When the late Alston managed the Brooklyn and the Los Angeles Dodgers — which he did for 23 years while winning seven National League pennants, four World Series and six NL Manager of the Year awards before being enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame — his team often had a day off right before it played a series with the Reds in Cincinnati.
Alston would invite his players and coaches up to Darrtown, his small hometown near Oxford in Butler County, and he, his wife Lela, their extended family and the local townsfolk would provide them with some food and fun.
“The women from the Methodist Church would cook and they’d picnic the whole area,” said Ron Wiley, a retired Miami University professor who grew up in Darrtown. “They had a miniature Model T Ford that the players drove around town and we had pony rides and everybody just enjoyed themselves alongside the big-name ballplayers like Koufax and Podres and Newcombe, Roseboro and Campanella.”
Lela was known for her homemade pies and she and Smokey’s daughter Dodie and her husband Harry Ogle cooked, too. And then there were the motorcycle rides.
“I remember Dad telling Lasorda he’d give him a ride,” a grinning Harry said of Alston. “Well, Tommy didn’t want to get on, but he finally did and they went out on Scott Road and Dad got up to about 90 miles per hour. Well, it scared the hell out of Tommy and he said, ‘Never again!!!’ ”
That recollection — and so many more — came the other afternoon as 82-year-old Harry, his daughter Kim, Wiley and fellow Darrtown product and Miami alum Fred Lindley, a longtime Centerville schools and University of Dayton educator, gathered around the familiar patch of green where Alston so often showed his prowess.
But it wasn’t a ball diamond. That pilgrimage comes this evening when Miami — Alston’s alma mater, as well — honors the fabled baseball man before and during the RedHawks’ 6 p.m. game with Akron at McKie Field.
A pool shark
To reminisce about Alston, the group gathered around the pool table in the billiard and memorabilia room inside the Cherry Street home he built in the early 1950s and ended up sharing with Harry and Dodie and their two kids, Rob and Kim.
And while Dodie, his wife of 60 years, died last October, Harry still lives there. He told how Alston so loved both the house and his hometown “he couldn’t wait to get back here after the big-league season ended.”
He said Alston hunted here, worked in his carpentry shop, played bridge and especially played pool:
“After dinner we came in here and played three games of pool every night. He’d give me two shots and sometimes I needed three. I remember once he ran 135 balls straight.”
Early in his career — as he played minor-league baseball and one game with the St. Louis Cardinals — Alston also taught at area schools like New Madison in Darke County and Washington Logan High near Indian Lake.
“When he was teaching up there in the early days, every Saturday he’d go to the pool hall in Bellefontaine,” Harry said with a laugh. “Dodie and her mother would go to the movies and about 5 o’clock they’d meet him. All the money he’d won would be stuffed in the front pockets of his (bib) overalls and he’d take them out to dinner with his winnings.”
The worlds of billiards and baseball ended up cobbled together in Alston’s woodshop, where he made the wooden benches that now sit alongside his pool table. The legs are made of authentic Dodger baseball bats, including ones that belonged to Jackie Robinson and Johnny Mize.
Every place you looked in that room you saw Alston memories. There were trophies and photos and there was a special diary with Alston’s name printed on the cover.
It was from 1931. The 19-year-old Alston had graduated from Darrtown High School, married Lela and was trying to gather finances so he could return to Miami, from which he had dropped out of for monetary reasons.
Harry opened the booklet and began to read Alston’s handwritten thoughts:
“This book contains the truth and nothing but the truth ... Be it said, no one should read this book unless given permission by the owner, Walter E. Alston ... In this book I intend to write and spell the way I wish and no one shall criticize...”
Loyal to Darrtown
Harry said the Methodist Church gave Alston $50 to help pay his way back to Miami, where he became a basketball player of note, as well.
Alston never forgot the embrace of his hometown and he returned the sentiment in full.
“Smokey never forgot his origin, he never forgot his roots,” said Lindley.
Although he had a teaching job lined up after graduation, Smokey — the nickname came from the speed with which he could throw a baseball signed to play professionally in the Cardinals organization.
After several years in the minors, he was released in 1944 but soon tapped by Branch Rickey to manage teams in the Dodgers farm system. By the early 1950s, he was skippering the Montreal Royals in the International League and in 1954 he was the surprise choice to take over the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Critics thought he was too quiet and unknown, but a year later he won his first World Series.
It was around that same time that Alston was taking part in the annual Christmas parties that Red Huber, owner of the Hitching Post bar and grill, threw for the children of Darrtown.
Wiley and Lindley said Red gave out Florida oranges and candy to the kids and silver dollars to the fathers as Alston handed out autographed baseballs.
After the ’63 and ’65 Series victories, Lindley organized parades that included an old school bus that was equipped with a loud air horn and decorated by homemade signs praising Alston and the Dodgers.
“The fire truck would lead us, and Constable Kelly was in his patrol car and everybody else joined the caravan in their cars,” he said. “We’d go to Collinsville and up to Oxford and then come back to Darrtown.”
No one got into it any more than young Kim Ogle, Alston’s granddaughter.
“When I was a kid I wanted to be a catcher,” said Kim, who’s now working on her Ph.D. in gerontology at Miami. “I was a little portly, a little chubby and my pediatrician used to call me Lil’ Campy (after Roy Campanella).
“Well, Roy ended up giving me a set of his catcher’s equipment — the chest protector, the mask, glove and his shin guards. It was gigantic on me, but I wore it all around. I was always the catcher with the kids in the neighborhood.”
Ahead of his time
The Miami University players might not know a lot about Alston — he’s a couple of generations before their time — but they’re still being guided by him, said RedHawks coach Dan Simonds.
“Believe it or not, I’ve got a Walter Alston manual that I’ve had since I was a coach in the (San Diego Padres) minor leagues,” he said of the 1972 book The Complete Baseball Handbook. “He was one of the best men ever in baseball — he was way ahead of his time — and the things he thought and did apply perfectly now.
“His book deals with everything from how to teach and play the game to how to act off the field. I refer to it on a weekly basis.”
The Miami players also are reminded of Alston by a small display of mementoes in the Walter “Smokey” Alston Room at McKie Field.
Although Alston died in 1984, a year after his Cooperstown enshrinement, he is still remembered in various ways today. Darrtown has signs on Route 177 coming into town announcing it as the Home of Walter Smokey Alston.
There is a memorial stone that does the same in a park across from The Hitching Post and there is a wonderful website, www.darrtown.com, that Lindley maintains and keeps chock full of things about Alston, the town and the upcoming 2014 bicentennial.
In July, Alston will be honored at Dodger Stadium and Rob, who lives in Southern California, will throw out the first pitch. Kim did the same last year in Columbus when her grandfather was enshrined in the International League Hall of Fame, and she’ll do the honors tonight at McKie Field.
First, though, Walter Alston will take everybody on one more ride.
It won’t be a sit-back, meandering down memory lane like we had the other day, nor a hang-on-for-dear-life roar down a Butler County road like Lasorda got.
It will be somewhere in between.
Just like they did back in ’63 and ’65, some folks in Darrtown are going to get behind the fire truck and make one more parade to Oxford to celebrate the favorite son who never forgot his home.
About the Author