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We’re Contacted by Acquaintance of Brooklyn Dodger Great, Preacher Roe,
Part Two
“Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you!” –Preacher Roe, commenting after once being taken out of a game in the second inning.
Today I’ll continue sharing information about Preacher Roe which was kindly sent to me by Terry Farmer. If you remember in Part One, Terry mentioned that he grew up in West Plains, Missouri, the town in which Preacher and his family settled after he retired from baseball. Terry became good friends with Preacher’s son, Tommy.
Preacher also was a major influence in Terry’s life during those years. The families became friends and Preacher coached the town teams Terry and Tommy played on together for many years.
I asked Terry if he stayed in contact with his boyhood chum, Tommy Roe, and if he had any more information on the Roe family:
“Tommy was Preach’s youngest of two sons. His other son and namesake, Elwin Charles Roe, was the first son. He passed away within the last six months. He never had any interest in sports of any kind. He was active in speech and debate and eventually taught those subjects in a thirty-plus-year career in the public schools.”
“Tommy was the athlete, although didn’t have much size. But he was a plus defensive outfielder (mostly left field) with a decent arm and had a little pop in his bat. Good speed. But an overachiever who made himself a very good player.”
“He’s in good health as far as I know. He has never lived anywhere but in West Plains. He worked for years for his father-in-law in the construction business. And for a while worked in a sporting goods store with Preacher in West Plains after Preacher sold his supermarket. I haven’t seen him in years but I have friends that play in golf tourneys down there and they see him and say that he and his two sons are very good golfers.”
I asked Terry if he had any information on Preacher’s wife:
“Mozee (pronounced Maw-see) Clay was from tiny Viola, Arkansas, near tiny Ash Flat [Preacher’s hometown]. Preach and Mozee were childhood sweethearts and were married shortly after they graduated high in about 1935. I remember Mozee as a quiet, almost painfully shy, and reclusive person until she was in a small group of her best friends where she was comfortable. She and Preach were active in the local Methodist Church and I remember being involved in youth activities with Tommy that she chaperoned. She later had a number of illnesses that forced her to become pretty much homebound. She predeceased Preach by a number of years.”
“The pic on the right was taken at our house in the late fifties when Preacher
Terry also had some interesting things to say about Duke Snider:
“Snider hated to fly. So he would often go cross country from California to Vero Beach by station wagon with his wife. He could stop along the way to visit any former players. In February of 1955, Snider stopped for a few days in West Plains. Preacher had him out to the “goat ranch” that was the West Plains Country Club to play a round. My dad was a nearly scratch golfer so Preach asked him to play along in a foursome with the local newspaper editor. I went along to spot balls and look for any
lost balls that were out of bounds. The pics of me with Preach and Duke were taken at the old number 3 tee box. This was a dogleg left par 5, the longest hole on this 9 hole sand green course. Snider hit a drive that laid up just short of the “green” where he chipped on to putt for an eagle. It was comical to watch him tee off on a golf ball.”
“One night, Preacher hosted a ‘stag party’ to give Duke a ‘taste of the Ozarks.’ He had Harry Ball, a local oyster frier expert, come down and fry up a ‘mess’ of mountain oysters. Mountain oysters are pig testicles! My dad was among the ‘stags’ down there for this and said Snider played along and said something like ‘these are pretty good, they taste a lot like chicken!’ “
Terry related to me an interesting story about Preacher’s pension dispute with the Dodgers, giving us a glimpse of how much the monetary aspect of the game has changed:
“Preach was making $28,000 dollars at the end of the 1954 season. Walter O’Malley offered him a raise to stay as a pitching coach and work with a young phenom prospect named Sanford Koufax. Preach told O’Malley that he had no interest in hanging on as a pitching coach, plus Mozee was homesick to get back to the Ozarks and ready to return there to raise their two boys. He shook O’Malley’s hand and began preparations to move back to Arkansas/Missouri. Shortly, in the newspaper, he learned that his contract and Billy Cox’s had been assigned to Baltimore.
“That began a three year wrangle with the Dodger front office to finalize his pension papers. It was like he was out of sight, out of mind. This is one of the reasons Preacher bought a grocery store down the street from where I grew up. He had to generate an income with a wife and two kids since his meager pension money was in limbo. Eventually it all got finalized, but Preacher was
never a happy camper over the way it was handled. Of course, there was no player association to go to bat for him. Lastly, those 1955 Bowman baseballs that had “photo shopped” him in as an Oriole. He refused for years to sign those, although he did for some of us locals.”
In Part One, I mentioned Preacher outstanding career statistics. Over his 12-year career, he went 127-84 (.602), with a 3.43 ERA, 956 strikeouts, 17 shutouts, and 101 complete games. He’s is primarily remembered for his seven highly successful years with the Dodgers (1948-’54), compiling an overall record of 93-37 (.725), with a 3.36 ERA.
While an outstanding pitcher in his prime, as a hitter…well, let’s just say Preacher was a lot better on the mound than in the batters’ box! To be perfectly blunt, Preacher was actually one of the worst hitters ever, coming in with a career .110 average. Preacher Roe hit the only home run of his career at Forbes Field in 1953, causing Dodger broadcaster Red Barber to quip: “Well, old Number 28 has hit a home run, and we’ll never hear the end of it, folks!”
Well, it’s fair to say that Preacher was paid for his outstanding pitching ability, not his hitting! And so, as I close this two-part series, I again thank Terry Farmer for sharing wonderful reminisces from his youth and his reflections on Dodger great, Preacher Roe.
Gary Livacari
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Information: Emails from Terry Farmer, and the Preacher Roe Wikipedia page. Statistics from Baseball-Reference.com.
