The Clowns: The last of baseball’s barnstormers, Part 4
Lead Summary
By
Steve Roush-
“Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” – Satchel Paige (1906-1982)
Ladies and gentlemen, Satchel Paige was (perhaps) 61 years old (maybe older) when Hubert “Big Daddy” Wooten managed him back in 1967.
Paige played baseball for more than four decades. Wooten, now 72, played four seasons for the Indianapolis Clowns, the last of baseball’s barnstormers.
When I sat down and chatted with Wooten more than a decade ago, he told me he didn’t play for the money, which was a good thing.
“You weren’t making any money,” he said. “But you weren’t thinking about money. All you were thinking about was catching the eye of some scout.
“After every two weeks, you got paid. Depending on what type of ballplayer you were, some would get $150, some $250, something like that.”
That type of money didn’t lend itself to fine dining and upscale restaurants.
“You see, during that time, you got meal money, perhaps 15 dollars, and made it last all week,” Wooten recalled. “The guys would get together and get some bologna and peanut butter and jelly. People don’t understand now, but that bologna and peanut butter and jelly was pretty good back then.”
Where the Clowns bedded down at night was also, at times, an adventure.
“The things we went through during that time, especially in the South, the blacks couldn’t stay uptown,” Wooten recalled. “One time in Montgomery, Alabama, we slept in a funeral home. Can you believe that? Some places in Mississippi, Georgia, we’d stay with well-to-do black people.”
But he said wouldn’t trade any of it.
“It was tough, but it was an enjoyable life,” he said with a smile. “I don’t think $2 million could have carried me to the places I went, the things I did and the people I met.
“Would I do it again? Sure I would, I’d go right back out there — hoping.”
Big Daddy Wooten was just 24 years old when the 1968 season ended, but he decided it was time to go.
He had developed a bad knee (“If I hadn’t have gotten hurt, I think I could have made it to the big leagues, but that’s how it goes,” he said), and while he never played baseball for the money, Big Daddy Wooten made the tough decision to come back to his hometown of Goldsboro, N.C. and start a new career.
“I told (Clowns owner) Ed (Hamman) I wanted to go get a job so I wouldn’t be too old when I retired,” Wooten said. “He wanted me to stay and manage the Clowns, and he said he would give me more money. But it was a six-month job, so I decided to come home and get a job that would carry me through the winter.
“So that’s what I did.”
Hamman was sad to see Big Daddy Wooten go.
“Along with being a fine ballplayer, you were a splendid manager and certainly one of the finest persons I have known who wore a Clowns uniform,” the late Hamman wrote to Wooten in the mid-1970s.
Wooten was no longer an Indianapolis Clown, but he didn’t completely abandon the game.
“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 played until the bases got too long.”
After working a year as an appliance repairman, Wooten spent the next three decades working in the recreation department at a local center. He retired in 1991.
In 1975, he married his wife, Brenda, and they had two children, Torrous and Roderick.
Roderick Wooten played running back at Fayetteville State from 1996-98. Big Daddy Wooten was at every single game.
“I didn’t miss a game while he was down there,” he said. “If it was in town, out of town, I told him, ‘You’re going to see one in the stands you know.’ My daddy, he never got to see me play. My mother got to see me play once when I played in Virginia. I was going to make sure I was there when my kids played ball.”
Wooten was inducted into the Professional Negro League Players Association. A few days after I interviewed him in 2006, the Single-A Kinston Indians paid tribute to Big Daddy Wooten and other former Negro League players at historic Grainger Stadium in eastern North Carolina.
“I know I’m part of history,” he said with pride. “We all made a way for so many people.
“We put some miles on the bus.”
Steve Roush is a vice president of an international media company and a columnist and contributing writer for The Highland County Press.
Ladies and gentlemen, Satchel Paige was (perhaps) 61 years old (maybe older) when Hubert “Big Daddy” Wooten managed him back in 1967.
Paige played baseball for more than four decades. Wooten, now 72, played four seasons for the Indianapolis Clowns, the last of baseball’s barnstormers.
When I sat down and chatted with Wooten more than a decade ago, he told me he didn’t play for the money, which was a good thing.
“You weren’t making any money,” he said. “But you weren’t thinking about money. All you were thinking about was catching the eye of some scout.
“After every two weeks, you got paid. Depending on what type of ballplayer you were, some would get $150, some $250, something like that.”
That type of money didn’t lend itself to fine dining and upscale restaurants.
“You see, during that time, you got meal money, perhaps 15 dollars, and made it last all week,” Wooten recalled. “The guys would get together and get some bologna and peanut butter and jelly. People don’t understand now, but that bologna and peanut butter and jelly was pretty good back then.”
Where the Clowns bedded down at night was also, at times, an adventure.
“The things we went through during that time, especially in the South, the blacks couldn’t stay uptown,” Wooten recalled. “One time in Montgomery, Alabama, we slept in a funeral home. Can you believe that? Some places in Mississippi, Georgia, we’d stay with well-to-do black people.”
But he said wouldn’t trade any of it.
“It was tough, but it was an enjoyable life,” he said with a smile. “I don’t think $2 million could have carried me to the places I went, the things I did and the people I met.
“Would I do it again? Sure I would, I’d go right back out there — hoping.”
Big Daddy Wooten was just 24 years old when the 1968 season ended, but he decided it was time to go.
He had developed a bad knee (“If I hadn’t have gotten hurt, I think I could have made it to the big leagues, but that’s how it goes,” he said), and while he never played baseball for the money, Big Daddy Wooten made the tough decision to come back to his hometown of Goldsboro, N.C. and start a new career.
“I told (Clowns owner) Ed (Hamman) I wanted to go get a job so I wouldn’t be too old when I retired,” Wooten said. “He wanted me to stay and manage the Clowns, and he said he would give me more money. But it was a six-month job, so I decided to come home and get a job that would carry me through the winter.
“So that’s what I did.”
Hamman was sad to see Big Daddy Wooten go.
“Along with being a fine ballplayer, you were a splendid manager and certainly one of the finest persons I have known who wore a Clowns uniform,” the late Hamman wrote to Wooten in the mid-1970s.
Wooten was no longer an Indianapolis Clown, but he didn’t completely abandon the game.
“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 played until the bases got too long.”
After working a year as an appliance repairman, Wooten spent the next three decades working in the recreation department at a local center. He retired in 1991.
In 1975, he married his wife, Brenda, and they had two children, Torrous and Roderick.
Roderick Wooten played running back at Fayetteville State from 1996-98. Big Daddy Wooten was at every single game.
“I didn’t miss a game while he was down there,” he said. “If it was in town, out of town, I told him, ‘You’re going to see one in the stands you know.’ My daddy, he never got to see me play. My mother got to see me play once when I played in Virginia. I was going to make sure I was there when my kids played ball.”
Wooten was inducted into the Professional Negro League Players Association. A few days after I interviewed him in 2006, the Single-A Kinston Indians paid tribute to Big Daddy Wooten and other former Negro League players at historic Grainger Stadium in eastern North Carolina.
“I know I’m part of history,” he said with pride. “We all made a way for so many people.
“We put some miles on the bus.”
Steve Roush is a vice president of an international media company and a columnist and contributing writer for The Highland County Press.