Denver Baseball

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The best seat at Merchants Park was the hill behind the center field fence where you could talk to center fielder Willie Skeen.

Except for the night they called "Willy Skeen Night" to honor him and he didn't show up for the game. They told me he was drunk. I was selling hotdogs in the stands that night as a little kid. If I wasn't at Merchants Park, I was listening to Bill Reed give a play-by-play radio broadcast over KMYR whether the Bears were home or away.

I was reminded today of fond memories of the Denver Bears when I saw the acknowledgment of Whitey Herzog’s 89th birthday in today’s Spokesman-Review. He was a fine and very swift center fielder for the Bears when they were a Yankees farm club. I saw many games at Bear’s Stadium including a double header sweep one night when Marv Throneberry hit a majestic 450++ foot two-out walk off grand slam home run to win the second game 12-11. What fun it was!

Thanks for sharing, I think Marvelous Marv earned his knickname in Denver. Those were the best of times. You could almost always get into a game, at a great price. We lived 20 blocks south of the stadium and could hear the crowds some nights. My Dad and I would go to an 8 o'clock game and be home by 10:15. I can still remember how mad my dad got when they raised parking to a quarter! We started parking on Federal with our car facing south so we could race out of the stadium at the final out and be nearly home before some people got to their cars.

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Your citation above is incorrect. "Baseball really blossomed in Denver after World War II. The Denver Bears were in the Western League and were owned by Bob Howsam and his brother Lee."

The Howsam family owned the team. Bob's father was named Lee and his brother was Earl.

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