Baseball catcher, veteran, preacher

LITTLE ROCK — Frank H. Shell did whatever it took to win a baseball game, even if that meant putting aside personal discomfort, his son said.

“He had wisdom teeth cut out one day and played a double-header the next day,” Jay Shell said. “Dad is real laid-back and easygoing, but boy does he like to win.”

Shell, a minor league catcher who became a preacher, died Monday at his Batesville home from pancreatic cancer.

He was 78.

Growing up in a small community near Melbourne,Shell and his brother “didn’t sit around,” his son said.

“They worked on the farm, and when they had a chance for recreation, him and his brother were pretty good ballplayers,” Jay Shell said.

Playing on independent teams in the summers, Frank Shell once said, “We didn’t claim to be good, but we beat teams that thought they were,” his daughter said.

He received baseball and basketball scholarships to Arkansas College and then Arkansas State Teachers College.

A “real good hitter” with a strong arm, he played semi-professional ball from 1951 to 1953 and once caught a no-hitter during an all-star game in Washington, his son said.

While serving in the U.S.Army for two years in Germany, he was handpicked to play baseball for the elite Northern Area Command Black Knights, said his daughter, Sarah Teague.

“He batted .349, which was the third-best in the league, and he won the league’s MVP award,” Jay Shell said.

In 1953, he signed with the Detroit Tigers organization, playing and winning championships with several of their minor-league teams, including the Knoxville Smokies and the Augusta Tigers.

During a game, the pitcher’s glasses broke, and he could not see Shell’s catcher signals.

“Dad devised a little system right there off-thecuff - ‘If I look to the right,you throw a fast ball’ ... straight ahead, that might be a change-up. The benefit from that is when your team knows what is being pitched, it can give them a jump on the ball,” Jay Shell said. “The rest of his career, that turned into a real blessing because Dad could use signals for the entire team.”

Throughout the years, Shell went up against players who went to the major leagues, including Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson and center-fielder Curt Flood.

“It was so much fun to watch baseball with Dad. He knew so much aboutthe game, he could kind of tell you about what was going to happen,” Jay Shell said. “Many of the guys he played with were actually coaching or managing teams. ... He had [once] thrown Curt Flood out trying tosteal second base.”

Though he was destined for the majors, he “traded in his bat for a Bible,” after the 1960 season, his son said.

“Not that he didn’t enjoy baseball, but he had a higher calling,” Jay Shell said.

After graduating from seminary school in the early 1960s, Shell taught and coached baseball at what is now Williams Baptist College in Walnut Ridge. The school named Shell Field in his honor.

In 1976, Shell became a full-time pastor at First Baptist Church in Walnut Ridge and served at several churches throughout the years.

He preached the word of God beyond the church doors, traveling for mission trips from Montana to Zimbabwe, his son said.

A faithful and tough man, he once proved it when a man grabbed him by the shirt collar and threatened him.

“He said, ‘Preacher what would you do if I hit you in the face right now?’ Dad said, ‘Well the Bible teaches that I should turn the other cheek, but if you hit me right now, I can’t say I’m strong enough to do that.’ So he said what’s right, but [admitted] he was human,” Jay Shell said. “That was a real picture of Dad, he was a strong person.”