The Shadow
•
•
Mention the name Babe Ruth, or Joe DiMaggio, or even Derek Jeter, and someone with even the most basic of baseball knowledge should be able to tell you that, in fact, those fellows were professional baseball players.
But what about Johnny Humphries?
Who?
Johnny Humphries?
Although he is now a long-forgotten figure from what’s commonly known as the Golden Age of Baseball, and his statistics have been relegated to the bottomless pit of baseball’s endless facts and figures, in his prime, New York Yankees Hall-of-Fame Manager Joe McCarthy said of Johnny, “The kid is great. I wish I had him. What a future!”
He looked so much like Lou Gehrig that he was almost cast to play Gehrig in the film “Pride of the Yankees.”
And when he broke into the majors on May 8, 1938, he was said to have the best fastball in the American League.
Despite all of the fanfare that heralded his signing by the Cleveland Indians, I would be willing to bet that you didn’t know Johnny was a native Clifton Forge.
If not, don’t feel bad.
Not a lot of folks around here have either.
Johnny exists mainly in the memory of the few, if any, of his remaining Clifton Forge contemporaries, and, more prominently, in the yellowed and crumbling pages of The Covington Virginian, which are stored in the newspaper’s morgue.
So, today, taking the mound one more time, “In the Spotlight”, is Johnny Humphries.
—
Now, I love all things baseball, especially Major League Baseball. And if it’s the Atlanta Braves, I love it even more.
It’s not just about the Braves, although that’s a big part of it.
I love baseball’s rich history and how, it seems, baseball has ebbed and flowed through the river of time — through wars, economic disasters, racial integration, all the way through a turbulent 1960s and onward toward the present.
Collectively, baseball history is a story of perseverance.
Baseball struggled following the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, until Babe Ruth came along and brought it back to prominence.
Baseball struggled during World War II, when the star players of the day — DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Hank Greenberg — were being drafted and shipped off to fight in Europe and the Pacific.
But when the war was over, soldiers traded their guns for baseball bats and, for probably a 15 or 16 year period, baseball flourished like never before.
Baseball really struggled following the 1994 strike; that is, until Cal Ripken Jr. of Baltimore Orioles came along with his march toward besting the consecutive games played record set almost 60 years earlier by “The Iron Horse” Lou Gehrig.
Unfortunately, even though I count myself as fairly knowledgeable in baseball history, I was one of those who had never heard of Johnny Humphries until I was researching back issues of the paper for the Echoes of the Past column a few years ago and accidentally stumbled across an article from April, 1938, about Johnny starting for the Cleveland Indians in a spring training game and Clifton Forge’s overwhelming pride at its local-boy-made-good.
So that’s where my investigation into Humphries’ life began, with a short article in a 77-year-old issue of the Covington Virginian.
A June 4, 1938, article reported, “He has done some nice relief pitching in recent appearances for the Cleveland Indians and numbers among his strikeout victims Joe DiMaggio and Jimmie Fox.”
Striking out “Joe D?”
Not too shabby, Johnny.
Another article, this one from June 8, 1938, added, “Mention the name of John Humphries before any in Clifton Forge’s baseball fans today and watch a broad smile break out on their faces, for they are proud of their young rookie.”
In another article I found where he was a standout football and baseball player for Clifton Forge High School from 1930 until 1934. He was the son of Ernest O. Humphries and Lillian Humphries of Clifton Forge.
I found a 1930 census report that listed Johnny, Otho, Virgil and Jewel as children in the Humphries household.
That’s nice and all, but nothing I found really helped me understand Johnny’s place in baseball history; so I turned my search toward one of my most favorite websites — Wikipedia.
Where else does one turn these days for information on long-forgotten people?
The Internet, right?
I love Wikipedia.
What other site can you go to and learn about everything from forgotten Major League Baseball pitchers to the definition of a fortnight. (Sadly, I didn’t know what a fortnight was until I looked it up on, of course, Wikipedia. A fortnight is a 14-day period, by the way).
When I typed in “Johnny Humphries,” I did, in fact, find a listing for Johnny Humphries.
It wasn’t much, but here’s what I found:
“John William Humphries was born on June 23, 1915 in Clifton Forge. He died June 24, 1965 in New Orleans, La. He was a pitcher in Major League Baseball from 1938 until 1946. He played for the Cleveland Indians, Chicago White Sox and Philadelphia Phillies. When Humphries joined the Indians in 1938, he was thought to have the best fastball in the American League.”
And that’s it.
The Wikipedia search, though, did lead me to another website, findagrave.com.
That site is almost as intriguing as Wikipedia, except that, for those more morbid, there are fascinating pictures of the person’s grave along with his or her biographical information.
Don’t judge me.
When movie producer Samuel Goldwyn began looking for someone to play Lou Gehrig in “Pride of the Yankees,” he searched through not only the ranks of Hollywood’s elite leading men, but also throughout professional baseball.
The Sporting News polled fans and their pick was Humphries because of his strong facial resemblance to the late Yankee great.
Unfortunately for Humphries, Goldwyn settled on some guy named Gary Cooper.
Dems da breaks, as they say in the movie business.
Humphries was a baseball star for the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill when he left following his sophomore year to sign professionally with the Cleveland Indians.
That signing would begin a nine-season professional career, which would see him record a 3.78 earned-run average, a 52-63 win-loss record and 317 strikeouts. He also pitched nine career shutouts.
Following his time with the Indians, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox, where he spent five seasons.
On December 7, 1945, he was purchased by the Philadelphia Phillies.
He made only 10 appearances for the Phillies and was released on March 29, 1947.
Johnny then played for southern independent baseball teams, spending time with both the New Orleans Pelicans and the Douglas Rebels of the Class D Georgia State League.
He left the mound for good in 1948 at the age of 33.
After baseball, Johnny resided in the New Orleans area, where he worked and lived until his death, after a brief illness, on June 24, 1965.
Now, I could go into great, arduous details about his statistics and how many games he appeared in and the like.
But why bother?
I’ve never thought the true measure of a person could be whittled down to something as simple as a number.
In the 1930s, Johnny Humphries was an idol for many in the Alleghany Highlands and, yet today, very few people have ever heard his name.
Reintroducing people from our area’s past is the biggest reason I began this column.
Future “In the Spotlights”, will be welcoming back murder victims, military spies and other savory (and unsavory) characters from our area’s past for one more shot at their 15 minutes of fame.
If you have someone you’d like me to investigate, feel free to write me at: The Virginian Review, P.O. Box 271, Covington, Va. 24426, or e-mail me at DSCrosier @gmail.com.
So, until next time…
