Bob Hasty, My Grandfather
by Dee Thompson (Atlanta, Georgia)
Bob Hasty, my grandfather, played major league baseball from 1919-1924, as stated above, but his career was much more than that. To me, he was Papa. A farm boy from Cherokee County, Georgia. Papa had never played on an organized baseball team until he was drafted into the army in 1918, and started playing on the Camp Gordon baseball team. He proved to be such a powerful player, he never left camp. He played one season for the old Atlanta Crackers but was loaned out to the Mobile team for nearly the whole season. He said later that when he went up to Philadelphia in 1919 he had never seen a major league baseball game – the first one he ever saw, he played in.
My grandmother said later that the year she spent with Papa playing in the majors was the best year of her life. They were friends with Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb. The traveled everywhere. Papa’s career as a pitcher was on the upswing.
When Connie Mack sold his contract to a team in Oregon in 1924, Papa was crushed. He and my grandmother reluctantly moved west – they had no choice. He played there in the Pacific Coast League until about 1928, and led the Seattle team to two pennants. My uncle Bob was born in California.
In 1929, approximately, Papa left the west and moved back home to the south. playing for the Birmingham Barons for three seasons. He is in their hall of fame. My uncle Don was born during that time.
He played one more season for the Atlanta Crackers, in 1933. Then he was 37 years old. The Depression was in full swing. My mother was born. He left the Crackers and couldn’t find another full-time baseball job, so he turned to company-owned baseball teams, which were very popular. He played for and managed company owned teams all over the south, until World War II broke out.
Papa played baseball for more than twenty years, only five of those in the majors, before returning to farming with the outbreak of war – he felt his family would be safer on the farm.
The story of why Papa left major league baseball is a bizarre and fascinating one, and as a writer, I have used it as the basis for a screenplay.
The baseball sites are great, but they don’t tell the whole story. Thanks for reading.
>> Dee Thompson is a paralegal and writer and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
