There are stories everywhere
1968-2024
Sometimes I think I’m writing one story, and then another story comes out and writes itself instead.
When I was a kid in the ‘60s I sometimes hung out / hid in my Dad’s office at his bar. One of my favorite items of Dad’s office memorabilia was this framed Denver Bears baseball team photo from 1956, courtesy of the local Coors beer distributor. The photo was from before my time, so I had no specific memories of the players on that team. But the Bears were our local minor league club and I was a fan, so I thought this was pretty neat. Plus, my Dad said I could take it home. Yay!
Over the years I spent a little time looking at that photo. Nobody ever got famous for playing minor league baseball. But I noticed that several of the players did go on to great success after passing through Denver. More recently, after rediscovering the photo, I thought maybe I could write an interesting story about this picture and those people.
I figured I would point out the people from the photo who went on to great fame, including World Series championships and even the Baseball Hall of Fame. I also hoped to learn some interesting stories about the lesser-known members of the team.
I didn’t expect that my favorite story from the 1956 Denver Bears was literally hiding among the batboys.
I started with the ones I already knew something about. Tommy Lasorda, at the left end of the top row, was one of the most successful 1956 Bears. Lasorda went on to manage the Los Angeles Dodgers (bitter rival of my San Francisco Giants) for 21 years. He won 2 World Series and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, the highest achievements you can have in baseball. Lasorda’s teammate Marv Throneberry, third from the right, is famous for completely different reasons. “Marvelous Marv” became a cult favorite with the historically terrible New York Mets in the early ‘60s. His initials were his destiny: Marvin Eugene Throneberry was a MET from birth.
As for the others, Googling and chatbotting produced some cool results.
Bob Howsam (the dude off to the right in the suit) owned the Bears. In later years he built 2 World Series-winning teams in Cincinnati and by the way, founded the Denver Broncos football team.
Mike Blyzka (bottom row in the middle) was part of the largest trade in baseball history, in which 17 players changed teams. I guess if you’re traded to a new team, it’s nice to see some familiar faces when you get there.
Ed Burtschy (bottom row, third from left) pitched for 14 seasons at 8 different levels of professional baseball, and carried the awesome nickname “Molasses Shoe”. Maybe he didn’t think the nickname was so awesome.
Other players went on to achievements that included working for Tektronics (Bob Martyn), becoming champion Major League Baseball managers (Darrell Johnson, Ralph Houk), and getting summoned into a game when manager Casey Stengel called out “You with the funny name, you’re up!” (Zeke Bella).
Then there’s the story of batboy Frank Umphries. He’s the first one on the left, bottom row, big smile. He was 16 years old in that photo. Frank wanted to be a player, but faced major heart surgery at 17 that ended his baseball dreams. As he grew up, he filled his life with family, sports coaching, and various careers and hobbies. Online info about Frank says he cared for his parents as they aged and liked to cook and loved Jesus and enjoyed horror movies. Great details!
As I kept searching, I learned that Frank passed away just last year in July 2024. I found a link to an obituary. I was confused when the headline said “In Memory Of Cindy Umphries.” This must be a relative, an aunt or something, I figured. But no. This was the batboy, and her name was Cindy Marie Umphries.
I read Cindy’s obituary, written by one of her many beloved nieces. It told the story of “Uncle Frank, the baseball-loving, avid bowler who took his nieces and nephews to church on Sunday, taught them to bowl and enjoy McDonald’s hamburgers.” It talked about how he coached a softball team at the church where his nephew became a pastor. And about how Uncle Frank began living as Aunt Cindy at age 60.
As I read this, I was struck by the richness of Cindy’s life, her family’s love for her, and the matter-of-fact embrace of her late-in-life transition. The obituary used relaxed gender terminology (“Our unique Aunt Frank”, “Aunt/Uncle Frank/Cindy”, etc.) that was apparently fine with Cindy and felt warm and loving to this outsider reading. I thought about her baseball dreams and serious medical issues at such a young age. I wondered what she went through growing up in that era, what she might have faced with family and teammates that was not mentioned in the obituary, and what it must have been like to wait until age 60 to transition.
Although I never met her, I felt like I knew her a little, because after all I’ve been looking at that Denver Bears photo for more than 50 years, and Frank the batboy is the first person you see.
There’s a nice photo of Cindy on her obituary page, which I’m borrowing here. She’s got the same big beaming smile as the batboy in the Denver Bears team photo from 1956. Some things never change.
And all of this makes me wonder what you might find out about the people in any random minor league baseball team photo.
I enjoy all your stories. This one was particularly moving. Thank you.
Lovely story. You missed Bobby Richardson who famously caught the last out of the '62 World Series. His double play parter in that game, Tony Kubek, was apparently also on that Bears team but not in the picture. The starting pitcher for that game was Ralph Terry, also in your picture above. The team they beat, the San Francisco Giants. You should probably burn that picture in a sacrifice to the baseball gods.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/team.cgi?id=479db24e