Former batboy shares a little bit of baseball heaven

Jack Houston suited up for three World Series at old Sportsman's Park in St. Louis -- 1942, '43 and '44.

"I've been around at least a hundred Hall of Famers," said Jack, now 85 and living in Collinsville. "Played with a bunch of them."

Never heard of Jack Houston?

He was a batboy and clubhouse boy for the St. Louis Browns and the St. Louis Cardinals when both teams played at the same ballpark.

"Me and Bobby Scanlon were batboys in the streetcar World Series in 1944," Jack said during an interview in his home. "All the teams from both leagues came to Sportsman's Park."

He pulled out a creased photo of a handsome young man in a New York Giants uniform.

"That's me. I was 16. Often, I was the batboy for the visiting team. I wore their uniform. I pitched batting practice, too, whenever they asked me to. I pitched to the Yankees, Red Sox, Cleveland, Brooklyn, Giants, Cubs, Pirates, Phils, a lot of the great players."

Ted Williams. "I idolized him. He was a pure hitter. A nice man."

Jimmy Foxx. "He hit the longest ball ever off of me. It hit the top right of the big scoreboard out in left center. They told me it had to be more than 500 feet."

Stan Musial. "Stan was a prince of a man. I knew him when he was a rookie. When you threw a ball to him, you knew where he was going to hit it."

Mention a baseball name and he'll tell you a story.

"In '43, Honus Wagner was hitting fungos along the third base line. I fed him balls.

"He was one of the greatest hitters ever. I never got to see him play, but at 70, he could sure hit fungos."

How did Jack get to live every kid's dream?

"I was born in East St. Louis at Fifth andBrady. St. Mary's parish," Jack said. "Dad built two ball diamonds in East St. Louis. He was really proud of them. We had about 200 kids playing on them. We played every day, not like kids today. It kept kids off the streets and out of trouble."

But John Frances "Jack" Houston had trouble getting enough baseballs for the kids during the war. He started buying baseballs for 25 cents each from the Browns.

"In 1942, the Browns' equipment manager asked Dad, 'You have a boy, don't you? How old is he?' I was just going on 16. 'How would he like to be a batboy?'

"I was in baseball heaven."

In those days, the batboy was also the clubhouse boy.

"We did everything -- cleaned dirt off spikes, polished shoes, put clean towels in their lockers, picked up uniforms, hung up jockstraps ..."

To get to the ballpark, Jack took a bus, then walked to catch a streetcar."I worked for the Browns. The Cardinals were cheap. They only wanted to give me a dollar a day," Jack said, shaking his head. "I got four-fifty for Browns games. Of course, a lot of the players tipped us."

One tip he'll never forget came from Joe Cronin, Hall of Fame manager of the Boston Red Sox.

"In 1944, I told Joe Cronin when the Red Sox were playing the Browns in a tight race, 'Well, see you in the World Series.' He gave me a fifty-dollar bill. That was all the money in the world to me. I never forgot that."

Jack opened a small box of tattered, fading newspaper clippings from his high school and minor league playing days. He pitched in the Browns' farm system from 1945 to 1950.

"Bill and Charlie Dewitt signed me on July 3, 1945. They gave me a fifteen-hundred-dollar signing bonus from the Browns," Jack said. "That was a lot of money in those days. Stan (Musial) only got a few hundred. And Roy Sievers, who was Rookie of the Year for the Senators, signed for a pair of spikes."

Jack kept typewritten letters from minor league teams and some Association of Professional Baseball Players cards. But just a couple of photos.

"I used to have a whole mess of photos and memorabilia. But when I got a divorce, my wife got rid of all of them. She didn't like me. This is all I have left."

Jack is a retired structural ironworker.

"I worked on a lot of bridges and buildings in St. Louis," he said. Jack has three daughters and two sons from his first marriage.He met his second wife, Delores, on a blind date Jan. 17, 1981.

"We were together every minute until she died on December 8, 2008."

Since then, Jack has had his share of health problems. Cancer. Heart problems. You name it.

"Look at all this damn medicine," he said, pulling a bottle from a tray filled with medicine bottles on his dining room table.

"I keep my bag packed by the front door," Jack said. "Just in case. When you're 85, you never know (when you might have to go to the hospital)."

His gray fedora is on a chair near the bag. Just in case.

For the past 14 years, he has been working part time at Gateway National Golf Course in Madison.

"I do whatever I can. I'm a starter and a marshal when they need me. I cook here at home and bring it in for the staff to eat."

That week, he had made soup and stuffed peppers.

"Jack's peppers are great," said Alan Clark, head pro at Gateway. "He's been here since the property opened. Everyone who walks in asks 'Where's Jack?' He's loud and boisterous, but everybody loves his stories. Never met a stranger.

"The thing is, he cares. He has a heart bigger than all of us."

When he's not at the golf course, you'll find him at Tim & Joe's Tavern in Belleville, playing pinochle with his buddies.

"There aren't many pinochle players left," Jack said. "Good ones, anyway."

Jack Houston's baseball stories are a lot like the slider that took him to the brink of the major leagues.

You better pay attention or you'll miss something.

"My slider had a break as wide as that sliding glass door," he said with a flick of his wrist. "My knuckleball came in straight like this, then fell off the table."

Fluttering down and in to a right hander.

"I gripped it with three fingers. Even Rick Ferrell, the best knuckleball catcher ever, refused to catch it."

Why was that, Jack?

Apparently, Jack said with a laugh, the Hall-of-Famer "thought it would be embarrassing if a batboy broke his finger."

Even today, Jack has contact with ballplayers and future Hall-of-Famers at Gateway, where a lot of Cardinals and players from visiting teams tee it up.

He'll tell you about the $50 tip he got from Tony La Russa for picking up him and his clubs in a golf cart.

"I told Tony that was the second fifty-dollar tip I got from a manager. I told him the Joe Cronin story. He got a kick out of it."

"Greg Maddux, is my favorite," Jack said. "When he sees me, he says, 'C'mon, Jack, ride with me.

"Once Greg asked why I never made it to the big leagues. I said, 'Greg, I was a lowball hitter and a highball drinker.'

"Now, when he sees me, he says 'Hello, Lowball.'"

Jack likes to spend time with his family. His three daughters -- Suzanne May, Michelle Goodman and Lisa May -- and son Jack live in Waterloo. Another son, Sam, lives in Ballwin. He has 16 grandkids and "six or seven" great-grandchildren.

He doesn't go to Busch Stadium to see the Cardinals play because "I don't enjoy it. Baseball's just not the same game anymore. When they raised the mound, it changed everthing."

He does follow the Cardinals on TV.

"I think they have a shot this year, too. They need another pitcher. Beltran will help. And they solidified shortstop with the best in baseball (Rafael Furcal). I love that player."

But he wasn't sorry to see Pujols go.

"The money is crazy. He's a great player, but he couldn't carry Musial's jockstrap."

Jack's family has heard all the stories.

"He's one of a kind," said daughter Suzanne. "He was a hell-raiser when he played with the Muskogee Reds. ... He's told the same stories since we were kids. They're still exactly the same. He never forgets a name, place or date."

And he'll never forget why he got out of baseball.

"After I got out of the Navy (in 1951), several clubs wanted to sign me," Jack said. "I told them, 'No. That's it. I'm going to get married. And that's what I did.

"My son, Jack, asked me why I quit playing. I told him, 'Son, if I hadn't, you wouldn't be here."