McNulty cherished spring training

By Tom Hintgen (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Monday, March 3, 2008

Sixty years ago, in 1948, future Fergus Falls Red Sox baseball player Jim McNulty eagerly headed to spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers in Vero Beach, Fla. McNulty was one of more than 600 Dodger prospects in the team’s new spring headquarters, 11 years before the Dodgers moved their franchise to the West Coast.

This year, with spring training in full swing, it’s again a special time with wonderful memories for McNulty who currently resides in Pennsylvania.

The Dodger program 60 years ago, with former World War II Marine McNulty right in the middle of things, was so massive that it inspired Life Magazine to do an April 1948 feature titled “Dodgertown.”

McNulty previously made an unsuccessful tryout with the New York Giants in the Polo Grounds, for a team that a decade later moved to San Francisco. The future Fergus Falls baseball star was preparing to enroll at Colgate University when the Dodgers called. He was offered a $1,800 signing bonus, which he readily accepted.

When the Dodgers broke spring training camp, McNulty, a second baseman, was assigned to Valdosta, Ga., in the Class D Georgia-Florida League. His salary was $125 per month and a couple dollars a day for meal money.

“Sure, the pay was nothing great, but being part of spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers and being included in their minor league organization was an experience players like me remember for the rest of our lives,” he said in September 2006 during a town baseball reunion at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

In the minor leagues, McNulty had as good an arm as Dodger sensation Jackie Robinson. Unfortunately Mac, as he was known, was weak at the bat. Dick Durrell, a Marine buddy and Fergus Falls Red Sox player, helped lure McNulty to join the town baseball team in Fergus Falls.

Once here, McNulty quickly became a friend of Fergus Falls Red Sox pitcher Harley Oyloe. They’ve kept in touch for 60 years.

“It’s a special friendship,” Oyloe said. “Jim has experienced some health issues of late, but he’s upbeat, as always.”

McNulty and Oyloe both played on the 1950 Fergus Falls Red Sox state title team. Other players included current Fergus Falls resident Roland Harlow and former Otter coach Duane Baglien, both outfielders. George Sawyer, team batboy, later coached high school baseball in Wheaton.

“Jim was dynamite and a holler guy who was loved by the fans,” Durrell said.

Durrell — who in 1973 started People Magazine for Time Life — said nobody knew the game of baseball better than McNulty and Oyloe.

McNulty and Durrell first met when both of them were Marines nearing the end of their World War II tours in Japan, part of the occupational force serving a country ravaged by war. McNulty was in the Iwo Jima invasion, where he witnessed the legendary flag-raising ceremony atop Mount Suribachi.

“I was an outfielder catching fly balls in Japan when not only I, but the other outfielders, suddenly saw this infielder taking ground balls,” Durrell said. “He (McNulty) was a guy with outstanding footwork and a rifle for an arm.”

Durrell said McNulty was the kind of player who made a person stop and watch.

“I honestly believe that if Mac could have even hit .240, he would have made it to the major leagues,” Durrell said. “His defense was exceptional.”

Tom Hintgen is a reporter with The Daily Journal. His column runs Mondays.