“We’ll scatter to the east and west, when college days are done. And memories will cling around, the dreams of everyone. We’ll play the game of living, with head and shoulders high! And where in wear the spirit of ‘The Buckeye Battle Cry!’”

Ladies and gentlemen, as I sit on the front porch of the Mother Thompson Home in a time long past, Mrs. Marie Thompson Rives, the daughter of temperance pioneer Eliza Jane Trimble Thompson, is reading me a letter that longtime national president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union Frances E. Willard penned to Mrs. Rives’ mother.

Ladies and gentlemen, as I sit on the front porch of the Mother Thompson Home, Mrs. Marie Thompson Rives, the daughter of temperance pioneer Eliza Jane Trimble Thompson, pauses as she finishes an account of the 500 White Ribboners visiting the historic house in Hillsboro on Nov. 16, 1903.

Ladies and gentlemen, in the winter of 1873-74, Hillsboro’s Eliza Jane Trimble Thompson, daughter of a governor and wife of a judge, helped lead a temperance crusade that is still remembered to this day.

Ladies and gentlemen, during our chat on the porch of the Mother Thompson Home, the friendship and admiration between Hillsboro temperance crusader Eliza Jane Trimble Thompson and fellow temperance pioneers Frances E. Willard and Lillian M. N. Stevens, both longtime presidents of the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, has become evident.

Ladies and gentlemen, during my chat with the daughter of famous temperance crusader Eliza Jane Trimble Thompson on the porch of the Mother Thompson Home in Hillsboro, I realized I had not yet asked the daughter’s name – but it turns out I did not have to do so.

Ladies and gentlemen, when we left the Mother Thompson Home last week, the daughter of famous temperance crusader Eliza Jane Trimble Thompson was reminiscing about the golden wedding anniversary celebration that was held for her parents in the historic house on Sept. 21, 1887.

Ladies and gentlemen, as I sit on the porch of the Mother Thompson Home, chatting with the daughter of early temperance crusader Eliza Jane Trimble Thompson, I talk with her about the historic edifice.

Ladies and gentlemen, as I sit on the porch of the Mother Thompson Home, chatting with the daughter of early temperance crusader Eliza Jane Trimble Thompson, I talk with her about the historic edifice.

“The ‘sober after-thought’ of this great movement had crystallized into the ‘Woman’s Christian Temperance Union,’ and Mother’s temperance work now was the presidency of the Hillsboro Union, attending national and state conventions, a correspondence in all parts of our own and other countries with the temperance workers and the highest work her prayers for the cause and the laborers.”

“The ‘sober after-thought’ of this great movement had crystallized into the ‘Woman’s Christian Temperance Union,’ and Mother’s temperance work now was the presidency of the Hillsboro Union, attending national and state conventions, a correspondence in all parts of our own and other countries with the temperance workers and the highest work her prayers for the cause and the laborers.”

“I loved it so much I never stopped playing it,” Wooten said. “From the Clowns to semi-pro ball with the Goldsboro Braves, to softball, I played until it got to the point where the doctor said, ‘If you don’t stop playing, with that knee, you’re going to end up in a wheelchair.’ So after about two or three more surgeries on it — it’s bone on bone now, and I’ve got arthritis in it — I stopped when I was about 47, 48. I could still hit, but they’d throw me out at first base from the outfield, so it was time to go.

"I use my single windup, my double windup, my triple windup, my hesitation windup, my no windup,” Paige said. “I also use my step-n-pitch-it, my submariner, my sidearmer and my bat dodger. Man's got to do what he's got to do." And for more than four decades, Satchel Paige did just that – and then some.

Ladies and gentlemen, when he played with the Indianapolis Clowns back in the 1960s, Hubert “Big Daddy” Wooten wasn’t a big man by any means – he stands just 5-foot-8 (“maybe 5-foot-8 1/2,” he laughs). But there wasn’t a ballpark that could hold him if he got into a pitch.

Ladies and gentlemen, nearly three quarters of a century ago, Cincinnati had a pair of professional baseball teams. Of course, there were the Reds, but some might not realize there was another ball club called the Clowns. The Clowns had built a following as one of baseball’s favorite entertainment attractions during the 1930s.