RIP Preacher Roe

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Posted By: packs

93 years old.

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Posted By: Chris Counts

Rest in peace, Preacher ...

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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

Preach was a really nice, soft-spoken man when I met him. Roe was the local hero of West Plains, Missouri. West Plains epitomizes a typical southern county seat, with all main roads leading to the centralized courthouse. Mainly religious and country stations on the radio, genteel townsfolk, clean and sober. As of 1999, there was a breakfast place where you could get two eggs, toast and hash browns for 35 cents! Can't say that I've ever found a better deal in my life!

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Posted By: Fred Y

CANCEL POST--- URL does not work

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Posted By: Bob

More sad news as Herb Score also passed away today.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-obitscore&prov=ap&type=lgns

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Posted By: packs

Ah very sad. Who knows what Herb could have been. Two very nice guys from all accounts I've heard.

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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

I never met Herb, but he was always spoken of very highly by his teammates that I did know any time his name came up in conversation.

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Posted By: Chris Counts

Another outstanding lefty passes away ... for two glorious years (1955 & 1956), Herb Score was just about the best pitcher on the planet ...

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

very good signers through the mail........unlike the schmucks of today..........RIP.......

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Posted By: Joe Hunter

Preacher was from my home town of West Plains, Missouri. When I was a kid, I remember my mother taking me to his grocery store on what is now Preacher Roe Blvd. He was a very nice and unassuming gentleman. The store was nothing special, just your average small town mom and pop operation in the early 1960's. Interestingly, West Plains is also the home town of former Pirate centerfielder Bill Virdon, PGA golfer Stan Utley, and country singer Porter Wagner. Amazing how a town of that size would produce so many famous people.

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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

Joe,

Don't forget about Tedd Gullic, your local insurance broker! He played for the Browns in the early 1930's and was a very good minor league player.

I really liked your town when I visited several years ago, and plan on a return trip one of these days.

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

I'll never forget the 1951 season when "Ole Preach" won 22 and lost only 3 games....for an .880 pct.



That W-L % should stand as a record for any pitcher with 20+ victories.



GOD Bless his soul and comfort his family.






1948 Dodgers Photo pack picture and 1949 Bowman Hi# series card.





TED Z

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Posted By: Bob

the Preacher was traded by the Pirates to the Dodgers (along with Billy Cox and Gene Mauch) for Vic Lombardi, Hal Gregg and Dixie Walker in order to dump some of the racists then playing with Jackie Robinson? Apparently Dixie Walker fits the category well. I'm not at all sure about the other two. If I could find "The Boys of Summer" in the wreckage around me I'd answer my own question, but it's disappeared again.

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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

...and how great was it that the Bums got such a fine pitcher and the best defensive pre-Brooks third sacker in that deal? You don't understand what I would give to have been alive to see all of them at Ebbets (okay, I suppose you do !)

Jodi

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Posted By: Bob Manning

Jodi:

i was raised in Pittsburgh! I got to watch, well, not Dixie and his friends, but their successors, the Rickey Dinks, the '52 Pirates, whose record of 42-112 has caused them to be identified as The Worst Major League Team ever. (Yes, even including the expansion Mets, mainly ecause the Bucs had no excuse like an expansion roster to hold them back. But probably not including the sorry spectacles they've fielded since the early '90s.) I can't imagine how much more fun they'd have been to watch with Billy Cox on third and Preacher on the mound. (No knock on any of the aces of the pitching staff that year -- Murry Dickson [14-21], Howie Pollet [7-16] and Bob Friend [7-17].) It's hard to imagine that any pitcher could have done well with that bunch of clowns backing them up. But if anybody could have come close, it would have been Preacher.

Bob

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Posted By: Bob

I'll never forget the 1951 season when "Ole Preach" won 22 and lost only 3 games....for an .880 pct.
That W-L % should stand as a record for any pitcher with 20+ victories.>

Ted- That is a great record, but didn't Cliff Lee (also from Arkansas) go 22-3 this year for the Indians?

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Posted By: Jodi Birkholm

Bob,

I'd even pay money to go back and see that awful Bucs team! At least I could have seen my old buddy Clyde Sukeforth out there coaching!

Billy and Preach really didn't reach their fullest capacity until they moved over to Bedford and Sullivan. Roe had some success, but Cox seemed to require special circumstances to perform his best. I don't know what happened once he made the move to Brooklyn, but it sure helped out. He wasn't particularly close to any of his teammates aside from Furillo, but there was definitely a mutual respect felt between Billy and his teammates, as I have happily learned from those players who outlived him.