We've all heard about Oklahoma's baseball greats, the Commerce Comet, Dizzy Dean, the Super Chief, Whitey and Pepper.

But what about Wil Tonka, the convicted murderer whose execution was delayed for a playoff game?

And Joe McGinty, who left the coal mines of Krebs to become the father of Oklahoma baseball before going up to the majors.

Gus Cannonball, weighing a pitcher for the Tulsa.

Oilers, holds the record for hitting 286 men at bat.

There was a pitcher from Kingfisher who killed a batter with a bean ball and began the era of the batter's helmet.

Just a few stories of Oklahoma's influence on the old ballgame.

An old, rusty garage in Commerce, Oklahoma, marks the spot where a legend was born.

Every dent marks a moment in history.

Matt Mantle had big dreams for his son.

My dad named me after a baseball player.

By the time I was four years old, he was working when he worked in LED mines down in commerce and pitcher.

And when he would get off at 4:00, he would come home and work with me till dark every day.

And.

I loved it.

They used the tin shed as a backstop mutt.

His father would pitch right handed.

And Mickey's grandfather would pitch left handed.

Teaching him the fine art of switch hitting.

They made up games to add some fun to the batting practice.

A ball below the window of the house was a single.

Above the window was a double.

The roof a triple, and over the house was a home run.

Mickey was the only kid in town that didn't get in trouble for breaking a window.

Growing up in commerce, we didn't have an organized little league.

What we did, we have about ten guys would choose up signs and I'd play all day, you know, I mean, on Saturdays and Sundays or in the summertime with every day, you know, we'd just choose up side.

Sometimes I'd hit 100 times.

I think it's the biggest thing that ever happened.

Me being raised in Commerce, Oklahoma.

Baseball fans remember the old days, maybe more than any other sport.

For example, even a current fan of baseball.

Their eyes light up when you mention a Babe Ruth, and Lou Gehrig.

But closely there, Mickey Mantle.

Part of that is his name, the MC, the Commerce Comet.

There's no question that Mickey Mantle was the greatest baseball player to ever come from Oklahoma.

If you were Scout and you went to the game, which many did, no one had to sit around and say, which ones?

Which ones?

Mantle could find him pretty easy, but died at an early age because of, you know, working in the mines.

But Mickey, you know, baseball had him avoid the mines and he had signed with the Yankees.

Tom Greenway signed Mickey by the age of 18 out of Commerce High School.

And, you know, within two years, 1951, he was he was in New York.

I love Mickey.

Mickey who?

You know who.

The fellow with the celebrated Swing.

The greatest switch hitter of all time.

You know, he went to New York at the perfect time.

He he got there in 1951.

He was a rookie.

And that was right in the middle of this.

You know, the Yankees great run of five straight World Series.

And he played on the most winning teams of all time, 51 through 64.

He had a God given talent that most people who played.

Major League Baseball never had.

There was a greatness in Mantle's ability that overrides training, playing with a power and grace that can't be captured on a Wheaties box or a baseball card.

I love Mickey.

Some of the interesting stories about baseball in Oklahoma are not about Mickey Mantle and Johnny Bench and the Warner Brothers, but it's those guys who made it to the Major Leagues for only a moment.

For example, getting Cal Browning from Burns flat pitched two thirds of an inning in the major leagues, Cat Clanton from Antlers, struck out in his only major league at bat.

Baseball was the focus of Oklahomans in the first half of the 20th century.

All the little towns Northeast, Oklahoma was really a mecca for small baseball town ball.

All the little mining towns up there.

Baseball came to Oklahoma in 1882 when the coal mines were being dug in eastern Oklahoma and Pittsburg County around Krebs.

So the first recorded baseball game is on July 4th of 1882, when the coal miners who had come to cribs from Ohio and Pennsylvania decided to have a baseball game.

300 people showed up on July 4th to see the first recorded baseball game.

Well, I have a slide right.

Baseball was a really rough sport in the 1880s and 1990s.

A lot of really tough characters.

And it was a gambling and drinking crowd that went to the ballpark.

Well, the ballpark, it was not great.

Not great parks.

I mean, you could not a really smooth infield, you know, a lot of bad hops.

The locker rooms were nothing much more than just a room where you could change.

Clothes in the stands were usually rickety.

The concessions were not much.

Um, but it was a, it was, you know, not a bad way to spend a summer, summer afternoon.

Often there wasn't an outfield and there were no protective screens.

The fans were just really right down the base lines.

Of a lot of times, people got hit.

There'll be a lot of cigar smoking.

Beer drinking wasn't allowed in the stands.

In fact, there was a sign on the one of the early Oklahoma.

City ballparks that said no drinking, no profanity, no killing the umpire, no prostitution, and wagons park free.

A man named Iron Joe McGinty stepped out of the mines near Krebs and took the pitcher's mound.

In 1889.

He came to Krebs to work in the iron mines.

In fact, he didn't go to the major leagues until he was 29 years old, and had an incredible Major League career.

He got his nickname not because he was the last pitcher in Major League Baseball to throw two ends of a doubleheader to pitch both games of the doubleheader.

But because he worked in the iron as an iron man in the mines around Krebs.

But Joe McGinty, not only before he went to the Major Leagues, Joe McGinty organized baseball in Eastern Oklahoma.

He organized a town team in Krebs.

He put together a league of several towns around there and was known as Mr.

Baseball in the 1890s.

Before he goes to the Major Leagues as kind of an afterthought.

Gus Cannonball Wayne played for and managed the Tulsa Oilers before going up to the majors in his 14 year pitching career.

He hit 286 men at bat.

It's a record that's unlikely to ever be broken.

There was a territorial league.

There was an Indian Territory League in an Oklahoma Territory League.

They would they start in 191895.

They started having a championship and they always played it in the Oklahoma Territory because the Oklahoma Territory was wet and the trains full of people from the Indian territory could come to Oklahoma territory and get a drink.

A number of Native Americans who learned to play baseball, perhaps off at their Indian school, brought the game back to Oklahoma.

And for example, even when Geronimo and the Apaches are captured and the last of the Plains Indian Wars and they are imprisoned at Fort Sill.

So in the 1880s, it was not uncommon for the guards to oversee the the Apaches who had been captured off of the plains to be playing baseball.

Baseball was always a popular American.

I mean, American Indian sport.

You know, Jim Thorpe is known for his Olympic feats and his National Football League feats, and he also played Major League Baseball.

So it was very popular among the Indians.

The Choctaw Nation did have a team and in fact, their star pitcher had been convicted of murder and been sentenced to be shot.

Will Tonka.

But because they had a playoff game in Kansas City, the sentence was deferred.

The first professional league lasted just one season.

It wasn't until 1911 that Oklahoma would have professional baseball in small towns.

15 towns in Oklahoma had legitimate professional, minor league teams.

Now, you didn't make much money, but they paid you to play baseball.

And people went in, and watched games and stay in ballparks and paid.

And it was a case where it was a legitimate minor league operation.

The rivalries were were really strong and they would do the visiting team.

The fans were very vociferous about umpires.

And then we didn't have canned soft drinks or cups.

It was all in glass bottles.

And they would throw those bottles at the umpires.

A player's life was a strange mix of poverty and celebrity.

They worked regular jobs in the winter and spent spring, summer and fall living on the road.

The proverbial farm boy.

And they have overalls who can throw 90 miles an hour.

You'd give them a tryout if after five days he worked out, you'd put a uniform on him and saw him do a contract for $125 a month.

If he didn't work out, you'd send him back to the farm.

It was a vagabonds life.

They would come into a city and march.

They would play.

They'd live in houses.

In fact, my grandmother had a rooming house in Ardmore, where a lot of the baseball players died when I was a boy.

The players would ride around in old school busses.

They'd get a little meal money on the road.

Their day might begin at ten in the morning.

Drive from Miami to Iowa, Kansas.

Spend the afternoon hanging around the courthouse square, suit up, play a game beginning at eight.

We didn't have daylight savings time in going till about 11 and then hopping on the bus and getting back to Miami two or three in the morning.

Breakdowns were frequent.

So it was it was a very difficult life on the road and teams tried to avoid it as much as possible.

If somebody had a great player hit a home run or something, fans would put money through the fence.

And there were players who made as much from these tips from the fans as they did on their salary out in the oil fields.

There were the company teams, there were pickup teams.

There were camp teams all around Hilton, Dixie, Impero refinery.

One of them made it to the majors.

Bill Clouse ended up pitching a game for the Red Sox, but he came right out of the oil patch.

In fact, the first semi-pro World Series was between the Halliburton's some mentors from Duncan and the Bismarck, North Dakota, Churchill days, which was laced with stars from the Negro Leagues.

Satchel Paige.

Judy Johnson, really you know, Hall of Famers.

And they beat the Haliburton team in a best of nine series.

Not only of Oklahomans excelled, but unfortunately were known with the dubious distinction of an Oklahoma kid was the only person to ever kill another player in a major league baseball game in 1920.

It was a day when batting helmets were not worn and bean balls brushing them off was very common.

Part of it because of Carl Mays of Kingfisher killing Ray Chapman in 1920 in the baseball game.

The batting helmet was introduced in Major League Baseball.

In no sport are nicknames more pervasive than baseball fans.

Thrill to the exploits of oil.

Smith, Deacon, White and eagle eyed Beckley.

We had some of the magic names in baseball history came from Oklahoma in the early days.

One of the great Negro League players of all time, Joe Rogan, enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame about a dozen years ago.

He grew up in Oklahoma.

City, born here in 1889, just a few weeks after the.

After the land run and moved to Kansas City at the age of 19 and became a star and remains an iconic figure in Kansas City monarch baseball history.

The black spiders in them and the.

Black Indians were a team in Oklahoma City and there were just numerous.

There are about 15 or 16 black teams in Oklahoma.

The game itself was exciting.

Except.

You know, the Negro League players played A maybe a little bit more exciting in an aggressive offensive game of running the bases and button the ball.

Oklahomans have excelled in the All-Star Game.

Oklahoma History.

Baseball is written all over the All-Star Game.

The very first batter in the first baseball All-Star Game in 1933 was Pepper Martin.

John Roosevelt.

Wild horse of the Osage.

What are the great nicknames?

Pepper Martin.

But Pepper was a member of the Gas House gang for the Saint Louis Cardinals.

Perhaps the greatest performance in an all star baseball game was in 1934, when Carl Hubbell of Meeker and Prey struck out five future Hall of Famers in a row.

Among those five that Carl Hubbell and his incredible screwball that he dazzled before batters were Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

Ruth and Gehrig played against and were good friends with two talented brothers from Harrah.

Paul and Lloyd Wainer were known as Big Poison, and Little Poison.

Someone from Brooklyn or the ball game, said look There's that, he meant big person and little person but the dialect was big poison and little poison.

So that's how they got the nickname Big and Little Poison.

The waiters learned a hit by knocking corncobs over the barn, but the brothers weren't the best batters in the family.

I think they spent most of their time out hitting corncobs with a hoe handle.

Lloyd and Paul saying this.

The honor went to their sister, Alma.

The first young Weiner to hit a corncob with a hole handle far enough to break a barn window.

Paul Weiner made it to the majors by a fluke.

A scout sent to Oklahoma spent the week drinking instead of at the ballpark.

He was getting on the train empty handed when the conductor asked, Did you see the winner kid to save his own neck?

The scout convinced the San Francisco.

SEALs to give Paul Wiener a tryout without the scout ever actually seeing him play.

They were small, but they were fat.

I was just saying, if Lloyd hits the ball in the air, he was already at first base.

They couldn't put him out.

The best thing he ever did for baseball.

He got his brother to play baseball.

He would, Lloyd would have never had a chance to play Major League Baseball, if it wasn't for Paul.

And that was because Paul basically convinced the Pittsburgh guys, hey, I just played in 26.

I would have been Rookie of the Year if they had such a thing, but they didn't.

Both of them would have been By the way, Rookie of the Year in 26 and 27.

The only brother duo in the Baseball Hall of Fame are Lloyd and Paul Weiner.

If you ever read Ted Williams books on the 100 best hitters he ever knew, Paul will not be in it.

And the reason why is because Paul was hired as a batting instructor to teach Ted Williams how to hit the ball in different places.

And Ted hated him.

He despised him.

How dare they could hire somebody to come and teach me how to hit.

It really ticked him off the summer weather.

The Boston Red Sox would hire a batting stroker to teach him how to bat.

At one time or another.

In Oklahoma history, 37 different towns have had a professional minor league club.

The Interstate league was a class B league, which is the lowest rung in organized baseball.

It was originally set up to be a very tight circuit.

You had McAllister, Ada, Seminole, Ardmore, Duncan and Lot 16 League.

When the Major League owners began buying minor league teams to develop players in the forties and fifties.

The smaller town teams began to die out.

Television and air conditioning really spelled, were the death knell of small town minor league baseball.

In 1955 The game of the week started being broadcast in Oklahoma.

It used to be a place to meet people and it would be cool again.

Game started at 8:00, but if you could stay indoors and watch a game on television, why go out and be uncomfortable?

Drew Herzog played in the Class D leagues for the McAlester.

Rockets in 1951, where he picked up a nickname.

When the local radio announcer was asked one night because the newspapers always called him Darrell.

And so Herzog asked the the Bill Speeth, the radio announcer, give me a nickname.

So he just kind of toted it.

And so that night in a game in Ardmore, Bill Skeet announced Daryl Herzog has Whitey Herzog.

The name stuck and became one of the great nicknames of his.

Pepper Martin, the wild horse of the Osage, you know, great, great player from McAllister area.

Uh, another great section of Oklahoma history, the star of the Gas House Gang in the 1930 World.

Series, 1934 World Series played the outfield, and third base was a base stealing phenom, Dizzy Dean and those guys played aggressive stolen bases, bunts made it out.

Uh, just try to just try to beat you in a lot of different ways.

Oklahoma fans can still recall the immediate tingle in that instant of recognition when Dizzy, Dean, Warren Spahn or Don Demeter popped up in a pack of Topps bubblegum cards.

Among the Oklahoma greats, there is one player overlooked by the Hall of Fame.

Now, Allie.

You know, we talk about the Indians.

I don't I didn't think of Allie.

Allie's, you know, the greatest of all the American Indian players from Oklahoma.

Allie was born in Bethany and went to high school in Oklahoma City at Capitol Hill.

And super chief in those days was the name of the train that ran from Chicago to Los Angeles, was a major passenger train.

And so often Allie Reynolds was compared with that because he threw the ball so fast and was such an effective pitcher, was the best pitcher on the New York Yankees in a stretch in the late forties and early fifties, when the Yankees won five world championships in a row.

In 1965, the Yankees drafted a player from Oklahoma City that they said was the next Mickey Mantle.

And, you know, the New York papers, they had a lot of newspapers in those days.

They had to had to sell papers.

And they said, here's, you know, the new the new Mickey Mantle.

And New Yorkers were ready to embrace it.

The truth of the matter is God quit making Mickey Mantle's and Bobby Mercer was no Mickey Mantle.

Bobby Mercer.

He was a good athlete, good looking, sharp, charming guy from Oklahoma.

Willie Stargell was called Pops.

He played for the Pittsburgh Pirates for 21 seasons time enough for many tape measure home runs four into the upper deck at Three Rivers Stadium, seven over the Forbes field right field roof.

And the only two balls ever hit out of Dodger Stadium.

In the modern era.

Certainly no better catcher in baseball history than Johnny Bench, who was born in Oklahoma City, but of course, played baseball in Binger.

Had these massive hands, could hold eight baseballs in his hand at once and had the quickest release was up in the big leagues by the late sixties at the age of 20 and.

National League Most Valuable Player.

I think at the age of 22.

Johnny Bench, according to some of his teammates, was the first one to show up for practice and the last one to leave.

Now, part of being a great catcher is to be able to call pitches for the pitcher, and you can't just show up as a great athlete.

You got to do your homework.

A few Oklahomans played in the majors, but never dreamed how far the trip would take them.

You know, it was just something I was pretty good at.

And of course, I grew up when I grew up in Lawton, I grew up on F Street, which, you know, the railroad tracks a very poor side of town.

And the baseball fields were right behind my house.

So the railroad tracks and the ballparks were right there.

Bass was just 17 when he made it to the minor leagues.

He played six years in the Major League.

Then one day his life changed to Shiny Dunlop Dundee boss.

You know, it was funny.

I got a call from an agent.

I didn't even know, and his name was Alan Meyerson.

And he said, would you like to go play baseball in Japan?

Bass put on the pinstripes of the Hanshin Tigers.

They have groups that come out with flags with your numbers on them.

And they have uniforms.

They're wearing uniforms.

And I mean, it's they're in the baseball.

Bash led the Tigers to their first championship in 1985 and was called the Babe Ruth of Japan.

I still think I have about seven records over there, consecutive games, home runs.

I don't have a home run record.

So Horrow has 55.

I had 54.

It was a big deal coming from a little boy from Lawton, Oklahoma.

I'll tell you that growing up on a street.

Back in commerce, the town is working to hold on to a rich legacy unique to Oklahoma.

The local ballpark bears the mantle name, and the house where he grew up is being preserved.

Even the rusty old shed is getting some help.

Oklahoma fans will never forget their diamond heroes, just as they never forgot Oklahoma.

I'd like to be remembered like Will Rogers, you know, say that Mickey came from Oklahoma and that's my roots.

And I love it.

No single show could ever tell all the tales of Oklahoma's baseball legacy.

This comprehensive list of 235 major leaguers born in the Sooner State does not include those who passed through on their way to the majors or those born elsewhere who came to Oklahoma to play the old ballgame.