Baseball in Euclid in the 1950s and 1960s

Though I was born in Willoughby, I grew up in Euclid, Ohio--from age 3 until I left home and moved to Cincinnati at age 22. Euclid was a sports-crazed town--at least that was my perspective on it. And I was baseball crazy. Beginning around 1957 I spent my summer days playing baseball at the local playground, which everyone called "Mudville"--later to be officially called "Willow Playground." Mudville was down Farringdon Avenue at E.272nd Street, about a quarter mile away. I always ran to and from my house to Mudville, passing the homes of many playmates and fellow ballplayers. Moving down Farringdon, there were the homes of Buster and Kenny Zylowski, Chuckie Lintern, Bernard and Paul Dembek, Clay Lutsch, Frankie Andrulis, Mike Sikora, and Pat Mueller.

Mike Sikora became a well-known realtor in Mentor. Buster moved out to the state of Washington, Kenny to Florida, and I don't know about the rest. Mike Sikora was older than us, maybe 4 years I would guess. I have one hilarious memory of him getting bopped on the head by a high fly ball. The ball hit him square on the top of his head and bounced straight up, higher than the telephone wires. I also remember Mike playing in the local softball league--a ferociously competitive league usually dominated by the guys from Gary Avenue.

While watching the baseball playoffs these past few weeks I thought of Bernard Dembek. Bernard was also a few years older than us, but I did play ball with him. He had a straight overhand pitch and he could throw very hard. Bernard did not give up many hits. His arm motion was unique and scared hitters half to death. His brother Paul didn't pitch as often, as I remember, and didn't have that straight overhand motion (but, if I remember correctly, Big Paul could hit the ball a mile).

One of the greatest players on Farringdon was Clay Lutsch. He usually played shortstop and was a tremendous fielder and hitter. He had a buddy who lived on Shirley Avenue, David Kaprosy, who also was a terrific baseball player--good hands, strong arm, good hitter. Dave Kaprosy had hands twice as big as my own. I believe he is now a lawyer somewhere around Moreland Hills. So many successful people came out of this humble Euclid neighborhood!

Frankie Andrulis lived across the street from Clay. He was a couple years younger than us, but also a good ballplayer. He was tall and thin, and had an older brother even taller. Even his sister was tall; they were all good athletes.

At the very end of Farringdon lived Patrick Mueller. Talk about tall--I think Pat ended up being the drum major for Ohio State's band. I played baseball with Pat for many years and went to high school with him. I believe his father was a Cleveland detective. No idea where Pat is today.

These were some of the ballplayers that lived on Farringdon. Each street had a gang of ballplayers--Zeman Ave., Shirley Ave., Drakefield, Gary, Biardale. Many names come to mind: Jay Niedermeyer, Jim Allsip, Gary Czyzynski, Dale Kovatch, my brother Denny, Frank Calabro, John George and his brothers, the Lynch boys, Tony Severino (maybe the greatest athlete of all of them), Gary King. Wish all the names would come to me!

Making Baseballs in Euclid

I spent most waking hours of my summers as a kid at Mudville, known to the uninitiated as Willow Playground (between E. 272nd St. and Willow Drive in Euclid, Ohio). My most precious possession was my baseball glove, a Rawlings, "Finest in the Field!" I often thought as a kid what I would save if we ever had a fire at our house. I liked Mom and Dad, Denny, Mary Ellen, Kev, and Jim just fine. But my first priority would be to save Rawlings--save my baseball mitt. Baseball was very important to me--it was a deep connection to my Dad (who himself was a fine player and a tremendous left-handed hitter); and to my Grampa Connie, minor league player (for Rockford, Illinois,in the "Three-I" League) and a terrific Cleveland sandlot and semi-pro ballplayer. So I'm sure it was part of my love for them that I played baseball so intensely, practiced so hard, played so much.

Our family had very little money and Dad was periodically laid off, especially early in his career as an electrician for Fisher Body. So there was not a lot of money for toys or for sports equipment. Sometimes I was just on my own to get together bats, balls, and mitts. Often I didn't even own a decent bat. Sometimes I had to find a discarded broken bat at Mudville, do a little surgery on it, and voila! a workable bat. It often took some tiny nails and lots of electricians' tape (we had plenty of that around the house). If I could scrape together 3 to 4 dollars, I would go to Koenig's (Euclid Avenue near E. 260th) or Sears at Shoregate and buy a Louisville Slugger. That was good luck indeed when I could buy a new bat.

When it came to baseballs I often found discarded balls without covers, and old thrown-away leather covers--and then I would sew them back together and make a ball almost as good as new. I bought huge curved sewing needles and learned to sew baseballs using heavy-duty thread and these 2 carpet needles. You could not tell the difference between a baseball I sewed together and a new baseball (except the covers of my baseballs were pretty scuffed up).

So we made do, with very little money. And we were able to play ball from morning until night--even if we had to sew together the baseballs and nail together the bats.

Joy in Mudville/Willow Playground

My old neighborhood in Euclid, Ohio was developed in 1951 by a builder named Marvin Helf. I would guess that the neighborhood was about 1/2 mile north to south and 1/2 mile east to west. On the north side it began at East 266 Street and Zeman Avenue and ran south to Elinore. East to west, at the widest point, it extended from E. 260th to E.272nd Street. The streets were in straight line grids and the lots were very small (my guess is 1/10th of an acre). The homes were built as 2-story bungalows, but the top floor was originally unfinished. Colored asbestos shingles covered the homes. There was no garage, no basement, one bathroom, 2 bedrooms, a utility room, a very small kitchen, and a dinette. The finished living space might have been 800 square feet. The homes were priced at $11,900 when they first went on the market in 1951. Down the road about 1/2 mile was another neighborhood of brick ranch homes, the "F & S Homes." These were originally priced even less than the Marvin Helf homes. Between these two neighborhoods about 10 acres were left for a playground. When I first started playing there around 1956 or '57, it was a muddy mess, our muddy mess, and everyone called it "Mudville," Since that time, the City of Euclid gave it an official name--"Willow Playground. It was there, at Mudville, that I spent almost every minute of my life as a kid.


Some People I Played Ball With at Mudville/Willow Playground.

I remember playing baseball with Clay Lutch from Farringdon Avenue and Dave Kaprosy from Shirley Avenue. Clay was a terrific shortstop and Dave had tremendous athletic skills. I remember the size of his hands--gigantic compared with my small hands. There was Gary Czyzynski, Jay Neidermeyer, and Jim Allsip (I think these guys were from Drakefield Avenue). Wayne Starkey (full name might have been Starkweather) came to Mudville from E. 266 and Shoreview. Pat Mueller sometimes played (he lived on Farringdon at E. 272). There are others I'll mention in another posting.

Joy in Mudville (Willow Playground in Euclid, Ohio)

"There is no joy in Mudville, Might Casey has struck out." So goes the famous poem "Casey at the Bat." But I am here to tell you that there was plenty of joy in Mudville when I was a kid. "Mudville" is what we called our playground, a small undeveloped area, perhaps 15 acres, bounded on the west by E. 272nd Street, and on all other sides by the semi-circular Willow Drive. To the west was the ticky-tacky bungalow homes built by Marvin Helf (homes that cost $11,900 in 1951 when my family moved in); and to the east, north, and south, by brick ranches, the "F & S Homes." The only thing I can figure is that they couldn't decide out how to develop this little semi-circle of land, and thought they would be "magnanimous" and donate it to the city of Euclid. We never ever heard any official name for this piece of land, and so we (and everyone!) called it Mudville--for the astonishing quantities of mud that covered part of the area.

I would guess that from about 1955, when I was 7 years old, until my mid teens, I spent most of my life at Mudville playing baseball. Much of the time the baseball involved pick-up games, and for 3 years I played organized Midget League baseball. Later, I played softball with the Farringdon Avenue men's team--an incredible spirited kind of ball.

I played with some great players in Mudville and learned to play a very high quality, very competitive (and at times ferocious) brand of baseball. Some of the great athletes I remember include the following: Tony Severino (for 25 years the head football coach at Rockhurst High School, the Jesuit Prep School in Kansas City; Rockhurst was state champs in football last year). Tony was the best young hitter I had ever seen. As a 12 year old, he could hit the ball over the fence--sometimes hitting the roofs of homes on Willow Drive. Tony was a dark-skinned, tall Italian. I'm pretty sure that Italian was spoken at his home on Briardale Avenue. Tony went to Cathedral Latin High School from St. William's and starred in many sports. He eventually got a football scholarship to Kansas State University, and afterwards made a career as a high school teacher and coach. I remember Tony vividly, admired his athletic skill tremendously.
[more coming very soon]