CLINTON -- Sue Kidd has a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame, along with such Arkansas-born major-league stars as Dizzy Dean, George Kell and Brooks Robinson. Yet her death earlier this year went by with only the slightest media notice.
But Kidd's amazing athletic story is told in some detail at Van Buren County Historical Society Museum in Clinton. It shares space with a potpourri of other eye-catching exhibits that bring to life the past in this north-central part of the Natural State.
Viewers of the popular 1992 movie A League of Their Own saw Kidd play an uncredited bit part doing the pitching in several scenes. In real life, she pitched from 1949 to 1954 in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, the basis for the film that starred Geena Davis, Tom Hanks and Madonna. At the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., her name is engraved on a plaque at the permanent exhibit "Women in Baseball," installed in 1988. And she is pictured in uniform.
Displayed at the museum in Clinton is a baseball Kidd threw while winning a 1951 game in the professional league. A poster pictures her in an amateur event that was the talk of Van Buren County in 1949, when she was 15 years old. A later Arkansas Gazette story about her exploits during that game in Heber Springs against a team of men is showcased with the headline "That Girl Kidd Could Really Throw Some Smoke."
As described in the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, "She was backed up by a pickup team of male amateur baseball players from Choctaw, Bee Branch and M̶o̶r̶g̶a̶n̶t̶o̶w̶n̶ Morganton* that had been put together by her father. Kidd pitched for all nine innings and became known for a deceptive curve ball."
According to the Arkansas Gazette story, "Before the game, Sue's mother had encouraged her father not to leave Sue in the game more than five innings. However, when Marvin Kidd sent a relief pitcher to warm up, the crowd sent up a barrage of chants of 'We want Sue.' The shouting continued until he finally signaled her to return to the mound. She did, and remained there the full nine innings" of a 6-3 victory.
In later life Kidd was a coach and physical-education teacher. She died May 4 some 10 miles southwest of Clinton in Choctaw, where she'd been born 83 years before.
Honored in an exhibit next to Kidd's is John Hargis, another star athlete born in Van Buren County. The Clinton native won a gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, swimming in one of the men's relay events. He now works as a college swim coach.
Infamy rather than fame is the focus of a display about the only person ever legally hanged in Van Buren County. Bill Newman went to the gallows in 1895 for murdering his wife. There's a photograph of the public hanging, along with the ball and chain used by Sheriff Henry J. Jennings in transporting Newman to jail after his arrest. The hanging "brought to Clinton what old-timers maintained was the largest crowd ever gathered in the town -- up to that time."
The museum's collection of antique furniture includes a dresser made in the late 1850s and used in the home of John and Delia Jackson. According to the posted information, "A story that has been circulated among the Jackson family through the years indicated that John traded a fat, sleek pig for the dresser as a wedding present for his bride, Delia."
That's a love story that deserves to be true, even if perhaps it isn't.
Van Buren County Historical Society Museum 211 Third St., Clinton, is open 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Thursday. Admission is free, with donations welcome. It's wise to check ahead of time to be sure a volunteer guide is on hand. Call (501) 745-4066.
Weekend on 11/02/2017
*CORRECTION: A previous version of this column misspelled the town of Morganton.