Eulogy for Tom Jordan
Written by Gaylon H. White
Thomas Jefferson Jordan, Sr. was baseball history on legs.
He came within 10 days of living 100 years and in that time he saw and experienced things that most of us can only read about in a book.
In high school, Tom was asked to put down his ambition in life. He wrote: “To play in the major leagues.”
And he did. From 1944 through 1948, he played for three big league teams — the Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians and St. Louis Browns. When he died August 26, 2019, he was the oldest living Major League Baseball player.
It was a title he was proud of and one that gave Tom’s storybook career the ending it deserved. He once sat in the dugout at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium with three of the game’s greatest hitters — Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker. He would later regret he didn’t “have enough sense…to get them to sign a ball.”
With the Indians, he caught Bob Feller also known as Rapid Robert, perhaps the hardest-throwing pitcher in history. Tom was just as impressed with Feller’s “wicked curveball” that started at the shoulder and “dropped down about knee-high.”
Tom hit against and caught such famous pitchers as Hal Newhouser, Virgil Trucks, Allie Reynolds and Bob Lemon. He also caught Ralph “Blackie” Schwamb — baseball’s most infamous pitcher because he wound up killing a man and going to prison.
Over-shifted defenses are common in baseball today. But in the 1940s they were unheard of until Indians manager Lou Boudreau shocked his own catcher by using an exaggerated shift against the great Ted Williams. “I didn’t know what the hell was going on,” Tom admitted.
Tom was behind the plate in an exhibition game when a kid pitcher twice flattened Joe DiMaggio. The second time the New York Yankee star got up in disgust and yelled at Tom: “I’m not going to hit against that wild sonofabitch. I’m going back to the hotel.”
Before Casey Stengel became a legend managing the Yankees, Tom played for him in the minors at Milwaukee. He was more impressed with Casey’s beer-drinking than his leadership skills. “He could drink a beer quicker than you could pour it out,” Tom said.
Tom stepped to the plate in the big leagues exactly 100 times. He had 23 hits, one home run and a batting average of .240. These numbers don’t do justice to a hitter who earned the admiration of Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby, considered the greatest right-handed hitter of all time.
A coach for the White Sox in 1946, Hornsby warned another coach who wanted to tinker with Tom’s batting stance: “There’s nothing wrong with that boy’s stance. Leave it alone.” Of Tom’s 23 hits in the majors, seven were for extra bases. The home run he hit was against Boston’s Dave “Boo” Ferriss, a 25-game winner the same year.
Tom was at his best against the mighty Yankees. He had eight hits in 19 at bats for a .421 average.
The most impressive statistic of all is that Tom struck out only twice in 100 big-league at bats. Compare this with the 208 strikeouts the Yankees’ Aaron Judge piled up in 2017. “The one thing I could do was hit,” Tom said.
Tom had a sensational spring for the Browns in 1948, hitting nearly .400, far better than the team’s other catchers.
One St. Louis newspaper introduced Tom to Browns fans as “a rugged individualist.” On the field, the story continued, “He knocks in a lot of runs, no matter what the club or league.” But if Tom heard the call of his farms, “he just stays there and lets baseball magnates sweat it out.”
Tom batted once for the Browns and, then, went back to the minors to stay.
In an era where major league owners paid players as little as possible, Tom could make more money as a player-manager in the minors and working his 500-acre farm in Roswell. “I had my ranch and farm and I really didn’t have no business playing baseball,” he explained.
He preferred playing for minor league clubs closer to his farm and family. “I didn’t enjoy my time in the major leagues,” Tom said. “I was sort of a country boy and after the game, everybody scattered, and you didn’t see nobody until the next day at the ballpark. I had a bad arm most of the time. Never made much money. Didn’t have much fun.”
Tom started the 1949 season at Roswell and was hitting .440 when he realized he could spend more time on his farm and make more money by playing semipro baseball on weekends in Alpine, Texas, with his brother, Jerry.
Tom returned to Roswell 1950 as player-manager of the hometown Rockets. He was a one-man wrecking crew with the bat, leading the Longhorn League in five offensive categories: batting average (.391); home runs (44); runs batted in (181); runs scored (147) and hits (216).
The Rockets finished second and attendance almost doubled to 82,671, an all-time high for pro baseball in Roswell. “I made more money hittin’ home runs than I probably did my salary,” Tom said.
Every time a hometown player hit a home run, fans stuck money through the chicken-wire screen behind home plate. “I hit a home run one time with the bases loaded and won the game,” Tom said. “I got nearly $200. The least I ever got was $37.”
Tom did double-duty the next six seasons. He was player-manager two years each at Austin (1951-52) and Albuquerque (1953-54), one at Artesia (1955) and approximately half the 1956 season at Roswell. His teams compiled a winning record — 527-476.
One of his players at Albuquerque was a pitcher named Pete Domenici, who went on to represent the state of New Mexico in the United States senate for 36 years. “He threw hard but he couldn’t get the ball over the plate,” Tom said.
He was the Rockets manger in 1956 when Joe Bauman retired. Joe belted 72 home runs at Roswell in 1954 to become pro baseball’s home run king.
In 17 seasons in the minors, Tom totaled 2,197 hits and 267 home runs while batting .338. “I think I could’ve been a star in the major leagues if I hadn’t hurt my arm,” he said.
For all of his accomplishments as a player and manager, Tom’s “number one thrill in baseball” was his son, Tom Jr., hitting and pitching Roswell’s Lions Hondo team to the Little League World Series title in 1956.
In the final game against Delaware Township, New Jersey, young Tom tossed a two-hitter while whiffing 14 and belting a three-run homer, his third circuit blast in three games at Williamsport, and eighth in 12 contests overall. “Nobody in the whole United States expected them to win, except the boys,” Tom said. “It was really a pretty thrilling time.”
In reflecting on his remarkable career, Tom said: “I really loved the game of baseball. I couldn’t wait to get to the ballpark. It was just thrilling to put my uniform on.”
Tom loved to watch stuff grow, too. He called Pecos Valley land the best in the world for farming.
Every day he spent hours in his garden, tending to his tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, okra, bell peppers and green beans. He gave away most of what he raised, taking the food to downtown Roswell for homeless people to eat.
The biggest love of his life was his family. The relationship he had with his great grandson, Ty Jordan, symbolized that love.
Late at night in Tom’s room, they’d munch on popcorn and drink milk shakes while watching Gunsmoke, the popular television series in the Fifties and Sixties. Last month when Ty left Roswell to attend Bellevue College in Omaha, Nebraska, Tom said: “Hey, if you go through Dodge City, stop by and tell Miss Kitty hi for me.”
They talked baseball constantly, Tom reminding Ty, a talented young pitcher, to work fast, throw strikes and change speeds. “Every time I’d go into his room it was just a lesson about baseball,” Ty said. “One thing he’d always tell me is when I’m playing catch, pick a spot and hit it.”
Tom shared stories about his youth, like the time he tried riding his pet donkey and it took off like a bucking bronco, flipping him high in the air and, then, crashing to the ground. Tom thought he was going to die. “I wish more people got to talk to him like I did,” Ty said. “He was just a good, loving man.”
Tom lived a full life until the end.
This summer Ty pitched for a team in Farmington and Tom watched the games on his iPad. He mingled with baseball fans at book signings in Roswell and Artesia and threw out the ceremonial first pitch at games in Lubbock and Albuquerque.
His memory was so sharp he could recite the lineups for the Philadelphia Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1930 and 1931 World Series.
“I’ve lived a good life,” Tom said recently. “I’ve tried to live by the rules. I treated people fairly. I went to bed at night with a clear conscious.”
As a ballplayer, Tom wanted to be remembered as a good hitter — one who seldom struck out. Tom’s hitting ability is what impressed Rogers Hornsby and why he ranks among the greatest minor league hitters in history.
The best tribute of all, though, is that Tom’s great grandson, Ty, wants to be just like him.