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Ninth-Inning Conviction

The �����ջ� baseball team of ’39 faced a ruthless foe at the state penitentiary.

Baseball has no clock, but some games feel like eternal punishment, even when your opponents are serving life.

The �����ջ� Cardinals (as they were then) never forgot the game they played on April 22, 1939, inside the grim, gray walls of the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem.

First baseman Gregg Wood ’39, now a retired physician in Lake Oswego, remembers that the game began with a promising start. Third baseman Randy Gore ’39 led off with a homer.

“You could hear the cons saying things like, ‘I’ll bet ya half a pack of butts on the visitors,’” Gregg says.

The Cardinals’ optimism soon faded. As the game progressed, the �����ջ� squad was alarmed to discover that the convict team included several expert players, including a hulking, masterful right-handed pitcher.

Gregg can still remember being baffled at the plate. “We had ’em 1–0, but they had a player—Luke Crosswhite,” he recalls. “He just slaughtered us pitching. He was really terrific.”

In fact, inmate pitcher Keith “Big Luke” Crosswhite was an extraordinary athlete who would lead the OSP team to several victories over professional teams in the next few years. (See sidebar.)

�����ջ� surrendered four runs in the third inning, and another three in the fourth. The Cardinals “put up a game fight,” according to the Quest, notching seven hits, including Randy’s dinger and hits by Gregg and Robert Scholz ’40. But the “impotent �����ջ� attack” went nowhere, and the final score was a 10–1 pounding.

The Quest headline was unsparing: “�����ջ� Trounced by Prison Team.”

Pitcher Al Kronenberg ’41 never forgot the game, reminiscing about it whenever he drove past the penitentiary. “‘There’s the slammer,’ my dad would always say,” recalls his daughter, Janet Hill, adding that Al would describe the sound of the main doors closing behind the �����ջ� nine that day in 1939.

The sound may have still been echoing in Al’s mind as he stood on the pitcher’s mound. Prison warden George Alexander indirectly weighed in on �����ջ�’s pitching in an irate note he wrote a couple of weeks later to a sporting goods supplier: “I wish to enter a complaint regarding the quality of the bats, which we have been purchasing from you during the past two months. Out of the number we have bought, 15 of them have broke, which would indicate they are not of very strong material.” Perhaps they couldn’t hold up to so many fat pitches and big swings.

In fairness, the �����ջ� squad didn’t benefit from very intensive training. The legendary Charles S. Botsford [director of physical education, 1912–52] encouraged students to play for the love of the game. He named skillful players as “masters,” and they often ran the teams. “The idea was that we didn’t have a paid coach, and we selected players to be the next year’s coach,” says Dick Irwin ’42, now retired as chief of the U.S. Census and living in Alexandria, Virginia.

Botsford’s philosophy was extolled in affectionate eulogies after his death in 1967. “Physical activity, games, and sports, Bots believed, are for personal fulfillment, for mental as well as physical health, for enjoyment, for fellowship, and for life after college days are over,” read one.

“Star athletes had his admiration and blessing and he appointed them as ‘masters’ to teach others,” said Byron Youtz [acting president, 1967–68; physics, 1956–68]. “But he was devoted to the inept, the uncoordinated, the timid, and the duffer, whom he led to the threshold where skill lay and where the pleasure and excitement of achievement came.”

The Cardinals’ record that year was an undistinguished 4–13, although they managed to finish the season with a thumping 8–3 victory over Pacific College (now George Fox University).

“We didn’t win a lot of games,” Dick says. “We weren’t very good, but we had a lot of fun playing.”

But the subsequent careers and lives of the 1939 Cardinals are an eloquent testament to the wisdom of Botsford’s approach. Sure, they got pasted by the inmates, but the camaraderie they developed—and their love of the game—sustained them through their time at �����ջ�, during World War II, and beyond. Indeed, many of them became lifelong friends.

Al Kronenberg served with the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific, then became an executive with Weyerhauser. His career took him and his family to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Indonesia. Throughout his life, his varsity letter R remained one of his prized possessions. “Baseball was a huge part of his life,” says his daughter Janet.

Al’s widow, Anne, said his �����ջ� friendships formed a social core. “The wonderful thing about the teammates was that they stayed friends forever,” she says.

At a memorial for Bill Martin ’41, Al recounted a bit of sibling rivalry and athletic folly. “[Bill] played left field in baseball, and his brother Curt played shortstop,” Al wrote. “An opponent hit a harmless fly, both called for it, both were stubborn, and they ran into each other. The ball dropped on the ground between them and they started a fistfight. By the time another player got the ball, the batter was on third.”

“That group of men was so neat,” Janet says. “Nobody came from great wealth, but all those guys from �����ջ� went out and did really great things.”

Just not on a baseball field.

Will Swarts ’92 is a writer in New York. Old rugby teammates will quickly point to him as a prime example of �����ջ�’s tradition of enthusiastic but unskilled athletes.

Tags: �����ջ� History, Alumni, Campus Life, Sports & Adventures