1961 Owls relive days on the field Part 2

Darton, Simpson and Dave Best and one or two other players were African American at a time when segregation and Jim Crow were still the law of the land. The men recall going to movies at the old Playhouse Theater in downtown Statesville.
“The white players would head around to the front and go in and they sent us to the side to go upstairs,” Best said. “And then after a while they would yell up to us, ‘Hey did you guys make in’ and ‘What movie are you guys watching up there?’” added Darton.
Best also told of a deal offered by a local café in which a player could earn a free breakfast if he hit a ball to area where a sign advertisement for the café was located in centerfield, if the player ended up making a double.“I hit the sign 22 times that year,” Best said. “And I got zero free breakfasts. None of us got a free breakfast.”
Simpson said that his mother warned him when he left for North Carolina about segregation.
“She told me, ‘Don’t go down there and get yourself in trouble,’” said Simpson, whose baseball career included stints with six Major League teams over the course of seven seasons.
Two of the players from the ’61 Owls – Edwin “Squirrel” Thomas and Jerry Fox – live in Statesville and are regulars at games played by the current Owls.
Thomas was a better-than-average hitter and pitcher. In 1961, he hit .283 for the Owls and had a 12-5 pitching record.
“I was the oldest guy on the team,” he recalled. “And I ended up coaching when the coach got thrown out of the game, which happened quite a lot.”
George Bryson was a shortstop on the ’61 team but even as a young player he was interested in Hollywood. For much of the past 50 years he has been a stuntman and double for actors in television and movies.He said in one Western film he played both the cowboy and the Indian in the same scene.“It was right there – click-click. There’s the guy shooting the Indian and there is the cavalry or some officer shooting back at the Indian and they’re me.
”He said when he was asked to come back to Statesville, though, he quickly accepted.
“I had to come back,” he said. “I’m doing pretty well in my business but I had to come back and see it again. And I’m glad I did.”
Pitcher Alan Flitcraft went 5-1 for the ’61 Owls but one of those wins was a no-hitter against the Newton-Conover Twins.
“You get to be my age and you can’t remember what you had for lunch,” Flitcraft said. “But I still remember that game.”
The Owls and the Rangers were the only two minor league teams affiliated with the Los Angeles Angels in their inaugural season. The Angels had been granted an expansion franchise just months before the start of the 1961 season.
For more information on the Statesville Owls please visit outr website at www.statesvilleowls.net

 

These are some great stories...I loved reading them