Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 2, 1992 TAG: 9202020138
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`DUKE' NOT FORGOTTEN IN ROANOKE
The "Duke of Roanoke" closed the game by making a brilliant running backward catch of Nattress' long fly.Brodie came very near being the whole show yesterday. He batted like a fiend and fielded out of sight. Moreover, Steve's work seems to put ginger into the whole team. More power to you, "Roanoke."
So it was written in a New York newspaper in 1902. A century ago, Roanoke wasn't the Star City. It was known as a baseball town.
Walter "Steve" Brodie was the man responsible. He was Brodie Roanoke's first major-leaguer. A lifetime .303 hitter and masterful center fielder, Brodie played 12 seasons in the bigs with six clubs, starting in 1890.
He was colorful and controversial. In Baltimore in the mid-1890s, Brodie was flanked by Joe Kelley and Wee Willie Keeler in one of the great outfields in the game's history.
Kelley and Keeler are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, as are other former Brodie cronies, like Iron Man McGinnity, John McGraw, Wilbert Robinson, Roger Bresnahan, Hughie Jennings and Dan Brouthers. Brodie's family is trying to build a home for Brodie in Cooperstown, N.Y., too.
Maybe the step Brodie's legacy takes tonight will help convince the hall's Veterans Committee. Brodie will be one of the Roanoke-Salem Baseball Hall of Fame's charter inductees at a sold-out Hot Stove Banquet at the Salem Civic Center.
Brodie's three granddaughters have sent out 175-page copies of Brodie's scrapbook, which was compiled by the player's wife years ago. The clippings are intriguing.
Brodie was born in Warrenton in 1868. He came to Roanoke to play semipro ball in 1885 or '86, having been recommended to Railroad Leaguers by a Norfolk and Western passenger agent who had seen him play.
In '87, he married 15-year-old Roanoker Carrie Henry. Brodie was 19. At 22, he reached the National League, a decade before the American League was created. Four years later, he was starring for the NL Orioles.
Already, he was known as the "Duke of Roanoke" because of the image he presented. He was the Orioles' only Southerner, and his off-seasons in Roanoke were filled with praise from officials of a burgeoning town that not long before had been known as Big Lick.
The 5-foot-10, 180-pound Brodie often carried on conversations with himself, aloud, in center field. He quoted Shakespeare between hitters. He had, however, "at times made it unpleasant for the umpire," like the one day when Brodie's hands were wrapped around an arbiter's neck.
According to another publication, Brodie "was even more famous for his ability to catch fly balls behind his back, facing away from the plate. However, he did this only in batting practice."
He was "as fast on his feet as a Kansas grasshopper," one story tells.
From 1891 into 1897, Brodie also played in 727 consecutive games, which was the major-league record at the time. He still ranks 21st on the all-time list.
Brodie batted .366 and .348 in 1894-95, during the dead-ball era. However, his most-heralded contribution to the national pastime in his adopted hometown came after the '96 season.
Brodie, who had played for championship teams in Baltimore, was traded to lowly Pittsburgh. The "Duke of Roanoke" wasn't happy because "Baltimore is so near to my home that, when my club was playing there, I could run down to Roanoke and spend Sunday with my wife and babies."
So, in part to placate Brodie, Pittsburgh moved its spring training to Roanoke in '97, rather than return to Atlanta or go to New Orleans or Hot Springs, Ark. For three weeks, the Pirates worked out on local fields, playing VMI among others.
The Pirates' headquarters remain standing.
"The hotel is situated on top of a small knoll right above the train station and is surrounded by spacious grounds ornamented by a few `keep off the grass' signs, which kept the crowd from following the players up the hill."
The Pirates stayed in the Hotel Roanoke only three weeks, but Brodie's career remained tied to this railroad city. He went on to coach at Rutgers, Princeton and Navy. He was a YMCA secretary overseas during World War II.
Brodie's last years were spent as the supervisor and superintendent of grounds at what is now Baltimore's Memorial Stadium. He died in 1935.
Thanks in part to a new Hall of Fame, Brodie won't be forgotten here. Maybe someday soon, Brodie will put Roanoke on the map in Cooperstown, too.