My Baseball Dad

by Dan Taylor

This piece could be less about sport than life or traditional values. It centers on the actions of a fellow who's still greatly missed, and Reader's Digest is probably a more suitable outlet than this webpage. But since the story also concerns a one-time minor leaguer and an ancient baseball cap, it'll be told here.

Leon Snuggs played with Bob Nieman, Johnny Temple, Muscles Shoals, Hurricane Hazle, and Wally Post. He pitched to '54 Series hero Dusty Rhodes (Rock Hill) in the Tri State League in '50, all-time homer champ Hank Aaron (Jacksonville) in the Sally League in '52, and against early '40's Brooklyn bellweather Kirby Higbe (Montgomery) the same year. Sadly, the closest Snuggs got to the Show was watching American Association Champ Indianapolis on a class D off day in 1948.

He could tell stories, though. Like when Bob Nieman beat hell out of some pitcher behind a billboard outside a greasy spoon for playing only Eddy Arnold records. Or how minor league legend Muscles Shoals (Columbia) careened through city streets shellacked as a baseball bat in Corky Valentine's car. Snuggs also related this southern fried pitching tip from Johnny Temple (Ogden) in '48: "He's a negro (not Temple's word), ain't he? Cain't hurt him in his head - drill that black s.o.b. in the foot!"

Lefthanded fireplug Leon threw lightning bolts - sometimes even over the plate. His ERA was usually under 3.5, but he never had the gaudy numbers vital to rapid advancement. The Reds signed him out of high school to an A contract in '47- wherever sent he made 'A' money (two-fifty a month). As a result, Snuggs rose quickly to class A, and was a nonprospect once he stuck.

When cut from double A Tulsa's roster after two weeks of '53 spring training - never pitching in one game- Leon married and enlisted in the army (pitching among other gems a 2-0 whitewash with 16 k's). He got a degree via GI bill from Pfeiffer College and taught phys-ed in my town's junior high for over 20 years. The best indication of his teaching repute and community standing is our high school diamond's name - Snuggs Field.

When I saw that big picture on his 8th grade classroom wall of the 'Columbia Reds - Sally League Regular Season Champs - 1952', my everyday hero was him. Since dad was 65 when I was born, Leon also became a father figure. Words can't tell the thrill of entering into male bonding, to scan his 4 minor league scrapbooks, and to pester him about inside baseball.

On dress-out days Snuggs wore a Cincinnati Reds cap acquired during several tries with Columbia. One day Leon tried to take me and my baseball knowledge down a few pegs by saying if I knew the name inside the sweatband, he'd give it to me. I did, but he didn't and I rode the beejezus out of him for months.

Snuggs was big on family; when his father died in '51 he laid out of O. B. to work the farm. Leon helped out at 'the homeplace' in Stanly, NC a month or so every summer since leaving the army. It was there he fell off a tractor, and its disc harrows killed him in 1978. Sometime after attending the funeral his wife Hilda sent word she wanted to see me. When I got there, she handed me a box. Inside was a 26 year old dry cleaned Reds cap.

Leon finally paid off.