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Read More about this safari issue.1937: Little Rock Travelers’ Magic Season
On April 10, 1937, hometown favorite “Red” Nonnenkamp hit a walk-off home run to win an exhibition game for the Little Rock Travelers. The contest versus the New York Yankees was one of the traditional spring games that baseball teams at every level use as a warm-up to the season; however, this was not a meaningless exhibition game.
A crowd of more than 4,500 squeezed into Travelers Field, and Lou Gehrig, Bill Dickey, and Joe DiMaggio were in the opposing dugout. That Saturday afternoon in April was a harbinger of the astonishing season that lay ahead for the 1937 Travelers. The game-winning home run also foreshadowed the year in which Little Rock’s adopted son, Leo William Nonnenkamp, would solidify his stature as one of the most beloved players in Travelers’ history.
The next day, April 11, 1937, the Travelers were the talk of the town. Gehrig, DiMaggio, and friends had stopped by the previous afternoon to play the Travelers and provided the baseball story of the year. The Little Rock club, who cared a lot more about the game than the Yanks, had won the Saturday afternoon affair 12–11, on the walk-off homerun that had energized the city. On this afternoon, folks who could arrange such things on a Sunday, would head back to Travelers Field to see the hometown team play the Cleveland Indians.
The Indians were pitching their 18-year-old whiz kid, Bob Feller. Sportswriters already called the young pitcher “Rapid Robert,” boldly proclaiming that the teenager had the best fastball in pro baseball. He had struck out 76 batters in 62 innings the previous season as a 17-year-old. Little Rock would counter with a former college star from the University of Alabama, named Lee Rogers.
Unexpectedly, Feller did not overpower the Travs, in fact, he was replaced after allowing the home team four runs in the bottom half of the third inning. Rogers, on the other hand, dominated the American Leaguers, shutting out the Indians without a hit in his five innings of work. For those who were not in attendance, or had not heard the news, the next day’s box score was undoubtedly a surprise: Little Rock–5, Cleveland–0, winning pitcher, Lee Rogers, losing pitcher, Bob Feller.
Both Missouri-born Leo Nonnenkamp and Alabama native Lee Rogers recalled the epic 1937 season as the best time of their baseball lives. The two young men who spent that unforgettable year in the capital city obviously fell in love with Little Rock, Arkansas. They would never leave.
Leo Nonnenkamp was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 7, 1911. Although the city was a hotbed of youth baseball, Nonnenkamp did not play in an organized league until the summer of 1929. That summer his .521 average in the St. Louis Municipal League earned him an invitation to something the St. Louis Cardinals called a “baseball school.” The tryout camp, vaguely disguised as an instructional event, was held in nearby Danville, Illinois, in the spring of 1930. According to the Sporting News, the “professors” at the school “nominated” Nonnenkamp for more advanced baseball education. The Cardinals signed their 18-year-old baseball school graduate immediately and assigned him to Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, in the Blue Ridge League.
While his future teammate was starring in the Southeastern Conference, Nonnenkamp was moving steadily through the low minors. First with the Cardinal organization and later with Pittsburgh Pirate’s farm clubs he consistently batted .300 plus. His hitting and baserunning skills earned a one-game promotion to the big leagues in 1933. He struck out in his only at bat.
Nonnenkamp arrived in Little Rock in 1934, and by 1935 he was the star of the team. Now part of the Red Sox farm system, at age 22 Nonnenkamp looked like a can’t-miss major leaguer. He remained with the Travelers for four complete seasons.
Lee Otis Rogers was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on October 8, 1913, and grew up in Holt, a village about five minutes from the University of Alabama campus. He was a three-sport star at Holt, and, although he made the football team and basketball team at Alabama, his most success came as a left-handed pitcher for the Crimson Tide. The Alabama baseball team won the SEC baseball title in his junior and senior years, with Rogers pitching almost every conference game as a senior and losing only once.
Rogers signed with the Boston Red Sox immediately after the end of the 1935 SEC tournament. After a 17-game stop at Charolotte in the Piedmont league, Lee Rogers joined Nonnenkamp in Little Rock for the last half of the 1935 season. His experience in the tough SEC had earned him two quick promotions.
While Nonnenkamp and Rogers both had good seasons in 1935 and 1936, the unexpected summer of 1937 was one of the most celebrated seasons in Travelers’ history. Occasionally, in the tumultuous world of minor league baseball, when prospects moving up toward the big leagues and players on the way down from the majors land together on the same roster, a magic combination occurs. Some of those fortunate circumstances resulted in the 1937 Little Rock Travelers.
The 1937 Travelers were much more than Lee Rogers and Red Nonnenkamp. They had a promising young pitcher from Bay, Arkansas, named Bob Porter who had won 13 games in 1936. Firey infielder Sammy Liberto from a well-known Italian restaurant/baseball family in Fort Smith, had batted .306 as a 20-year-old the previous season and looked like a future major league star. Another SEC pitcher, Kola Sharp from the University of Tennessee, was an established starting pitcher and infielders Al Niemiec and Rawhide Tabor were two of the Southern Association’s top RBI men. The Travs had a solid lineup and the most esteemed manager in the league.
Two years earlier Boston owner, Tom Yawkey, had convinced one of the most successful managers in minor league history to lead his Little Rock franchise. Doc Prothro, a part time dentist and a respected baseball guy would lead Little Rock to a magic season in 1937.
Prothro created a seven-man staff that shared the pitching load. As a result, when the season moved into the hot humid southern summer the Little Rock pitchers were well rested. Under Prothro’s leadership, Leo Nonnenkamp became the league’s most feared hitter, and Lee Rogers seemed to always be at his best in the big games.
The Travelers clinched the regular season pennant in early September. Rogers won the deciding game of the semi-finals in the post-season playoffs, and a week later he pitched a six-hitter to beat the Atlanta Crackers in the Southern Association Championship. Leo Nonnenkamp was named the league’s MVP.
With World War II on the horizon, baseball was entering trying times. Due to the growing number of major leaguers in military service, players were in short supply. Rogers and Nonnenkamp would get major league trials in the 1940s, but neither had multi-season big-league careers. Although they never reached their minor league notoriety as major leaguers, the two heroes from the magic 1937 season became locally famous in their adopted hometown.
Lee Rogers became a businessman in Little Rock and served as commissioner of Arkansas American Legion Baseball. Red Nonnenkamp made Little Rock sports page news as one of the city’s top bowlers. After his pro baseball years, he worked for the US Post Office.
Lee Rogers was inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame in 1983. Leo “Red” joined him as an inductee in 1993.
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