Cousin Early and the Colt 45s

This year's World Series is history. One team that had never been there in its 44-year history and one that had not been there in 46 years squared off and it was over before it hardly started - with the Chicago White Sox sweeping the Houston Astros in four straight games. I payed little attention to it except to note a long ago connection to both teams.

I was told while growing up that Early Wynn, a right-handed pitcher who played for the White Sox the last time they were in the World Series in 1959 was a distant cousin of mine. I never was sure how distant, just that we were related on my mother's side of the family.

Early Wynn was born in Hartford, Alabama, not far from the
Georgia-Alabama line and the south Georgia flatlands where both sides of my family are from - the Moultrie area.

Wynn made his major league debut with the Washington Senators in 1939. He spent nine years with the Senators, then played for the Cleveland Indians from 1949-1957. He was with the White Sox from 1958-1962, was a seven-time All-Star and the Cy Young Award winner as the American League's best pitcher in 1959, the same year the White Sox last played
in the World Series before this year. He had also been in the World Series in 1954 while with Cleveland.

Cousin Early was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972; he died in Venice, Florida in 1999.

I have no reason to doubt that we were distantly related - though I never saw any proof it. If Mama said it was so, it must have been. Besides, if you were going to claim a major league player as a relative during those days, wouldn't you choose Ted Williams or Stan Musial or Mickey Mantle? Certainly not Early Wynn.

As for the Astros - or, as they were known when they first arrived in Houston in 1962, the Colt 45s. That's right. For those of you too young to remember, it was the Houston Colt 45s - in honor of the famous Colt revolver.

That was at a time when most every small town in the south and maybe the entire country had a minor league baseball team. And, Moultrie was no exception.

Moultrie's Class D team in the Georgia-Florida League was affiliated with several different major league teams while I was growing up, and the Colt 45s was one of them. But, you might say our team was the Moultrie Saturday Night Specials. Saturday Night Specials - that's cop talk for small, inexpensive pistols - 22 caliber - that are, or at least were, commonly used by petty criminals for robberies and other no-good deeds.

Thus, Moultrie's Houston Colt 45s minor league baseball team was known as the Colt 22s.

I did a little research and found that to my amazement that Colt 22s was one of several unusual nicknames for Moultrie's minor league baseball teams through the years. Between 1935 and 1963, the final year Moultrie fielded a minor league team, there were the Moultrie A's, the Cubs, the Giants, and the Phillies, conventional names given the big league teams they were obviously affiliated with. But then there was the Packers
(named for a big meat packing plant in town, I suppose, same as the high school football team) and the Steers (as in cattle, I guess). But, the most unusual one probably is the 1951 Moultrie To-backs, as in - you guessed it - tobacco, that part of Georgia being a big tobacco growing area.

As far as I know the town got by with the Moultrie To-backs and the Moultrie Colt 22s without a bit of controversy. But, can you imagine what the anti-smoking and the anti-gun lobbies would have to say if a sports team tried to use those monickers this day and time?

Ken Stanford is the news director for radio stations WDUN NEWS TALK 550, MAJIC 1029 and SPORTS RADIO 1240 THE TICKET and editor for AccessNorthGa.com.