Cap tip to Dave Blackburn for spotting this one.
From my hometown newspaper, the Long Beach Press Telegram
Mark Bailey impressed Eddie Feigner with his speed and his between-the-legs throws. (Brittany Murray / Staff Photographer)
HALL OF FAME: Long Beach native recalls his time with 4-man softball squad.
By Bob Keisser, Staff Writer
Mark Bailey impressed Eddie Feigner with his speed and his between-the-legs throws. (Brittany Murray / Staff Photographer)
Ask most people how many players you need for a baseball and softball team, and the answer will be nine.
But Mark Bailey knows you can get away with four.
For five years, Bailey was the shortstop on the King and His Court softball team, the legendary squad headlined by Eddie Feigner, arguably the greatest fast-pitch softball player ever.
This was no ordinary team. It was a show squad that traveled the country and played exhibitions against other teams, the difference being that the court played with just four players – Feigner, a catcher, first baseman and shortstop.
Starting in 1965, Bailey was the King’s shortstop, which meant he also played third base, left field and a little center field, on those rare occasions an opponent would make contact with Feigner’s array of pitches.
“I had a tryout for him in 1965,” said Bailey, a Long Beach native who will be inducted into the Long Beach Baseball and Softball Hall of Fame next Saturday (Oct. 10) at Blair Field. “He had heard of me and his shortstop had just retired, and he needed someone who could also pitch.
“When he saw I could do a few things, some of that between-the-legs stuff, and cover a lot of ground, he signed me. He liked that he could use me in more than one spot.”
The tours were more than a grind. Bailey estimated that the team would play 200 dates a year and the calendar often featured weeks of eight or nine games, including the occasional tripleheader.
“We once played five games in three days in four states,” Bailey said. “It was serious travel. Thing is, I was a good ballplayer but when you start playing with just four guys, you really improve. You get to a point where you play so much that you don’t even notice.”
Bailey noted with a laugh that first baseman Al Jackson was the oldest guy on the team, so his coverage area could also include right field. “Sometimes I wished I was the old guy,” he said.
Many of the games were against town teams, but this being at a time when fast-pitch softball had a national footprint, they’d also face teams that were powers in either Amateur Softball Assn. or International Softball Congress leagues. “We did play the defending world champs several times, and some of those games were pretty intense,” he said.
“We all had our things. Catcher Jim Herrick was the team comedian and I was fast, always running. When Eddie set his mind on it, there was no pitcher like him. He could make the ball curve and fade and put it anywhere within 360 degrees, and there was the behind the back and between his leg tricks, too.”
Bailey is as Long Beach as they come. He was born here and went to McKinley Elementary, Hamilton Middle School, Jordan High School, Long Beach City College and Long Beach State, and he was a teacher at Washington Middle School for 35 years.
He started playing baseball and softball when he was a fourth grader and played baseball at Jordan and Long Beach City College before putting his emphasis on softball.
He played on several of the legendary open-class softball teams in the Southland, including the Anaheim Bobcats, Lakewood Jets and briefly with the Long Beach Nitehawks. Bailey, whose nephew is former UCLA and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, went back to an ISC World Series with the Nitehawks and won several ASA titles with the Jets. He was a member of the 1974 Jets team that won a ISC world title, too.
“I tell people about those days and they have no idea how big it was,” he said. “The Nitehawks were the team because they went to the ISC World Series every year and they were so popular here, but the ASA was the Big Dog. More teams, bigger tournaments.”
Few teams were bigger than the King and his Court, and with players like Bailey, they weren’t exactly playing short-handed.
bob.keisser@presstelegram.com
(Click photo below to enlarge)
(Photo: Inaugural plaque for Long Beach Baseball and Softball Hall of Fame, circa 2004. (Photo by Maddy Flanagan, click to enlarge)
Editor’s note: Must be the week for stories about the King and his Court, this one coming on the heels of a story earlier this week in New Jersey paper, clear across the country on Rich Hoppe. The story above appeared in my hometown newspaper, the Press Telegram (a paper I delivered at age 12), profiling a player that I watched for a number of years. Though the story focuses on his four years with the King and his court, Mark Bailey will be remembered in Long Beach for the years he played on other teams, including two of the powerhouse squads of his day, the Lakewood Jets and the Long Beach Nitehawks. Bailey was in the twilight of his career as I was starting to play in tournaments around town, but even then remained one of the better known and liked ballplayers around.
Our congratulations to Mark on his pending induction into the Long Beach Baseball and Softball Hall of Fame. He will join other Long Beach greats, including former Long Beach Nitehawk shortstop Nick Hopkins and Nitehawk skipper the late Red Meairs, on the softball side and MLB Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn on the baseball side.
Click here to view our prior story about the Long Beach Baseball and Softball Hall of Fame, inaugural inductions, 2004.