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The Markowitz Accent: A Baseball Family
Three generations of Markowitz men – Fred the grandfather, Jim the son, and Anthony the grandson – share a common language, a point of reference.
Baseball is the language of this Emporia family. It is in their DNA. Just ask Fred if his father played baseball.
"My dad did not play baseball,” Fred said. “He was left-handed. He was a building contractor.”
That’s a baseball family, where a throwing arm and an occupation are equally valid for descriptive purposes.
Jim, too, speaks the language. Watching Anthony grow up was the same as watching Anthony play baseball.
“I’ve always felt like he would end up at first base because of his size and his hands,” Jim said. “He’s got great hands.”
Anthony acknowledges that the three generations are on “the same wave length when we talk about baseball.” At any family gathering, the conversation returns to its source. “Somehow it always comes back to baseball,” Anthony said.
***
Grandfather, father, and son – all are Hornet baseball players. Anthony, a junior majoring in secondary physical education, is a recipient of the Fred and Ima Jean Markowitz Scholarship. Jim (FS 1977) played ball on scholarship before pursuing a zeal for construction and carpentry, and today he’s a locksmith and carpenter at ESU. Fred (BSE 1952, MS 1960) returned to Emporia after serving in WWII and began playing for the Hornets in the spring of 1950.
A rich history of giving back – to baseball and each other – unfolds in the family’s third generation of local baseball tradition. Well before Fred and Ima Jean established the Markowitz Scholarship, Jim led efforts to renovate the Soden’s Grove fields so his son could play high school and American Legion baseball in a better ballpark. Today, Jim is starting a baseball academy for local athletes through the Emporia Recreation Commission. A generation earlier, Fred spearheaded similar renovation efforts at Soden’s Grove to benefit Jim’s youth teams.
Growing up in Olpe, Fred fine-tuned his reading ability by scanning Kansas City Star baseball articles. Today, he encloses similar articles in envelopes for Anthony to take home from family dinners. At 9 or 10 years old, Fred organized a neighborhood baseball team. A family friend let them use a vacant lot on her property.
“We got out our hoes and rakes and skinned an infield,” Fred said. “We used professional measurements. One of the problems was keeping the outfield mowed.” They would play against another neighborhood team from across town, with fans from the community looking on. They swung in front of a patched chicken-wire back stop, and the bases were gunny sacks filled with sand. When not on the field, they perched in a dugout they’d dug into the ground themselves. “Just one dugout. We didn’t provide a dugout for the visiting team,” Fred said with a chuckle.
In the U.S. Army Air Corps during WWII, Fred served 17 months overseas in a heavy bomber group based 30 miles north of London, where the ground shook when Nazi V-1 and V-2 rockets would stray from their London targets and land nearby. He was headed to the Pacific Theatre when the atomic bombs ended the war, and a December 1945 discharge brought him back to Lyon County. He started at Kansas State Teachers College in spring 1946 before accepting an invitation to try out for the Topeka Owls, a professional baseball team. He enjoyed the opportunity, but the future didn’t look bright to a newly married young man – the team traveled too much and paid too little. Fred went to work for a local natural gas company until the summer of 1949, when he went back to KSTC and its baseball team.
Fred’s career progressed quickly from teacher to newspaper reporter and then back to teaching. With two ESU degrees, Fred finished his Ph.D. at the University of Kansas in 1968. He was an English and journalism teacher at Roosevelt High School before becoming the principal, and then he moved to the college ranks. At KSTC he was an instructor and then a professor of secondary education, retiring as the associate dean of the Teachers College in 1986.
***
One evening a generation ago, Jim and Fred were engaged in their nightly ritual of baseball practice. The ground balls Fred was hitting to Jim were kicking up off the rough field, and Jim was growing frustrated.
“I threw my glove down and said ‘I quit,’” Jim recalled. “‘OK, you want to take a break?’ So we went home and had dinner, and after dinner, I said, ‘Dad, can we go back?’ and we went back for more.”
While he doesn’t recall the specific incident, Fred knows he wouldn’t have reprimanded his son – he knew the boy didn’t want to quit.
“Give them time to think it over,” Fred said. “You can tell whether or not they’re enjoying the game. You say, ‘OK, take a little time to think it over.’ Those who have a love for the game will come around. They don’t really want to quit.”
Told of this story, a smile spread across Anthony’s face. He could see the scene unfolding. “I can see him [grandpa]: ‘I know you’re not going to quit. I know you’re just a little frustrated now.’”
***
The land Fred’s home sits on is a portion of the old College of Emporia baseball diamond, the same field on which Jim, coached by his dad, hit a home run to win an Emporia Recreation Center league championship. The base paths from home to first, and from third to home plate, frame the back yard, with the pitcher’s mound somewhere inside the house.
This is the same land that Anthony finished mowing one day, and saw his grandfather come out of the garage with a broomstick, hold it like a bat, and demonstrate how Anthony could improve his stance and swing.
It’s been this way for awhile, this constant training. Fred bought Anthony his first glove when the boy was about five years old, and Jim was playing catch with him that same day.
“When I was a little kid growing up, baseball kind of just happened,” Anthony said. “I don’t say that in a bad way – it had to be part of my life. I’m glad that it is. But it pretty much wasn’t an option.”
The more he played, the more he wanted to play. Even today – when a home doubleheader can mean eight or nine hours at Trusler Sports Complex, and practice is “only” a 5-hour commitment – Anthony feels most at home on the field. The hours equal what another college student might spend working a job, so Anthony knows he’s fortunate to have scholarship support – and even more pleased that the Markowitz name will live on in the scholarship, for the students of tomorrow.
Anthony now knows he wants to coach the students of tomorrow, to “open up and have fun,” he said, and perhaps display some of the coaching savvy and intensity he’s seen in his father and grandfather, the same as he’s seen in ESU baseball coach Bob Fornelli and his Emporia High School basketball coach, Rick Bloomquist. While Anthony is currently a P.E. major, he’s becoming drawn to teaching history to high school students. It’s the history of his family – the ties to the past, the stories about WWII – that “runs between the three of us,” Anthony said.
***
For son, father and grandfather, critiquing sessions followed every game. If the car ride home was 75 minutes long, they’d spend the entire time rehashing a 2-hour game. Fred and Jim would watch games intently, and afterward, comment not upon Anthony’s three key hits, but about the throw he made to first base when he could’ve thrown a runner out at home.
“It took awhile, but I started to see that they were as into the game as I was,” Anthony said.
Always, though, these sessions moved from the mechanical aspects of baseball to the motivational.
“‘Stick with it. It’s not going to come easy,’” Anthony said he hears them say. “‘Work hard at it, no matter what. Things aren’t going to come your way easily.’”
“It seems they always end up with ‘Work hard and have fun.’ They never ended with the technical terms.”
And there is the essence of it: baseball and family, the Markowitz name deeply woven into the fabric of local baseball tradition. Fred loves the game for its complexity, for its ability to teach players about life, and to teach teammates about relationships.
“I tell you,” Fred said, “baseball is a beautiful game.”
- by Jesse Tuel
- Photo by James Garvey
Last Updated July 29, 2009