of the year. I read the sports pages without fail and tune in to my favorite ESPN reporters. Depending on what they say, my respect for these announcers varies. At this time in 2022, I favor Mike Greenberg on TV and radio, and of course there is no one who compares with Randy Galloway of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram , to whom in earlier years I would listen on 103.3 FM. I have met both these storied reporters. Just as an aside, even though he does not play baseball, to tell any sports reporter that I am from Bob Lillys hometown gains me instan t respect.

Baseballplayed in the US since before the Civil Waris an experience that is unforgettable. It begins when the weather is crisp, can be burning up in Texas in July and August, and may culminate in late October with snow on the ground in Bostons Fenway Park. The sounds on the field and in the stands are predictable and unchanging: the crack of a bat, the infield chatter, the calls of the ump, hot dogs, popcorn, peanuts... b eer here.

And now it comes time for me to hop on that t rain...

108
Stitches

In troduction

Its summer! The train ride from Dallas, Texas, to Kansas City, Missouri, is always exciting. I relish the exhilarating feeling of the cars of the Kansas City Southern railway going faster and faster and the soothing, rhythmic hum of the trains engine. The gently rolling hills of North Central Texas turn to piney woods as the train heads east to Shreveport, Louisiana, and then the landscape becomes flat and smooth as the train turns north into Americas heartland. I love running up and down the aisle, pausing to stare through the windows at the passing scenery, opening the doors between the cars with hot, dusty puffs of wind in my hair and deafening sounds in my ears. My small hands work hard to make sure the doors close behind me, and when I finally sit down to eat lunch, I save the colored plastic toothpicks from the small club sandwiches, stuffing them into the pockets of my light blue dress. By the end of the trip, I have a small collection, which returns with me to my hometown of Throckmorton, Texas, where a fruit jar waits to receive it, a colorful bouquet that is a remembrance of my trip and a testimony to several others.

The train station in Kansas City is old and crowded. Because I come from such a tiny West Texas town, I am temporarily frightened by the noise and confusion. Kansas City is where I hear my first ambulance siren, a sound I dont recognize because we have no ambulances in Throckmorton. My dad patiently explains to me the purpose of the zooming van, pointing to the cars as they stop on the side of the road to le t it pass.