Excerpt from The Oral History of the Ozark Baseball League, Vol. I (1999)

Interview with Howie Jubelt, Joplin Star

Dictated by Arnold Watson

“Oh boy, if that wasn’t a weird one. Yeah, you know, ballplayers always have their superstitions. Hoppin’ the foul line, a certain bat every game, pine tar on the cap, whatever. Those fellas who wouldn’t change their skivvies on a hitting streak, all that stuff. Well Casey [Morganford] did all that and about 50 more. Guy always had something going, drawin’ tarot cards in the dugout, foragin' 'healin herbs' from the ditches on roadtrips, turnin his hat funny directions. He’d drink funny colored tea in the clubhouse and on the buses. Yeah, guys just kinda let him do his thing, he wud’n ever trying to push it on anybody. He wud’n ever much good really though, had a couple real fine games after he went to Crawford County but if he was known for anything it was for that game in ‘89. It was game 3 I think, correct me if I’m wrong, game 3 of the Mammoth Spring [Classic] and Casey’s pitchin’. Joplin’s lost both of the first two, so they really need a win. Conway leaves that day before with their chests puffed out, best team in the league all year. They know it’s about in the bag already. Well they go back to their hotel in Mammoth I guess and have a pretty quiet night, most of the fellas go to bed early. That’s what I always heard from Mick at least. I don’t know for sure I was at the hotel we was staying in for Joplin. Talked to a couple bartenders in Mammoth who swore none of the Conway fellas came out that night. Anyway, Conway has a quiet night, getting rested for the next day but damn if they didn’t show up to the ballpark for game 3 lookin’ downright ragged. Like they ain’t slept a wink. Groggy, bags under their eyes, slow to the ball takin’ grounders before the game. Missin’ easy throws. Didn’t even take batting practice at all. Izzy can’t figure out what the hell’s going on, yellin’ at ‘em, askin’ if they even gave half a damn about winning, sayin’ he’s gonna . But somethin’ was off for sure. So yeah, game goes on and Morganford is throwin’ the game of his life. Hasn’t given up a hit through five innings. Couple of the Conway fellas looked downright scared of him when they stepped into the [batter’s] box. Couldn’t make sense of it. Like I said, Casey was fine enough but he was a lanky guy. Didn’t throw a fireball; none of his pitches were gonna spook anybody. But Conway couldn’t get a hit, couldn’t look him in the eye. Best hitting team in the OBL can’t hold the gaze of Casey Morganford. And every time Joplin was in the dugout, Casey’s out there standin’ on the dugout steps, just starin’ out at Conway in the field. Juniata booted a ball at first [when Conway was in the field], led to a couple runs. Looked dog-tired and lost out there. And then, yeah, you know the story. Casey throws a no-hitter in game 3. Totally dominates. Conway fans are stunned. Hell, Joplin fans were stunned, whole goddamn pressbox was stunned. After about the 7th inning of Casey not allowin’ a hit, people around are startin’ to joke: what kinda spell did Casey cast before the game? Guess the palm reader gave Casey the scouting report today”, stuff like that.

So Mick leaves the pressbox for the Conway bus, I leave for Joplin’s. A wild story to write, excited to hear what the Joplin boys think of their folk magician or mystic or whatever throwing the game of his life in the Mammoth [Spring Classic]. The Joplin boys are rowdy as ever, and they got rowdy no doubt, celebratin’. I talk to Casey and get a nice interview and he’s smilin’ and at the end I ask him if he cast a sleep spell or somethin on Conway and he laughed it off. But really I wanted to know what those Conway boys were thinkin’. What made them so out of sorts. So later that night I call up Mick’s room at the hotel and ask him to meet me for a drink and we go down to Killian’s over on Chestnut if you’ve ever been to Mammoth Spring, and I ask him what the heck happened with Conway today. He seems like he’s thinkin’ real hard, he looks kinda puzzled really and he says “Howie I’m not sure, they won’t really talk about it but they seem spooked.” Which was weird for that Conway team, you know? They didn’t hold much back on those early teams. So that they were quiet just doubled the strangeness, and I could tell it did for Mick too. Anyway, next two days pass, Joplin gets mopped by Conway. Not close really. Conway’s crowned champions, everybody forgets about Casey’s legendary game and Conway’s weird behavior. But maybe a week after the celebration’s ended, Conway parade is over, the mayor’s named a day for the baseball Toad Suckers or whatever, Mick gives me a call. And he says, “Howie you ain’t gonna believe the story that’s about to break.” And boy was he right. Albert Greer, third baseman for Conway at the time, had gone to the OBL board with a formal complaint against Casey Morganford. The complaint stated that the night before the big no-hitter, Casey had “astrally projected” into their dreams and caused them “psychic damage”. It’s in writing. Probably lost somewhere in one of the old board members’ file cabinets or something. Greer said that Casey transported, somehow, he didn’t know, into Greer’s dream and taunted him the night before the game. Walked Greer into some woods in the dream and said “tomorrow’s gonna be a coon hunt and it’s gonna be quick” and then Greer realized, in the dream, that he was the coon, and suddenly Greer’s got a gun and a dog and Greer’s scramblin’ through the woods, up a tree, yellin’ and beggin’ Casey to just stop and then Greer’s wakin’ up sweatin’ and screamin’ in the hotel. Told the board it wasn’t right for a man to just root around in another man’s subconscious like that, and that he shouldn’t be permitted to play in the league anymore. And Greer wasn’t the only one. At least he said he wasn’t. Nobody else from Conway ever came forward on the record at least but I know Mick told me that at least one other player told him, one of the infielders did, that Casey astrally projected into his dream too. And that in his dream he was in his granmama’s kitchen and she had a big ole bowl of persimmons on the big kitchen table, and so this uh, this specific infielder sits down to eat ‘em in the dream and there’s Casey sitting across from him smilin’ real sinister and it spooks him but it’s a dream you know, so he takes a bite of this persimmon but it ain’t ripe. You ever had an unripe persimmon? No? Well pray you don’t man ‘cause there ain’t much worse. If sandpaper was a taste, but bitter too. And it’ll suck all the spit out of your whole damn body. So this particular infielder, tries to spit it out, but he can’t, and the Casey just keeps feedin’ him more. More of these unripe persimmons and this dream self of the player can’t quit eatin’ em until finally he wakes up, mouth dry as Benton County, and spends the whole day and game with that horrid bitter taste in his mouth. Can’t focus a lick. I can’t confirm that account, but I trust Mick. Greer said half the team had stories like this over breakfast. Spooked the bejesus straight out of ‘em. Anyway, Greer made a hubbub about it for a few months, but nobody took him seriously. How could you? We’re talking about… voodoo conspiracies to win a baseball game. Casey Morganford flying through, what, the cosmos I guess? To rummage around in somebody’s sub-consciousness? Like a ballcap wearing Freddy Kruger. Those were the kind of headlines that were comin’ out. Now this guy who had been the but of all the herbal remedies and voodoo superstition jokes wasn’t the punchline, it was his victim. But even though it was talked about a lot, I don’t know anyone personally who took it serious. I mean, they won! Conway won the championship! People didn’t get what Greer was making a big deal about. Either way, Greer never played in another game that Morganford pitched. He wouldn’t do it. Other guys kept hush about it, but to Greer’s credit I guess they never did seem all that comfortable about the whole thing. Plus the other infielder’s story. I don’t know. Morganford never owned up to anything, just said Greer was mad they got no-hit by an average pitcher. Which is about what the public thought too.Wanna know the saddest thing come outta all this? Greer said he never went coon huntin’ again. Couldn’t stomach it he said. You believe that? You know his daddy had coon huntin’ trophies. And Greer just hangs it up. Couldn’t ever shake the image of himself bein treed by the most forgettable pitcher in the OBL. Bet he don’t eat much persimmon pudding in the fall either [laughter].”