John Hall shares memories of Carl Lewton Stadium

For the past three decades, I have been fortunate enough to be among those who receive the regular reports from author and former Carthage resident John Hall, who made a second career chronicling the exploits of those who played in the KOM (Kansas Oklahoma Missouri) League from the late 1940s through the mid 1950s.

Hall, who later wrote such books as Majoring in the Minors and Mickey Mantle: Before the Glory,  was a batboy for the Carthage Cubs minor league team and brought the KOM League together for a number of successful reunions. The difficulty of that task was incredible since the players had spread to all parts of the country and many had common names or played under different names than they went by in later years. Despite these obstacles, Hall was able to find nearly every person who wore the uniforms of one of the teams in the KOM.

Hall's newsletter, KOM League Flash Report, kept everyone updated on what these former minor leaguers, a handful of whom reached the majors, were doing and he shared their correspondence and memories over the years.Since the KOM League shut down nearly 70 years ago, much of the newsletter's content in recent years has been devoted to obituaries and earlier today, Hall announced his latest flash report will be his last, though he will still communicate with those on the mailing list from time to time.

Fittingly, Hall's last report was about the fate of Carl Lewton Stadium in Carthage, a place that holds fond memories for Hall and so many others. Here is a portion of that report:

Over the past few weeks, it has come to my attention that the old baseball park in Carthage was suffering the same aches and pains many of the 3500 or so professional ballplayers who played a game or more there did from 1938 through 1951 minus the WWII years. Fifty or so of the 3500 who played there had been or would make it to the major leagues.

On the morning of March 22, a call was received from a Joplin Globe reporter who was assigned the task of writing about the history of the Carthage baseball park that received its diagnosis the previous evening at a city council meeting. The old facility is beyond repair and it will be torn down some 85 years after it was built as an outdoor opera under the WPA auspices in 1938.

John Hacker, the Joplin Globe reporter was asking my insight on some of the history of a ballpark that not only housed professional baseball but high school football/baseball and Little League baseball during its day.

Professional baseball was played there beginning in 1938 in the Arkansas/Missouri League and lasted until mid 1940 when that league folded. On the day Lou Gehrig died, in 1941, Carthage took over the franchise of the St. Joseph, MO Saints. Since Carthage was never inhabited by too many Saints their club was named the “Browns” and finished in last place.

Carthage again called the old field rock stadium “Home” after World War II and played another 360 games there in the KOM league, before leaving professional at the close of the 1951 season. The only professional baseball game played there after 1951 was in 1952 when the Kansas City Monarchs played the Indianapolis Clowns. I believe Satchel Paige, Ernie Banks and Gene Baker all played in that game which added to the number of big league players who participated in a game at the soon to be razed Carthage ballpark.