High Point Rockers, Truist Point

On Sunday, July 3rd, the South Maryland Blue Crabs downed the High Point Rockers by a 4-2 score, behind a three-run homer by shortstop Alex Crosby. Out of six games Angela and I have seen this season, it's the first one when the visiting team won. 

This was also the first game we've seen this year where I looked over the team rosters and recognized a couple of names. These teams play in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, which is an independent league. This means the Rockers and Blue Crabs are not connected to or supported by any major league team. Most players are in their late 20s or early 30s, which is a little old for a prospect. A few have some major league service time. For whatever reason, these players have left the standard pro baseball feeder system. If they have big-league ambitions, they are following a path of lateral entry. 

Another way of saying it is, these dudes, some of them at least, are clinging to a last thin shred of hope of making the majors. It's not unheard of for a guy to use the Atlantic League as a springboard to the bigs, but the examples are pretty few. The players know this. They don't look desperate or anything. They might be more relaxed than the 19-year-olds in the South Atlantic League. They seem to enjoy their jobs. They have some flair; they might put an extra flourish into a routine defensive play, for instance.

Before the first pitch on Sunday, the PA guy at Truist Point announced that tonight's would be the last game in a Rockers uniform for Johnny Field. He is retiring in mid-season. 30 years old, a Las Vegas native, Field spent most of 2018 in the American League, the majors. Then he slipped back to AAA. Then he played for a year in Australia, which it occurs to me could be a move related to the pandemic. Then he went to the U.S. independent leagues in 2021. Johnny Field went out in style on Sunday: he hit a solo home run and a single, played center field, and generally looked like one of the better players out there. He still has something left in the tank. But he has decided to start a new chapter in life, perhaps less of a longshot.

The nickname "Rockers" hearkens back to High Point's history as a center of the furniture industry. The Rockers debuted in 2019 and ended a 50-year absence for the city of High Point from minor league baseball. There was a High Point team in different leagues off and on in the mid-20th century: sometimes called the Pointers, sometimes the Furniture Makers. For over a decade High Point shared a team with Thomasville, another furniture town nearby; this hybrid team was called the Hi-Toms. (Love it! I love so many of these team nicknames.)

Mill towns and minor league baseball go together like salted peanuts and Coca-Cola. Baseball's popularity was booming at the same time as the southern mill economy, and the mills latched onto baseball as a useful diversion from the hardships of millworkers' lives. Yet the relationships between organized baseball and small regional leagues were fluid and sometimes tense. Then as now, MLB wanted a free hand to maintain their monopoly on the best players, and to expand or contract the low minors at will. The towns had ideas of their own; they were flexible and inventive in keeping their ballclubs alive. (See: the Hi-Toms.) Mills were often willing to pay players, over or under the table. MLB in response was willing to blackball players and declare whole leagues illegitimate. (I was surprised to learn that the "Carolina League" operated without MLB's blessing for a few years during the Great Depression.)  The players were scrambling and scheming, weighing their limited-time opportunity to get paid for playing, versus their need for a post-baseball livelihood. I am relying heavily for all this on a great article by John Short about the mill leagues.

Cliff Bolton (Courtesy Sports Reference LLC)

Let me tell a story about Cliff Bolton. Cliff Bolton was born in High Point in 1907 and broke into pro baseball with the High Point Pointers in 1927. He was a catcher with a pretty good bat, and from High Point and the Piedmont League he rose through the ranks, cracking the majors in 1931 with the Washington Senators. He appeared in the 1933 World Series with the Senators, going 0 for 2 as a pinch-hitter. The Senators made him their number one catcher in 1935-36. Then he bounced to the Detroit Tigers in '37, then the Tigers cut him from the roster. He was 30 years old. 

In 1938 Bolton returned to North Carolina and became the manager (non-playing) for the Valdese Textiles of the Carolina League. This was during the outlaw-league interlude that John Short wrote about. Bolton is missing from the baseball records in 1939.

In 1940 Bolton appears as a catcher again, in the Detroit system, then back in the Washington system. He had quite a bit left in the tank: he had one more cup of coffee in Washington, and played a couple of years in the high minors in Little Rock and Chattanooga. Mostly, though, he played in the Carolinas for several teams in several leagues. He played throughout the World War II years, when many younger players were entering military service. He spent four seasons with the Hi-Toms, including 1949 when he batted .399 with 105 RBIs, at age 42. His final season was 1952, divided between the Rutherford County Owls, based in Forest City, and the Lexington Indians. Bolton died in 1979 in Lexington, not far from High Point. His death certificate lists his occupation as Supervisor in a Knitting Mill. 

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Opened in 2019, Truist Point (Truist is a bank; not sure what "Point" refers to) is clean and well laid-out for spectators. I like the downtown location. One thing bothers me, though. I immediately noticed the striking two-toned outfield turf and wondered how they achieved that effect. The answer is, the playing surface is artificial. Not just the outfield and infield "grassy" areas, but the mound and the areas around the bases, which are bare dirt in most ballparks, are covered in reddish-brown carpet. Same turf, different color, it appears. I know artificial turf is better than it used to be, but a player sliding into base and raising a cloud of manufactured particles? This is unfortunate.

Angela and I each had a barbecue sandwich at Truist Point that we rate the best ballpark food we've had this season. The soft pretzel was pretty good as well.

Paddled South Brewing Company is based just two blocks from the ballpark in High Point. I had a glass of their tangerine sour. I also had a Fiddlin' Fish Space Angler West Coast IPA, from Winston-Salem. Both very nice. 

High Point is part of the Piedmont Triad, along with Winston-Salem and Greensboro. Wikipedia tells me that High Point is the only North Carolina city that exists within four counties: Forsyth, Guilford, Davidson, and Randolph. The latter two in particular are High Point's catchment area for my purposes:

• The brilliant and mercurial Johnny Allen (1904-1959) spent much of his childhood in the Thomasville Baptist Orphanage. He was working in a hotel in Sanford, NC when he was discovered by Yankees scout Paul Krichell. His hot temper caused him to bounce from team to team and probably hampered his success. But 142 big league wins and 75 losses is a hell of a record, and Johnny didn’t make the big leagues until he was 27.
• Ray Hayworth (1904-2002) had a career rather like Moe Berg’s, spending a lot of years on major league benches as a backup catcher. After his playing days were over, Hayworth remained in pro baseball as a coach and scout. A High Point native, member of a Quaker family, he chose baseball over a career in the upholstery trade. His younger brother Red also played in the big leagues as a catcher. Ray was interviewed in 1999 for this ESPN film about Ty Cobb.
• Hall of Famer Luke Appling (1907-1991) was born in High Point and has a street named for him near Truist Point.
• Max Lanier (1915-2007) pitched in three consecutive World Series, 1942-1944, of which his St. Louis Cardinals won two. In those three series he recorded a 1.71 ERA in 31.2 innings. Max had an interesting life and career. He incurred the wrath of the baseball establishment by jumping to the outlaw Mexican League during his prime. The commissioner blackballed him, so Lanier sued the sport and challenged the reserve clause, and scored an out-of-court victory. Lanier was born and raised in Denton, in Davidson County.
• The great sportswriter Furman Bisher (1918-2012) was also from Denton and worked for the High Point Enterprise early in his career. Bisher’s greatest fame was with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
• Wil Myers (b. 1990) was the 2013 American League Rookie of the Year and is still active with the San Diego Padres. Born in Thomasville, he went to high school in High Point.