[FatJack]

When Harry Perkowski passed away recently, and I was doing my usual thing of gathering pictures, I came across an eBay listing for a 1956 L.A. Angels Yearbook. It was advertised as being in great shape and the price was....let's just say "reasonable". I was intrigued that it was a yearbook, in the first place. I realize the PCL was a bit unique--in essence the closest thing to major league baseball in the west until the Giants and Dodgers arrived in 1958 (1957 would be the Angels final season)--but still I wasn't aware that minor league clubs were making full yearbooks in those days. This one had 40 pages and promised pictures of all the players. And it didn't lie. It's a pretty slick publication for the time. Complete stats, pictures (all head and shoulders), history of the team and the ballpark. It compares favorably to the previous oldest yearbook I own--that of the '62 Mets. The write-ups are terrific (an advantage of being near Hollywood, I'd guess), but I won't be posting those or the stats (get yer own yearbook, geez).

If nobody has any objection, I plan to post some of the player images here. I'd post them all, but there's like 56 of them--all of which scan huge. I figure I'll post the ones that interest me most and put the whole batch into a zip file for anyone interested in the complete "set" (which'll save bandwidth if nothing else). Grab a beer; it'll only cost you 25 or 35 cents (highway robbery).

The one that intrigued me the most, I think, was Sam "First Down" Brown (so named because, in high school, he averaged over 10 yards per carry). Sam was a pretty well-known halfback for the UCLA Bruins in the fifties and I had no idea he'd ever played pro baseball. Well, in fact, he didn't.

After rushing for 892 yards in 1955 and leading UCLA to a 9-2 record and a Rose Bowl berth, Sam was drafted by the Cleveland Browns (in the 22nd round). But Sam preferred baseball. The yearbook notes that there were four other major and minor league baseball teams competing for Brown, but the Angels got him because, growing up in Oakland, the Angels were his favorite team (the California papers at the time referred to African-American athletes as "tan"; just a factoid I found interesting).

Pro outlooks for Sam were mixed. He had hit well at UCLA and had a good power stroke, but others said he couldn't hit good pitching. The Angels considered him a plus defender in the outfield, but detractors said he had no arm. Overall, the Angels thought Brown had great potential but also thought he was still too raw. Near the end of spring training, they cut Brown and assigned him to Twin Falls of the Pioneer League.

But, a few weeks after he was cut, Brown was selected in another draft--this one conducted by Uncle Sam. Though the chronology isn't entirely clear, it was around the same time that he signed with the Cleveland Browns. Sam served two years in the military stationed at Fort Ord, where he continued playing football and baseball. Following his hitch, Sam was in camp with the Browns in the summer of '58, but didn't make the cut. He offered that he was thinking about the CFL, but I can find no evidence that he ever played or tried out in Canada. Instead, he finished up at UCLA, got his Masters at Pepperdine, and began a 30 year career as an elementary school teacher. Sam, sadly, passed away last year.