Doris I. Walker Meets Hank Aaron

With another baseball season about to get underway, I thought it would be a good time to take a trip back to the summer of 1958. In the middle of August of that year, my mother Doris Isaak Walker paid a visit to a major league baseball game in Cincinnati, Ohio as part of her job as editor of Brunswick's Chalk Talk in-house publication.

From 1958 to 1960, my mother worked for the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company at their headquarters at 623 South Wabash Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. My father Jack worked there too (in fact that’s where they met and married this same year of 1958.)

Selected Chalk Talk issues. Photo by author.

Before becoming the editor of “Chalk Talk,” my mother had worked at Walgreens (also in Chicago), editing their "Pepper Pot" publication. Here are some of the Chalk Talk issues she produced as editor-in-chief (more on Chalk Talk and Brunswick in a future post).

Selected Chalk Talk issues. Photo by author.

Besides manufacturing the bowling and billiards equipment for which they were most famous, Brunswick extended its business into other areas--from furniture to aerospace. (At one point they had also made phonograph records, but they sold off their label nearly three decades earlier--though it continued to be known as Brunswick Records.) In 1958, not long after Doris Isaak joined the company, Brunswick acquired MacGregor & Co.--a Cincinnati-based sporting goods manufacturer. A number of top major league baseball players used MacGregor gloves and other equipment, including future home run king Hank Aaron. Aaron remained a MacGregor endorser for many years (proving an advertising boon to them during the 1974 season when Aaron broke Babe Ruth's all-time home run record).

MacGregor magazine ad, 1959.

As part of her job with Brunswick, Doris visited the Cincinnati headquarters of MacGregor, then attended a baseball game pitting the Cincinnati Reds against the defending champion Milwaukee Braves (winners of the 1957 World Series). The game took place on Saturday, August 13, 1958, at Cincinnati's Crosley Field. Mom was photographed with a number of players that night who used MacGregor equipment, including the Braves’ all-star right fielder Hank Aaron--then in the fifth season of what would become a Hall of Fame career.

Here’s my mother Doris Isaak Walker with Hank Aaron in Cincinnati on August 13, 1958 (just a few days short of her 25th birthday; Hank would turn 25 the following February). At this point, Aaron had only hit about 130-140 of his eventual 755 home runs.

Doris Isaak Walker, Henry "Hank" Aaron.

Mom poses with the Milwaukee Braves 1958 all-star catcher Del Crandall, who's modeling a MacGregor catcher’s mitt.

Doris Isaak Walker, Del Crandall.

Milwaukee’s first baseman was Frank Torre. Frank's younger brother Joe Torre (later a top player and manager) wouldn’t enter the major leagues until two years later. Here mom gets a good look at Frank Torre’s MacGregor first baseman’s mitt.

Doris Isaak Walker, Frank Torre.

Playing second base for the Braves was Red Schoendienst--so named for the color of his hair. Schoendienst later managed the St. Louis Cardinals to a World Series victory and is enshrined in Baseball's Hall of Fame. The name of the gentleman who appears in this and other photos is unknown to me, but he may be a MacGregor representative. Whoever he is, he’s sporting some very stylish 1958 threads.

Unidentified, Doris Isaak Walker, Red Schoendienst.

This is another shot of Mom and Red Schoendienst which provides a great view of Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The team played here until 1970. (During that final year, the stadium also was the site of a rock and roll concert--broadcast live on television--during which Iggy of the band The Stooges smeared peanut butter on himself. But at this time in 1958, the only peanut products present at the stadium came roasted in their shells.)

Doris Isaak Walker, Red Schoendienst, Unidentified.

Mom hailed from Cleveland, and had been a diehard Cleveland Indians fan since she was very young. One of the great thrills of her life came at age 15 when her Indians won the 1948 World Series. But here she is with some of the members of the other major league team from the state of Ohio, the Cincinnati Reds--or, as they were known at the time, the Cincinnati Redlegs (having temporarily changed their name in 1954 at the height of Cold War paranoia; they dropped the "legs" in 1960).

Here’s Mom with Cincinnati center fielder Gus Bell. His son Buddy Bell and grandsons David and Mike Bell would eventually follow him as second and third generational major leaguers.

Gus Bell, Unidentified, Doris Isaak Walker.

Doris Isaak Walker chats with first baseman Walt Dropo, who’d been picked up on waivers by the floundering Cincinnati team less than two months earlier. Dropo was traded to Baltimore in the middle of the next season.

Unidentified, Walt Dropo, Doris Isaak Walker.

Here’s Doris and Cincinnati manager George “Birdie” Tebbetts (and the other unidentified man) with a MacGregor bat and catcher’s shinguards. I was able to date these photos because of a note mom wrote on the back of one of the shots of Tebbetts, identifying him and saying that he was fired the next day. Officially, Tebbetts announced his resignation (though possibly under duress from management) on August 14, 1958, with the team having fallen into last place in the National League, which would mean this photo was taken August 13.

George "Birdie" Tebbetts, Unidentified, Doris Isaak Walker.

Mom shares her July-August 1958 issue of Chalk Talk with Cincinnati trainer Joe Taylor. On the back cover, she announced her debut as editor. Looks like the Redlegs were well stocked with Coca-Cola.

Doris Isaak Walker, Joe Taylor.

Here’s a close-up of the back cover with mom’s introductory message to her corporate readership.

Back cover of Chalk Talk, July-August 1958.

And here’s the masthead of the same issue of Chalk Talk, listing mom as editor. In a few issues her signature would change to Doris Isaak Walker.

Masthead of Chalk Talk, July-August 1958.

In a blog post in the very near future, I’ll go into more details about both my parents at Brunswick in the late 1950’s, which will include many photographs which will certainly appeal to fans of “Mad Men.”