July 18, 1972: Home sweet home: Elmira ends 28-day flood displacement with win

On June 20, 1972, well-traveled baseball clown Max Patkin came to Dunn Field in Elmira, New York, to entertain 927 fans of the Elmira Pioneers of the Double-A Eastern League. The Pioneers, a Cleveland Indians farm team, did their part to entertain the fans by beating the Pittsfield (Massachusetts) Rangers 8-5. The teams were scheduled to reconvene the following night to see whether the Pioneers could sweep the three-game series.1 It was a pleasant night on the cusp of summer2 in minor-league America.

Elmirans, however, would not enjoy another such night for nearly a month. Heavy rain from Hurricane Agnes, menacing the mid-Atlantic, washed away T-Shirt Night on June 21.3 Much worse was to come. By the morning of June 23, half of Elmira’s 46,000 residents had been evacuated as the swollen Chemung River swept through the city.4 The river runs not far beyond Dunn Field’s left-field wall, and the Pioneers’ ballpark was inundated. The flood flattened large portions of the outfield fence, soaked clubhouses and concession stands in mud, and deposited up to eight inches of silt on the playing field where Patkin had frolicked a few nights before.5

As the Pioneers arranged interim “home” dates in Geneva, New York, and Waterbury, Connecticut,6 the restoration of Dunn Field began. City Parks Department staff focused on improving the playing field. A group of volunteers led by five women – the manager’s wife, three players’ wives, and a front-office employee – worked tirelessly to dig, scrub, and spray the mud out of bleachers, clubhouses, snack stands, even bathrooms. Marianne Relic, Alice Johnston, Vickie Detter, Cathy Eldridge, and Jan Kern7 earned the praise of co-owners Kip Horsburgh and Carl Fazio: “It’s the cruddiest job in the world to dig mud. You can’t even buy good help these days to do the kind of work they did,” Fazio enthused. “They just did a super job.”8

Twenty-eight days after Patkin performed, Dunn Field was finally shipshape again, and manager Len Johnston’s Pioneers returned home for a July 18 doubleheader against the Reading (Pennsylvania) Phillies.9

The Pioneers hadn’t been playing well before the forced road trip. After the June 20 game, they had a record of 18-34 and sat in fourth and last place in the league’s American Division, 10½ games behind Pittsfield.10 Johnston’s team posted a 7-12 record on the road. On the morning of their return home, Elmira was still in last place at 25-46, 10½ games back.11 The flood cost the team a player: After losing all his possessions, infielder Carl Richardson announced his retirement and went home to Cincinnati.12

Eight players on the 1972 Pioneers eventually reached the majors, and four of them started the first game – first baseman Jim Norris, catcher Larry Johnson, left fielder Tommy Smith, and shortstop Rob Belloir.13 The start on the mound went to Bob Grossman, a righty from the University of Maryland who’d been chosen by Cleveland in the second round of the June 1972 draft. Grossman had lost one previous start;14 he went on to post a 1-3 record and 5.21 ERA in 10 starts in Elmira before being promoted to Portland of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League.

The Reading team entered the game in last place in the EL’s National Division, seven games back, with a 42-40 record. Jim Bunning, one year removed from a Hall of Fame pitching career, managed the team. It was the first of Bunning’s five seasons as a minor-league skipper in the Philadelphia organization. Bunning and the Reading team had weathered their own Agnes-related displacement: The team moved two of its home series to Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium in late June due to flood damage in Reading.

Nine members of the 1972 Reading roster spent time in the majors at some point, and three of them started – first baseman Bob Beall, catcher Jim Essian, and pitcher Dave Downs.15 Downs, a sixth-round draft pick out of high school in June 1970, came into the game with a 9-4 record. He was in the midst of a remarkable season: The 20-year-old compiled a 15-7 record and 2.41 ERA in 26 starts at Reading, including 15 complete games and five shutouts. He led the loop in complete games and innings pitched and placed near the top in several other categories.

On a steamy evening, 1,177 fans turned out. (Many of them, no doubt, had spent some portion of the previous 28 days mucking out their own homes.) The first 2½ innings passed quietly before Elmira broke the scoreless tie in the third. With one out, Belloir singled and Grossman tried to bunt him to second. Reading third baseman Blas Santana threw to second too late to get Belloir, and both runners were safe. After a hit batsman loaded the bases, left fielder Harry Shaughnessy doubled to left to give Elmira a 2-0 advantage.16

Reading responded with a single run in the fourth. Grossman yielded only two walks in 6⅓ innings, but the Phillies batters made him pay for one of them. Right fielder Jim Ziegler worked Grossman for a free pass, and Essian doubled him home.17 Downs’s control was just as good, as he gave up just one walk while hitting a single batter.

Since the EL played seven-inning games in doubleheaders, the Pioneers’ 2-1 lead entering the top of the seventh placed them three outs away from a win. But trouble arose from a familiar source, as Grossman gave up a single to Ziegler.

Pinch-runner Ray Starnes, who stole 33 bases with Reading in 1971 and 23 in 1972, took Ziegler’s place on the bases. Game accounts do not specify how Starnes reached third base, but he scored on a wild pitch by lefty reliever Tom Burkert to send the game into extra innings.18 Burkert, pitching his third and last professional season, threw eight wild pitches in a team-leading 42 appearances that summer.

Burkert’s replacement, fifth-year pro John Howell, worked a perfect eighth for Elmira. Downs, still in the game, returned in the bottom half for Reading. He picked up the first two outs before Elmira’s bats awoke. Norris singled for his second hit of the game and Elmira’s sixth overall. Smith, hitless in three trips, then doubled Norris home, giving Elmira a 3-2 win and a sweet homecoming.19

The nightcap also went into extra innings. Reading claimed a 4-3 win as right fielder Lloyd Hutchinson doubled home the winning run in the top of the eighth, then threw out an Elmira pinch-runner trying to score to end the game.20

Both teams finished the season last in their respective divisions. Elmira ended the year with a 46-91 record, 36½ games out, while Reading closed at 70-69, 7½ games behind. Elmira Mayor Richard Loll declared August 14 to be Kip Horsburgh-Carl Fazio Night at Dunn Field, in honor of the two young owners’ commitment to overcome adversity and finish the season in Elmira.21

Unfortunately, the Pioneers were just about done as a Double-A team. The relationship between the parent Indians and the Elmira owners was strained, and the two parties jointly broke off their business agreement in early September.22 Horsburgh and Fazio sold the team to Waterbury-based interests the following month.23

Reading’s promising Downs, who pitched 7⅔ solid innings in a losing cause, was also unfortunately close to finished. His strong performance in Double A earned him a four-game September cup of coffee in Philadelphia. He pitched a complete-game shutout in his debut and went 1-1 with a 2.74 ERA in 23 innings. But his pitching arm was already aching, and injury forced Downs out of his final start after four innings.24 He sat out the 1973 and 1975 seasons due to arm trouble, closed his career with 11 ineffective appearances with Class A Spartanburg in 1976, and was unable to return to the majors.

While Downs’s career never rebounded, Elmira was able to bounce back for the 1973 season. The city landed a Boston Red Sox affiliate in the short-season Class A New York-Penn League. Elmira remained a New York-Penn city through 1995 and has hosted independent and summer college teams since then. Max Patkin continued to perform in Elmira on a nearly annual basis through at least 1989.25 He retired in 1993 and died six years later.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for general player, team, and season data.

Neither Baseball-Reference nor Retrosheet provides box scores of minor-league games, but the July 19, 1972, editions of the Reading (Pennsylvania) Eagle and Elmira (New York) Star-Gazette published box scores.

Image of 1977 Topps card #14 downloaded from the Trading Card Database. Photo of Dunn Field’s left field, with the Chemung River visible in the background, taken by author, summer 2007.

Notes

1 “Pioneers Trim Pittsfield, 8-5,” Elmira (New York) Star-Gazette, June 21, 1972: 29.

2 According to TimeandDate.com, the 1972 summer solstice occurred at 3:06 A.M. Eastern time on June 21.

3 “Pioneers Postponed,” Elmira Star-Gazette, June 22, 1972: 29.

4 “Record Flood Swamps Elmira,” Elmira Star-Gazette, June 23, 1972: 1.

5 Al Mallette, “Sports Picture Is Bleak,” Elmira Star-Gazette, June 27, 1972: 14.

6 Al Mallette, “Elmira Uncertain,” Elmira Star-Gazette, July 2, 1972: 41.

7 For those keeping score at home, Relic worked in the front office; Johnston was married to manager Len Johnston; and Detter, Eldridge and Kern were married to pitchers John Detter, Bob Eldridge, and Jim Kern. Jan Kern earned separate recognition earlier in the season for also serving as Dunn Field’s organist.

8 Kristie Moore, “We Salute,” Elmira Star-Gazette, August 12, 1972: 4. The article notes that inmates from the Elmira Correctional Facility helped hose down the stadium.

9 News stories from 1972 referred several times to “a 21-day road trip.” (See Note 12 for an example.) The June 28, 1972, Elmira Star-Gazette reported that the Eastern League canceled a scheduled Pioneers series against West Haven after the flood, and the Pioneers did not resume play until June 28. It appears, then, that the “21-day road trip” refers to the period in which the Pioneers were playing and excludes the days when they were idle. However, news coverage also makes clear that no games were played at Dunn Field between June 20 and July 18 – a period of 28 days. This story opts to use the 28-day figure as a more complete measure of the Pioneers’ displacement from their home park.

10 Eastern League standings as printed in the Elmira Star-Gazette, June 21, 1972: 29.

11 Eastern League standings as printed in the Elmira Star-Gazette, July 18, 1972: 16.

12 Al Mallette, “Pioneers Home after 21 Days on Road,” Elmira Star-Gazette, July 18, 1972: 16. According to Baseball-Reference, Richardson returned to professional baseball in 1973, playing 27 games at Double A and 68 games in Triple A. He left pro ball again after that season and never reached the major leagues.

13 The others were Mark Ballinger, Bob Kaiser, Jim Kern, and Eric Raich. Not all of these players may have been on the roster on July 18.

14 Mallette, “Pioneers Home after 21 Days on Road.”

15 The others were Fred Andrews, Bill Denehy, Ron Diorio, Dane Iorg, Scott Reid, and Mac Scarce. Harry Saferight, who was called up by the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates but never appeared in a game, also played for the team.

16 “1,177 Watch Pioneers Split Pair,” Elmira Star-Gazette, July 19, 1972: 27.

17 “Credit the Save to Hutchinson,” Reading (Pennsylvania) Eagle, July 19, 1972: 74.

18 “Credit the Save to Hutchinson.” The Reading newspaper’s box score does not credit Starnes with a stolen base, nor does it list any errors on either side, so Starnes might have reached third on sacrifices or fielder’s-choice plays.

19 “Credit the Save to Hutchinson”; also, “1,177 Watch Pioneers Split Pair.” The Reading paper’s story says Norris doubled and Smith singled. This appears to be an error: Elmira’s account has Norris singling and Smith doubling, and both paper’s box scores credit only Smith with a double.

20 “Credit the Save to Hutchinson.”

21 “Monday Proclaimed Horsburgh-Fazio Appreciation Night,” Elmira Star-Gazette, August 12, 1972: 8.

22 Al Mallette, “Pioneers, Cleveland Dissolve Working Relationship,” Elmira Star-Gazette, September 7, 1972: 33.

23 Mark Fleisher, “Elmira’s EL Franchise Sold to Waterbury Group,” Elmira Star-Gazette, October 26, 1972: 1.

24 Bill Conlin, “Downs Contemplates 14-Carrot Comeback,” Philadelphia Daily News, March 12, 1974: 48.

25 The final reference in the Elmira Star-Gazette to a local performance by Patkin appeared on July 14, 1989.