Baseball in Leavenworth

LEAVENWORTH, Kans., Aug. 26, 1949 —The Leavenworth Braves, tabbed the losingest baseball club in America, keep plugging along—in the same old rut.
The Braves lost their 102nd Western Association game of the season last night, 6-l, to the league leading St. Joseph Cardinals. It was their 16th loss to the Cardinals in as many starts.
They've only won 24 games.
Club President Robert Ricketson compares the Brave Camp to "an army replacement center in wartime."
Three managers have taken a turn at directing the Braves with about the same success—or lack of it—and between 60 and 65 players have donned Leavenworth uniforms this season.
Caught without a major league affiliation at the start of the season after the Boston Braves withdrew their help a year ago, Leavenworth started the season under Manager Bill Cronin and lost their first 22 games.
In desperation, Rlcketson advertised in newspapers for baseball talent and appointed boisterous (Fido) Murphy, 1946 manager of the Topeka Owls, as the new skipper.
Murphy's presence added more color to the already cosmopolitan Braves. At the time Murphy too over, there were such fellows as Cuban shortstop Jose Blanco and Puerto Ricans Mike Perez, outfielder, and Rafael Casanova, catcher, in the lineup.
Negro players Earnest Mason, pitcher; Percy Howard, catcher, and Johnny Lloyd, outfielder, all from Chicago, were added to the roster by Murphy.
The Braves picked up a bit and had won five games by the time their losses totaled 30. But the skids went on again and the Braves dropped 23 in a row.
L. R. (Red) Harvel, who started the season as general manager, became the third skipper. Only three of the players who started the season are still on the squad.
Nobody has accused the Braves of not trying to win. They hustle to the last out and are well ahead of their 1948 attendance when the club finished only four games out of first division.
The Western Association is an eight-team class C circuit. Its season ends Sept. 5.
The Braves get the customary pre-game lecture from Manager Harvel. His favorite expression during a game—with the Braves usually well in arrears—is:
"Let's get 'em boys, the game's young."

This was the last year for the Leavenworth Braves. The team had been established as a Boston Braves farm team in 1946 when the Class C Western Association ended its wartime hiatus. They played their home games at the baseball park located at Wadsworth.
The games were well attended and the small park made for good entertainment and interaction between the players and their loyal fans.
The Old Man

The 1946 Leavenworth Braves baseball club was the First City's first Minor League team since 1907. Pictured from the '46 Braves are, in the front row from left to right, are Frank "Casey" Wonka, Ralph Littel, Marshall Nesmith, Jim Goodman, Joe Lescard, Jack Warner, and Ralph Rosengarten. In the back row, from left to right, are Sammy Cooper, Ernie Grant, Walter Snider, Ray Lippman, Jim Widlaw, Joe Malman, Charles Carman, Bob Salveson, Johnny Rizner, and Willard "Buck" Elliott. Lippman and Elliott still live in Leavenworth County.

LEAVENWORTH, Kans., Aug. 31, 2010 — Times are different than they used to be, for better or worse.
There was a time when, if you had water in a bottle, it was because you put it there for free. If you got a trophy, it was because you had to earn it. If you wanted to watch a baseball game, why, you couldn’t just sit inside and turn on the TV.
And it was then, as many aren’t even aware now, that Leavenworth had Minor League baseball. So prominent, in fact, were those teams that no fewer than 31 of their players were at one time Major Leaguers.
None today would remember those who played in Kansas’ First City around the turn of the 20th century, but there are some who could still envision the ghosts of summers past near what is now Ray Miller Park, where a stadium seating 4,000 people once stood. Wadsworth Park, as it was known, was home to the Leavenworth Braves of the Western Association from 1946-1949. It was only a C-level Minor League — comparable to what would now be Low-A — but Leavenworth’s team had a working agreement with the Boston (now Atlanta) Braves to farm some of their players through the system.
Several players ultimately married and settled here, and why not? The town had caught baseball fever. The first game on May 2, 1946 — preceded by a parade that all the kids were let out of school for — drew 2,800 people that seating hadn’t even been installed for yet. Willard “Buck” Elliott was the leadoff man for the Braves that day, and Ray Lippman batted cleanup, and to this day they still live in Leavenworth County.
“We had pretty good crowds here...” remembered Lippman, who married local girl Blanche Becher. “It was all the young people that really came out, and especially the women, with all those young boys out there playing, you know.”
“Right after the war, they didn’t have drive-ins, and they didn’t have TV,” said Elliott, who married Ruth Dawes, team vice-president Joe Dawes’ daughter. “They didn’t have anything to do but go to the ballgame.”
For Lippman and Elliott, who were respectively 21 and 23 years old at the time, it was about more than finding a place to make their life. It was about living the dream of a pro baseball player, and Leavenworth was the place to do it.
By Scott Lavelock in the Leavenworth Times 

One player, I remember watching, who joined the team in 1948 as his entry into professional baseball (at $150 a month) was Del Crandall. The next season, at 19, he began his long career in the major leagues as catcher with the Boston Braves. He was considered one of the National League's top catchers during the 1950s and early 1960s. In later years he went on to manage the Milwaukee Brewers and the Seattle Mariners.
The Old Man



Sadly, our hero, Willard "Buck" Elliott, 93, of Lansing, surrounded by family, passed away Tuesday, May 10, 2016. Buck was born October 10, 1922 in York, PA, the son of Albert and Margaret Elliott.
Buck grew up in a baseball family. He signed his first minor league contract at age 18 with the Welch Miners of the Mountain State League. After 2 years in the minor leagues he bravely joined the Army Air Corp during WWII as a radio operator/gunner on-board a B-17 bomber that was shot down over Germany in 1944. After parachuting to safety he was captured and served 13 months as a POW at Stalag 17B in Krems, Austria. In 1946 he resumed his baseball career with the Leavenworth Braves which brought him to Kansas and to his future wife, Ruth Dawes. They were married in 1948. Married 59 years, Ruth preceded him in death in 2007. Buck became the postmaster at the VA Center Wadsworth for many years before retiring from the Leavenworth Post Office as Assistant Postmaster in 1984. In retirement he was an avid sports fan and golfer but his greatest love was reserved for his family of 6 children, 9 grandchildren, and 6 great grandchildren. All enjoyed his kind and caring nature.
http://www.davisfuneralchapelinc.com/fh/obituaries/obituary.cfm?o_id=3717977&fh_id=14115