An inside look at baseball's legendary Preacher Roe

If one day could change a man's life, April 26, 1937, was that day for Elwin "Preacher" Roe. In a 13-inning marathon baseball game against Arkansas Tech, Roe, Harding's star left-handed pitcher, struck out 26 batters and walked none in a 4-4 tie. The umpire stopped the game, not because of a sore throat from calling strikes, but because of darkness.

Professional scouts descended on Searcy to watch the phenom pitch - with good reason. In 1937, Roe pitched in seven games for the Bisons with 97 strikeouts. Offers came to sign with a professional team, but Roe passed on those and returned for the 1937-38 school year and one more season.

Roe was born in Ash Flat, Ark., in 1915 to Dr. C.E. and Elizabeth Ducker Roe. A country doctor, C.E. was an avid baseball fan and pitched semiprofessionally well into his 50s. Preacher earned his nickname as a toddler when his uncle, who had just returned from World War I, asked him his name. For some reason he responded, "Preacher." The name stuck.

When Roe graduated from Viola (Ark.) High School, Harding students from the area recruited him to Searcy to play baseball and basketball for the Bisons.

"The main thing was that we were looking for a school for baseball," says Roe. "My dad knew that Harding was an up-and-coming baseball school. My decision to go to Harding was one of the greatest things I ever did."

In each of his first two seasons, Roe earned All-Arkansas Intercollegiate Conference honors. He had an occasional dazzling outing - like the 26-strikeout effort against Arkansas Tech - but his record suffered at times due to his teammates' poor fielding.

"I remember turning around one time during that Arkansas Tech game, and all three of my outfielders were sitting down in centerfield talking," Roe recalls.

But in 1938, everything came together. School administrators constructed a new field, christened Benson Field after then president George S. Benson. The Bison's Buck Harris wrote, "The park is Harding's greatest achievement in athletics since the school has been in Searcy."

That same year, in a 6-0 victory over Arkansas College, Roe struck out 20 with no walks. He allowed only one hit, an eighth-inning single. The field, used in following years by the intramural program, may never have seen a better pitching performance.

The game was the first of many that wowed the Harding faithful that spring. Roe completed the season with a perfect 12-0 record and 192 strikeouts in intercollegiate competition. His only loss came against a Class D professional team from Newport, Ark. He earned his third All-AIC honor and helped the Bisons' take their first AIC championship.

"He was a leader," said the late M.E. (Pinky) Berryhill, who, along with player-coach Robert Vann, coached the baseball team in 1937-38.

"I never knew a more dedicated competitor."

When the 1938 season concluded, Roe signed a $5,000 professional contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. Frank Rickey, the scout credited with signing Roe, was the brother of Branch Rickey, who is known today as the father of the modern farm system of which Roe was a product. The signing bonus was equivalent to $68,000 in today's dollars.

The Cardinals allowed Roe to finish the school year, and he officially signed his contract July 28. Even in the 1930s, most professional players first went to minor leagues for more seasoning. But because Roe joined the organization so late in the year, the Cardinals brought him straight to St. Louis. His job was to pitch batting practice and the occasional exhibition game. That was the plan anyway.

When Roe joined the Cardinals - nicknamed the Gas House Gang due to their reputation for mischief - veteran pitcher Lon Warneke, also an Arkansas native, took Roe under his wing. One of the lessons Warneke taught him was how to chew tobacco. Warneke reasoned that anyone from Arkansas should know how to chew.

On Aug. 22, Warneke gave Roe another lesson. Things were not going well for St. Louis on the field. Entering the day, the team was 17.5 games behind league-leading Pittsburgh and in seventh place out of eight teams in the National League. The Cardinal starter was struggling on the mound against Cincinnati, and manager Frankie Frisch had seen enough. He called in 23-year-old Roe without allowing him to warm up. Roe recalls that he "nearly swallowed the whole plug" before he trotted in from the bullpen.

His professional debut did not go as well as he would have liked. He pitched two and 2/3 innings and allowed six hits and four earned runs. He walked two and struck out one. The Reds defeated the Cardinals 11-4, and Roe did not see Major League action again until 1944.

He returned to Harding following the Cardinals' season and served as a volunteer coach for the basketball team, purchasing new uniforms for the players. Throughout his baseball career, Roe would return home in the off-season to teach and coach.

In 1939 and 1940, he played for the St. Louis Cardinals' minor league affiliate in Rochester, N.Y., a member of the International League. He helped lead the Rochester squad to a league championship in 1939. Another reward befell him in 1940, when his wife, Mozee Clay, had their first child, a son named Elwin Jr. Roe's father delivered his grandson.

The Roes moved on to Columbus, Ohio, in 1941, where his salary doubled from $200 to $400 per month. His habit of playing for winning teams continued there. The Red Birds of the American Association won the Little World Series - a contest between champions of the International League and American Association - all three seasons that Roe was on the team.

In 1944, Roe returned to Major League Baseball for good. St. Louis traded him in September 1943 to the Pittsburgh Pirates - a team in desperate need of left-handers - for cash and two pitchers who would spend the season in the minors.

"People asked me if I was upset after the Cardinals traded me," Roe says. "I told them, 'No way; the Cardinals had so many left-handers, I'd have never gotten there.' This [trade] allowed me to get to the
Major Leagues."

St. Louis was the runaway winner of the National League that season, finishing 14.5 games ahead of the Pirates. But Roe had a strong debut in what was, in essence, his rookie season. Ironically, his manager for the Pirates was none other than Frankie Frisch, the man responsible for his "surprise" big league appearance back in 1938.

Roe went 13-11 with a 3.11 ERA and led the team with 88 strikeouts in 1944. He was even better the next season, compiling a 14-13 mark with a 2.87 ERA and leading the team in nearly every pitching category. He also earned the first of his five All-Star selections, but baseball cancelled the All-Star Game that season due to World War II.

Life was great for Roe, who now had two sons with Mozee. That was until a nearly fatal day in the offseason before the 1946 season.

Roe had returned to Hardy, Ark., to teach and coach. During his last game before leaving for spring training, he was knocked unconscious in a scuffle with a referee. Falling backward, he hit his head. Unconcious for more than 57 hours, he landed in the hospital 54 days with a skull fracture that measured more than 6 inches long. A doctor present at the game administered adrenaline shots that kept Roe alive long enough to get to the hospital.

The injury left Roe with short-term memory loss and forced him to relearn most of his pitching skills. The effect was obvious in his performance. That season, he was 3-8 with a 5.14 ERA. The 1947 season was even worse as Roe struggled to a 4-15 record and 5.25 ERA. He allowed 19 home runs in 144.0 innings and walked more batters (63) than he struck out (59) for the only time in his career.

His career at a standstill, Roe received help from two old friends who revived his mental and physical game - Branch and Frank Rickey. Branch, who gave Jackie Robinson his first Major League contract in 1947, was general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers and remembered the outstanding left-hander he had signed from Harding almost 10 years earlier.

Branch sent Frank to Arkansas to spend the winter with Roe. The two hunted, fished and built up Roe's stamina. On Dec. 7, 1947, Roe was traded to the Dodgers.

Branch told Roe that he acquired him because, "It seems to me you are in for a change of luck. You've had a few years of bad luck running, and I want to be the one holding your contract when your luck changes for the better."

Says Roe, "To me, becoming a Brooklyn Dodger was second only to coming to Harding."

Whether luck or the result of recovering from his head injury, Roe's career took on a whole new life in 1948. He went 12-8 with a team-best 2.63 ERA, the first of four-straight years that Roe led the Dodgers in earned run average.

In 1949, he earned his second All-Star honor. He pitched a scoreless inning before a home crowd of 32,577 at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, his only time on the mound in five All-Star selections.

The season was memorable for another reason. The Dodgers edged out the Cardinals by one game for the National League pennant and met the New York Yankees in the cross-town World Series. Roe pitched game two of the Series, shutting out the Yankees on six hits in a 1-0 Dodgers victory played before more than 70,000 spectators at Yankee Stadium. He struck out three with no walks. Roe's win was the only one against New York, the Dodgers falling four games to one.

"I really didn't realize I was pitching a good game," says Roe. "I was just trying to pitch inning by inning, and I turned around, and it was the ninth inning. At that point, you just don't want to lay one in there [that they can hit] with a 1-0 lead. Looking back on it, I think it was probably the best game I ever pitched."

Roe again showed his All-Star quality in the 1950 season, winning 19 games and striking out 125 hitters, his highest total in seven seasons with the Dodgers.

But as good as 1950 was, 1951 is the season for which Dodger fans will always remember Roe. He compiled a 22-3 record with a .880 winning percentage, the fourth-highest percentage by a left-hander in Major League history. He became the only pitcher ever to have two separate 10-game winning streaks in a season and earned The Sporting News National League Pitcher of the Year award. He was fifth in the National League Most Valuable Player voting, losing to his own catcher, Roy Campanella.

The Dodgers, who had led by as many as 13 games midway through August, just missed the World Series that season, losing a playoff to the New York Giants.

Roe and the Dodgers returned to the Series in 1952 against the rival Yankees. Once again, Roe won his outing 5-3 in game three, and once again, the Yankees won the Series, this time four games to three. He also pitched as relief in two of the games.

Roe had one final chance at the Yankees in 1953 as the two New York squads again squared off. But he suffered his first loss in a World Series, falling 4-2 and giving up home runs to Billy Martin and Mickey Mantle. The Yankees won, four games to two.

"Mantle's home run went all the way up to the fourth tier at Yankee Stadium," recalls Roe. "[Dodger shortstop] Pee Wee Reese comes running to the mound and asked me what I was looking at. I said, 'I just had to see how far that thing went.' He hit that ball so hard, I believe it was flat by the time it got out of there."

At 39, Roe was the third-oldest player in the National League in his final season with the Dodgers in 1954. He had tried to retire following the 1953 season, but Dodgers president Walter O'Malley told him about a youngster he wanted Roe to tutor. The young southpaw's name: Sandy Koufax.

"I haven't gotten much credit for it, but I taught Koufax how to throw his curveball," Roe says. "He couldn't throw a curveball any better than my grandmother. He threw it too hard. It couldn't break. So I told him to throw it at seven-eighths speed. Our teammates heard me say that so much, they said we were seven-eighths twins."

Following that season, he and Mozee went home to the Ozarks. Roe completed his career with a 127-84 record and a 3.43 ERA. He had 956 strikeouts in 1914.1 innings. As a Dodger, Roe had a 93-37 record. His .715 winning percentage is still the best in franchise history.

The family moved to West Plains, Mo., where Roe purchased a grocery store he ran for many years. Mozee died in 2001 after 63 years of marriage.

In 1967, he began a procession to numerous halls of fame with his induction into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame. Others included the NAIA Hall of Fame (1976); Columbus, Ohio, Baseball Hall of Fame (1979); Dodgers Hall of Fame (1986); Harding Athletics Hall of Fame (1989); and Missouri Sports Hall of Fame (1998).

At 92, Roe is still revered in West Plains and has a street named after him. When he walks into the local Wendy's, the eyes of the boys working behind the counter light up with excitement. He has been known to play nine holes of golf several times a week.

Roe says, "When I look back on my life, there were just a few things that became part of me. For me, that was Harding College. It was the best break I ever got in life."

And the break that let him become a baseball legend.