BEST EVER?: Max Schlopy of Park City, Utah, writes about RTS
subject Jim Owens and about life in the Bradford area before
“organized” sports:

“I grew up with Jimmy in Gifford where we lived and breathed
sports day and night, every day, year-round. What a glorious time
to be young – before TVs, before computers, before video games, and
yes – before organized leagues for youngsters complete with fancy
uniforms, coaches, paid referees, and ‘soccer moms’ to drive us to
every practice or game.”

“So we were on our own, left to enjoy whatever sports we chose,
wherever and whenever. Our choices included football, basketball
(on icy driveways under a dim light until bedtime), baseball, of
course, improvised track and field meets with a brick for a shotput
and pole vaulting over clotheslines, ice hockey on the Gifford town
pond, golf using holes dug in neighbor’s lawns – you name it, we
played it. We even had a boxing ring set up in my parents’
basement.

“And whatever sport we pursued, Jim Owens was our acknowledged
leader – the team organizer, coach, captain, quarterback, pitcher –
Jim ran everything, and he ran everything well. He was constantly
organizing pick-up football and baseball games, Gifford against
Cyclone, Rew, Lewis Run, Smethport, and occasionally teams composed
of ‘big city boys’ from Bradford. And no one ever came to Gifford
to play. Every game was ‘on the road,’ and we hitchhiked both ways
– a mode of transportation no parents would put up with today.

“Jim Owens was one of the greatest all-around athletes I ever
saw, and I’ve seen and known a lot of great athletes. He could have
been a marvelous quarterback, with a rocket for an arm and a gifted
sense of field generalship, but it’s obvious he made the right
choice in choosing baseball.

“Starting with the Bradford Phillies just out of BHS at age 17,
Jim moved quickly through the minor leagues to become a stalwart
member of the great Philadelphia Phillies pitching rotation in the
mid-late 1950s, where the Sporting News (if I remember correctly)
proclaimed Jim Owens to possess ‘the finest curveball in all of
baseball.’ Not bad for a guy from little ol’ Gifford and BHS who
clearly, along with Stew Barber, can lay claim to being perhaps
Bradford’s greatest athlete of all time.”

More tomorrow.