Hudlin stirred Travs’ pot during wartime

Willis Hudlin, a long-time Cleveland Indians pitcher, retired in 1940 and looked forward to settling down as “a chicken rancher” near Hot Springs. Instead, Arkansas Travelers General Manager Ray Winder talked him into pitching for the Travs in 1941, and managing them in 1942. And 1942 was a good year.

Although Hudlin’s team won in a Southern Association wartime year, Hudlin and Winder always insisted it was sound enough to have competed in any period.

Jim Oglesby (.274) gave way at first base to Fibber McGehee (.355) at mid-season. Third baseman Buck Fausett batted .344. Shortstop Freddy Hancock had a tremendous arm. Roy Schalk (.288) led the league in double plays and became the MVP leader.

“You couldn’t laugh off that infield,” Winder often said. “Hitting or fielding, we never had a better one. Our outfielders [Rosie Cantrell, Tommy McBride and Jim Tyack] were .300 hitters.” The leading pitchers were Jim Trexler (19-7), Al Moran (17-9), Frank Papish (13-10), Willis Hudlin (11-9) and Ed Lopat (6-4).

“Seven or eight players off that club went to the big leagues in the next year or two,” Hudlin said (including Hudlin himself). “Most of us were just wartime fill-ins, but Lopat became one of the best pitchers up there, and [outfielder] Mc-Bride made several years with the Red Sox.

“The Travelers got on a 13-game winning streak late in the season,” Hudlin said. “We went into Nashville a game or two behind, and won four straight. That broke it open. Anytime you took four in a row from one of Larry Gilbert’s clubs in Sulphur Dell, you’d done something.”

In 1943, Hudlin became a civilian instructor in the Army Air Corps. He came home and pitched on weekends. Then he bought into the club.

He told someone, “They were looking for a little ready cash to improve the ballpark or something, and it happened I had a little ready cash.”

In 1944, he was 12-3 going into August, and the St. Louis Browns (in the process of winning their only pennant) bought him for the stretch drive. Being part owner of the Travelers, he technically sold himself.

“I had no dreams about starting a new career,” Hudlin said. “I knew it was for just a few weeks, but I was cut-in for a share of the World Series money.”

It was Willis Hudlin who talked the Travelers’ owners into renovating and expanding the ballpark after World War II, building a section of box seats that pushed out into the field and shortened the fences to a reasonable distance. Hudlin saw the postwar boom coming and tried to get the club ready for it. His ideas made the club a lot of money over the long run, but the short-term benefits were scant.

Hudlin managed the Travs to last place finishes in 1945 and 1946, and then sold out his interest in the club. He went back to Mississippi and operated clubs at Jackson and Greenville until 1955. “By then,” he said, “You could see the old minors were finished. It was all going to be farm system stuff from then on.”

On April 12, 2013, a ceremony at Wagoner, Okla., honored the late Willis Hudlin by naming the baseball field in Willis Hudlin’s honor. Charles Hudlin, his nephew, threw out the first pitch. The mayor presented a plaque to Mrs. Hilda Hudlin.

Sports, Pages 18 on 04/23/2013

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