Connect with us

Mississippi Today

Few baseball fans recall Hughie Critz, but his grandchildren surely do

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – Rick Cleveland – 2024-08-23 06:00:00

Old photographs of Hugh “Hughie” Melville Critz, during his professional baseball playing days as a New York Giants second baseman. The image is part of a mni-museum dedicated to Critz by one of his granddaughters in Greenwood, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. Critz also played Major League baseball for the New York Giants in the 1930s. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

The Baseball Encyclopedia tells us Hugh Melville “Hughie” Critz was born in Starkville in 1900 and died in Greenwood in 1980 at the age of 79.

It tells us Critz was a wee man, standing just 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighing but 147 pounds, that he played second base and batted .268 over a 12-year career with the Cincinnati Reds and New York Giants.

Baseball’s “bible” also tells us Critz hit .322 for the Reds as a rookie in 1924, that he finished second in the National League’s Most Valuable Player voting in 1926, and that he helped the Giants win the National League pennant and then the World Series in five games over the Washington Senators in 1933.

Clearly, Hughie Critz excelled as a baseball player and was one of the finest Major Leaguers Mississippi has ever produced. He was a dependable hitter during baseball’s “dead ball” era, but he was better known as perhaps the best fielding second baseman in all of baseball. He also was known as a clever and speedy baserunner and was inducted into the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame.

Baseball memorabilia honoring the Major League career of Hughie Critz at the home of his granddaughter Jenny Payne Gardner in Greenwood, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. Critz played for the Cincinnati Reds and New York Giants. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

But there’s so much about Critz that baseball’s bible does not tell us, so much that any Mississippi baseball fan — or any lover of Mississippi history, period — should know. And for all that you would need to visit the Greenwood home of Jenny Payne Gardner, one of Critz’s four grandchildren who houses the unofficial Hugh Melville Critz baseball museum in her den.

The place is full of treasures, including a pair Hughie’s size 7 baseball cleats, which seem freshly shined but still have the residue of infield dirt on and about the steel spikes.

Says Jenny Gardner, “I wasn’t about to clean that dirt off. Would you?”

Certainly not. 

An old newspaper clipping showcasing Cincinnati ball players and baseball cleats worn by Hughie Critz, pictured upper right in clipping. The memorabilia is part of a family member’s museum collection in his honor, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024 in Greenwood. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

The unofficial Hughie Critz museum also houses trophies, plaques, scrapbooks, photos, most of his Major League contracts, autographed baseballs, news clippings. Peruse the scrapbooks and you learn so much about the man no lesser an authority than Baseball Hall of Fame charter member Honus Wagner, a shortstop himself, called “the greatest infielder I have ever seen.”

Wagner was speaking after watching Critz help the Giants defeat the Washington Senators four games to one in the 1933 World Series. That World Series featured two Mississippi State graduates playing second base: Critz for the Giants and Buddy Myer of Ellisville for the Senators. And that World Series ended appropriately with Critz turning a double play for the final outs.

We can learn so much from those scrapbooks such as how Critz, who hit only 38 Major League home runs, once hit two in one game to beat the great Dizzy Dean and the St. Louis Cardinals’ famed Gashouse Gang. There’s plenty more:

  • About how Critz never planned to play baseball for anything other than fun and didn’t play on the Mississippi State team until his junior year of college. His father, Hugh “The Colonel” Critz, had captained one of State’s earliest baseball teams and years later would be the college’s president. The father suggested the son go out for baseball. The son did. Hughie not only made Coach Dudy Noble’s team, he was elected team captain, just as his father had.
  • About how, in 1927, Critz was a late holdout, an All-Star second baseman asking for a three-year contract worth $50,000. The Cincinnati Redlegs were offering a one-year contract for $10,000. (Compare that to today when Houston Astros second baseman Marcus Semien makes $25 million per season.)
  • About how Cincinnati baseball fans strongly protested Hughie’s 1930 trade to the New York Giants, so much so that a Cincinnati newspaper columnist penned a letter to Hughie headlined “A Farewell to Critz” in which he wrote: “You’ve shown Red fans and the fans of the National League the best baseball they’ve ever seen at second base. You’ve been a bright spot in many a dark game and in several dark seasons…”
  • About how the legendary Giants manager John McGraw believed Critz was the last piece of a World Series puzzle for his club, which proved prescient when the Giants won it all in 1933.
  • About how in spring of 1934, the Giants paid tribute to Critz by playing a spring training game in Greenwood against the Cleveland Indians. A sellout crowd of 6,500 cheered Critz and his world champion teammates. Greenwood stores closed for the afternoon and schools let out for Hughie Critz Day. The Giants won 5-1.
Jenny Payne Gardner with memorabilia collected over the years of her grandfather, Hughie Critz, who played Major League baseball in the 20s and 30s, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. Gardner has created a mini-museum dedicated to Critz in her Greenwood home. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

There’s so much more to the Hughie Critz story. After his graduation from State in 1920, Critz had no plans to continue in baseball. His chosen profession was in the cotton business and he moved to Greenwood to become a cotton broker, just in time for a farm depression that sent cotton prices plummeting.

He was playing a little semi-pro baseball on the side, and when his Greenwood team joined the Class D Mississippi State League, he quit the cotton business and excelled as a hard-hitting third baseman. Modern baseball fans might be shocked to learn that the Greenwood team’s owner sold Critz to the Memphis Chicks for a sum of $2,000. Critz agreed to the sale on the condition that he receive half of the sales price. Funny thing: Critz had to lend the owner his share of $1,000 back so the franchise could survive. Critz eventually got his money and the Chicks got one of the greatest players in franchise history.

Critz excelled as a shortstop for the Chicks and moved to Class AA Minneapolis in 1923. He made his Major League debut as a second baseman with the then-Cincinnati Redlegs 100 years ago, getting two hits in the first Major League game he ever saw. Furthermore, those two hits were against Hall of Fame pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander, winner of an incredible 378 Major League games.

Funny thing: Hughie Critz never talked much about baseball with his four grandchildren: Jenny Payne Gardner, Julie Pillow Crosthwait of Brandon, Durden Pillow Moss of Jackson and Robert Leslie “Bob” Pillow of Ridgeland. They knew him as as a doting grandfather, who had long since retired as a baseball player and who owned a car dealership in Greenwood and a nearby cotton plantation. His grandchildren didn’t call him Grandpa or Gramps or Papa. No, they simply called him Hughie.

Mississippi native Hughie Critz played Major League Baseball in the 1920s and 1930s. Shown are lifetime passes in appreciation of his dedication and meritorious service. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Bob Pillow remembers a lazy Saturday afternoon 60 years ago, sitting with Hughie, listening to Dizzy Dean and Peewee Reese on the “Game of the Week,” when out of the blue Ol’ Diz started talking about the great second baseman from Mississippi, Hughie Critz. Bob Pillow couldn’t believe his ears.

“Did you hear that, Hughie!” he excitedly asked his grandfather.

“Yes, I did,” Hughie said, and then went back to napping.

“He was such a kind and humble man,” Bob Pillow said. “He was a great storyteller and a prankster, too. He sure did love his grandchildren, I’ll tell you that.”

They loved him back. Still do. Says Durden Moss, “My fondest memory is probably just sitting in his lap and him drawing me little pictures of animals and then letting me draw for him. For me it sparked a life-long love of art and becoming an artist myself.”

Says Julie Crosthwait, “It’s funny what you remember. I remember lying in bed with him and watching and listening to Lawrence Welk. He’d massage my feet and then I’d massage his. He was such a sweet, sweet man.”

Jenny Gardner, keeper of the unofficial Hughie Critz museum, tears up when talking about her grandfather who died 44 years ago.

“When I get to heaven, I want to see Hughie first,” she says. “I’ll get around to everyone else, mind you, but I want to see him first.”

Old photograph of Hugh “Hughie” Melville Critz, who stood all of 5’8″ and weighed around 150lbs, played Major League baseball for the New York Giants in the 1930s and Cincinnati Reds in the 1920s. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

Crystal Springs commercial painter says police damaged his eyesight

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – Mina Corpuz – 2024-11-22 12:21:00

CRYSTAL SPRINGS – Roger Horton has worked decades as a commercial painter, a skill he’s kept up with even with the challenge of having what his wife has called “one good eye.” 

It hasn’t stopped him from being able to complete detailed paint jobs and create straight lines without the help of tape. But last year following a head injury, he and others said people have been pointing out a change in his work. Horton says the sight in his right eye is clouded, like he is looking underwater.

Affected vision, short term memory and periods of irritability – potential symptoms of concussion – followed after he was arrested last September. During an encounter with several police officers, Horton alleges more than one slammed his head into a cruiser and placed handcuffs on so tight that he started to bleed. 

“(The officer) was kind of rough with me and all, and he takes my head and I said, ‘What’d I do?’” he recalled recently. 

Horton ended up being convicted of two misdemeanor charges and has paid off the fines, but a year later he still has questions about the arrest and treatment by the police. 

To date, he has not seen a doctor to evaluate his eye and check for vision or cognitive issues. Horton and his wife Rhonda don’t have a car, and transportation to doctor’s appointments in the Jackson area remains a challenge. 

The Hortons have lived in Crystal Springs all their lives, and they have lived in the home the past five years that belonged to Rhonda’s mother. 

More than a quarter of all people in Crystal Springs live below the poverty line, and that includes the couple. Rhonda Horton said it’s hard to make a living because there aren’t a lot of jobs, but they support themselves as painters. 

That’s how they met Yvonne Florczak-Seeman, who lived in Illinois and purchased her first historical property in Crystal Springs in 2019. She splits her time between the two states. 

“We painted that porch bar and the rest is history,” Rhonda Horton said, adding that they went on to complete detailed work on mantles, kitchen cabinets and a cigar room at Florczak-Seeman’s North Jackson Street residence. 

Over the years, the couple built a relationship with Florczak-Seeman, who is seeking to open a women’s empowerment center called the Butterfly Garden, in the building next to city hall. 

Yvonne Florczak-Seeman poses for a portrait at her business, The Butterfly Garden, in Crystal Springs, Miss., Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

Florczak-Seeman has supported the couple numerous times, including helping them pay a late water bill and offering them work. She called them talented painters and hired them again to paint the interior of the future center, located at East Railroad Avenue. 

In pieces, Rhonda Horton told Florczak-Seeman about her husband’s arrest and later the injuries she said he sustained from it. Florczak-Seeman had questions about the encounter and other potential injustices at play, so she offered to help. 

“I just want them to pay for what they’ve done not just to him, but everybody,” Rhonda Horton said. “That’s what I want, justice.” 

The Arrest

On Sept. 24, 2023, Horton was walking home from a friend’s house when officers approached him. One grabbed his arms to handcuff him, and he remembers them cutting his wrist and causing it to bleed.

Then, he said, a second officer slammed his head into the top of the police car, followed by another officer who slammed his head again. During the encounter, a bag of marijuana that Horton said he found fell out of his pocket onto the ground. 

An officer put Horton in the back of the cruiser and took him to the station where Horton asked to speak to the police chief and call his wife. He said the police took his phone and clothes.

Afterward, he was taken to the Copiah County Detention Center in Gallman. 

Police Chief Tony Hemphill disputed Horton’s allegation of mistreatment, saying he did not sustain any injuries that required hospitalization. He said Horton’s wrist was cut while he resisted arrest. 

“He was not brutalized and targeted,” Hemphill said. “If he had just complied, he wouldn’t have had to come up there (to jail) that night.”

Two police reports from the night of the September 2023 arrest detail how officers had responded to a possible assault and were given the description of a white man. While in the area, they encountered Horton — the only person who fit that description. 

Hemphill said a mother called police after her daughter told her she was assaulted. He said officers approached Horton on the street and tried to talk with him to rule him out as a suspect. 

That’s when Horton began “fighting, pulling away, and kicking against (the officer’s) patrol vehicle, trying to run,” according to a police report from the night and Hemphill. Horton denies doing any of that. 

The next day police took Horton from the county jail to the Crystal Springs police station. There, police informed him a teenage girl reported being assaulted. After learning about the assault allegation, Horton remembered feeling shocked and saying it couldn’t be true because he was not on the street where the alleged incident took place. 

Hemphill confirmed the police investigated the assault allegation and found it not credible, meaning Horton wouldn’t face any related charges. He said he communicated this to Horton and his wife early on and since then, which the couple disputes. 

As Horton was being arrested and detained, his wife grew worried because she had just spoken with him on the phone and expected him to arrive home shortly. Rhonda Horton and her adult son started calling Roger’s phone, each not getting an answer. 

Then during one of the calls by her son, someone who did not identify himself answered Roger’s phone and said, ‘Your daddy’s dead’ and then hung up, Rhonda Horton said. 

She was starting to assume the worst had happened. Rhonda Horton wouldn’t have confirmation her husband was alive until he called from the county jail in the early morning. 

The next morning as she talked with the police chief, Rhonda Horton asked the chief about who answered the phone and told her son that Roger was dead. The chief told her the person who answered must have been from the county. 

Hemphill later told Mississippi Today that he did not know about the call and that type of behavior by his staff “is not going to be tolerated.” Similarly, Copiah County Sheriff Byron Swilley said he had not heard about it and could not say whether a member of his department made the comment to Rhonda and Roger Horton’s son. 

A Sept. 25, 2023, citation signed by Hemphill, shared with Mississippi Today, summoned Roger Horton to municipal court for the misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and resisting arrest and directed him not to have contact with the alleged victim in the assault case. No contact orders are typically for cases such as domestic violence and sexual assault and they are set by a judge.

LaKiedra Kangar, who works in municipal court services, said the no contact order was put in place because of the assault allegation. She confirmed Horton was not charged with the offense following the police department’s investigation of the allegation. 

Weeks passed. Roger Horton went to court for the misdemeanor charges, to which he pleaded guilty.  Felony assault charges were not part of the hearing. Municipal Court Judge Matthew Kitchens ordered Roger to pay over $900 in fines for the misdemeanors. 

Horton was able to pay for some of the fine through at least 10 hours worth of court-ordered community service, which he said involved painting buildings for the city. 

Months later after learning about Horton’s arrest and how he said the police treated him, Florczak-Seeman said she wanted to know more. Horton didn’t have access to his arrest documents, so she accompanied him and his wife to the police department to ask for them. 

The first visit, Horton asked but did not receive the arrest report. Florczak-Seeman asked if he had a fine for any of the charges, which police said Horton did even after completing some community service hours. Florczak-Seeman paid for the remaining balance and had him work for her for two days to pay that off. 

This year, they went to the police department a second time so Horton could ask for his arrest paperwork. An officer told him he didn’t need it and that the rape allegation had been investigated and found not to be credible, Horton told Mississippi Today. 

Florczak-Seeman asked why Horton couldn’t receive the report. She said Hemphill asked if she was Horton’s attorney, and Florczak-Seeman clarified she was his representative. 

The chief left for a few minutes and returned with two pieces of paper and handed them to Horton. Hemphill told Mississippi Today he did not recall whether he was the one who handed the report to Horton. 

Florczak-Seeman took the document from Horton and began to read it as they stood in the lobby. She said she was horrified to see the name of the alleged, underage victim and her address in the report.

Hemphill said the victim’s personal information should have been restricted and not doing so was an oversight. 

After reading the report, Florczak-Seeman went down the street to the mayor’s office at city hall to explain what happened, and how she believed the mayor had grounds to fire the police chief because he provided that document to Roger with the alleged victim’s information. 

Crystal Springs Mayor Sally Garland Credit: Crystal Springs website

Mayor Sally Garland confirmed she had a conversation with Florczak-Seeman about the police chief’s employment. 

She said she reviews all complaints about city officials, and Garland said she goes to the department head to get a better understanding of the situation. If she determines there are potential grounds for termination, a hearing would be scheduled with the Board of Aldermen, and the group would vote on that decision.   

Garland did not find grounds for termination, and Hemphill remains police chief. 

A Strange Visit

The Hortons and Florczak-Seeman hadn’t given much thought about the 2023 arrest, until weeks ago when a teenaged girl suddenly showed up in Florczak-Seeman’s yard. 

At the end of September at the North Jackson Street home, Florczak-Seeman heard screaming and found the teenage girl who came onto her property. She asked what was wrong, and the teenager said she was chased by a dog, which Florczak-Seeman and Rhonda Horton did not see. 

The teenager asked for a soda, and Rhonda Horton went inside to get one. Florczak-Seeman asked where the teenager lived, and she gave an answer that Florczak-Seeman said conflicted with what two girls who were standing nearby on the public sidewalk said she told them. 

Then Florczak-Seeman asked the teenager’s name and recognized it as the name of the alleged victim on Horton’s arrest record. Immediately, Florczak-Seeman said she turned to Horton and told him to stay back, and she told the teenager to get off her property, which she did. 

At the moment, they were not able to verify whether the teenager was the alleged victim from the report. Neither the Hortons nor Florczak-Seeman had seen her before, and they only knew her name from the arrest report.

“That didn’t make sense at all,” Rhonda Horton told Mississippi Today. 

Florczak-Seeman called 911 to report the situation and ask for police to come, which they did not. Hemphill told Mississippi Today a dispatcher informed him about the call with Florczak-Seeman, including details with the teenage girl and how she wanted to report the girl for trespassing. 

Florczak-Seeman is one of the people who have noticed a difference in Horton’s vision. It’s clear when comparing the detailed and clean paint job Roger completed at her Jackson Street property in 2019 and the center where he painted last year.

During an interview at the center in October, Florczak-Seeman pointed to the ceiling and noted spots that Horton did not paint. She remembers telling him about them and realized that he couldn’t see them. 

“The spots on my ceiling are still not painted, and they’re not painted as a reminder of the injustices that happened in this situation and why I got involved,” Florczak-Seeman said. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

Central, south Mississippi voters will decide judicial runoffs on Tuesday

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – Taylor Vance – 2024-11-22 11:16:00

Some Mississippi voters head to the polls Tuesday to decide who should represent them on the state’s highest courts. 

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Absentee voting has begun, and in-person absentee voting at county circuit clerk’s offices ends at noon on Saturday. 

In the Jackson Metro area and parts of central Mississippi, incumbent Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens will compete against Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County. In areas on the Gulf Coast, Jennifer Schloegel and Amy St. Pé will face each other for an open seat on the Court of Appeals. 

Candidates for judicial offices in Mississippi are technically nonpartisan, but political parties and trade associations often contribute money to candidates and cut ads for them, which has increasingly made  them almost as partisan as other campaigns. 

In the Central District Supreme Court race, GOP forces are working to oust Kitchens, one of the dwindling number of centrist jurists on the high Court. Conservative leaders also realize Kitchens is next in line to lead the court as chief justice should current Chief Justice Mike Randolph step down.

Kitchens is one of two centrist members of the high court and is widely viewed as the preferred candidate of Democrats, though the Democratic Party has not endorsed his candidacy. 

Kitchens, first elected to the court in 2008, is a former district attorney and private-practice lawyer. On the campaign trail, he has pointed to his experience as an attorney and judge, particularly his years prosecuting criminals and his rulings on criminal cases. 

In an interview on Mississippi Today’s ‘The Other Side’ podcast, Kitchens said his opponent, who primarily practices real estate law, would be at a “significant disadvantage” because the state Supreme Court often reviews criminal cases and major civil lawsuits that are sent to them on appeal. 

“I’m sure she has an academic knowledge about the circuit courts that she perhaps learned in law school or perhaps has been to some seminars, but she does not have the hands-on trial experience that I have,” Kitchens said. “And that’s so important to the work that I do.” 

Branning, a private-practice attorney, was first elected to the Legislature in 2015. She has led the Senate Elections and Transportation committees. During her time at the Capitol, she has been one of the more conservative members of the Senate leadership, voting against changing the state flag to remove the Confederate battle emblem, voting against expanding Medicaid to the working poor and supporting mandatory and increased minimum sentences for crime.

While campaigning for the judicial seat, she has pledged to ensure that “conservative values” are always represented in the judiciary, but she has stopped short of endorsing policy positions — which Mississippi judicial candidates are prohibited from doing. 

Branning declined an invitation to appear on Mississippi Today’s podcast. 

“Mississippians need and deserve Supreme Court justices that are constitutionally conservative in nature,” Branning said in a recent interview with radio station SuperTalk Mississippi. “And by that, I mean justices that simply follow the law. They do not add or take away.”

The two candidates have collectively raised around $187,00 and spent $182,00 during the final stretch of the campaign, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Secretary of State’s office. 

Since she initially qualified in January, Branning has raised the most amount of money at $879,871, with $250,000 of that money coming from a loan she gave her campaign. She spent around $730,000 of that money. Several third party groups have supported her campaign. 

Kitchens has raised around $514,00 since he qualified for reelection. He’s spent roughly $436,000 of that money, and some of his top contributors have been trial attorneys. 

For the open Court of Appeals seat, Schloegel and St Pe, two influential names on the Gulf Coast, are working to turn out their voters in a close election. 

Schloegel is a Chancery Court judge in Harrison, Hancock and Stone counties. St. Pé  is an attorney in private practice, a municipal court judge in Gautier, and a city attorney for Moss Point. 

Schloegel has raised roughly $214,000 since she qualified, and has spent almost that same amount of money this election cycle. St. Pé has raised around $480,000 this year and spent approximately $438,067 during that timeframe. 

Whoever wins the race, it ensures that a woman will fill the open seat. After the election, half of the judges on the 10-member appellate court will be women, the most number of women who have served on the court at one time. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1961

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-22 07:00:00

Nov. 22, 1961

Credit: Courtesy: Georgia Tourism & Travel

Five Black students, made up of NAACP Youth Council members and two SNCC volunteers from Albany State College, were arrested after entering the white waiting room of the Trailways station in Albany, Georgia. 

The council members bonded out of jail, but the SNCC volunteers, Bertha Gober and Blanton Hall declined bail and “chose to remain in jail over the holidays to dramatize their demand for justice,” according to SNCC Digital Gateway. The president of Albany State College expelled them. 

Gober became one of SNCC’s Freedom Singers and wrote the song, “We’ll Never Turn Back,” after the 1961 killing of Herbert Lee in Mississippi. The tune became SNCC’s anthem. 

After her release from jail, Gober joined other students, and police arrested her and other demonstrators. Back in the same jail, she sang to the police chief and mayor to open the cells, “I hear God’s children praying in jail, ‘Freedom, freedom, freedom.’” 

Albany State suspended another student, Bernice Reagon, after she joined SNCC. She poured herself into the civil rights movement and later formed the Grammy-nominated a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock to educate and empower the audience and community. 

“When I opened my mouth and began to sing, there was a force and power within myself I had never heard before,” a power she said she did not know she had. 

Other members of the Freedom Singers included Cordell Reagon, Bernice Johnson, Dorothy Vallis, Rutha Harris, Bernard Lafayette and Charles Neblett. On the third anniversary of the sit-in movement in 1963, they performed at Carnegie Hall. 

“This is a singing movement,” SNCC leader James Forman told a reporter. “The songs help. Without them, it would be ugly.” 

Today, the Albany Civil Rights Institute houses exhibits on these protesters, Martin Luther King Jr. and others who joined the Albany Movement.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Trending