By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
A baseball broadcaster and author has put out a book, talking about the unique history of minor league baseball and Saint Joseph comes up at least a couple of times.
Tim Hagerty is the author of Tales from the Dugout: 1001 Humorous, Inspirational and Wild Anecdotes from Minor League Baseball.
One story Hagerty found involved a unique trade offer with the Saint Joseph Saints back in 1924.
"The Omaha Buffaloes wanted to send two players to St. Joseph - Roy Luebbe and Fred Wilder," Hagerty said. "In exchange, they asked for the St. Joseph Saints' owner's personal airplane. He actually wanted to trade two players for an airplane. This actually got some headlines at the time.
"The Saints' owner said, 'No, I'm sorry I can't do that.'"
Hagerty also found a story from a 1912 baseball game in St. Joseph where a cowboy shot a flyball out of the air with his pistol in the bottom of the ninth inning.
"These cowboys had some money on the game," he explained. "Saint Joseph, in the bottom of the ninth, hits a deep flyball and it looks like it's going to soar over the fence. If it goes over the fence, these cowboys lose money. So, (umpire) Steamboat Johnson says one of the cowboys pulled out his pistol, took a shot at this moving ball and blew the ball to s
Hagerty says St. Joseph has more baseball history than people might think.
"St. Joseph has a deep baseball history," he said. "That was the fun thing for me for this book. It has stories from the 1800s all the way to the present day. Going through newspaper archives, old baseball guides, I made a research trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown (New York) and St. Joseph comes up a lot."
Hagerty's book is available wherever books are sold. Hagerty has put out two books. He's also the radio voice of the San Diego Padres' Triple A affiliate - the El Paso Chihuahuas.
Interview
You can follow Tommy on Twitter @TommyKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.