The Bob Cobb Story-Part 5
Note: My next book, No. 6, may focus on Bob Cobb, the owner of the legendary Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood and a Billings man who played a key role in the city getting a professional baseball team 78 years ago. I’ve written a chunk of text for a possible manuscript, and I’m be sharing that during coming weeks. In case you missed Parts 1, 2, 3, or all of the previous ones, they’re available on my website, www.treasurestatepress.com
Your comments are welcome
Expressing an opposing view to that of Cale Crowley at the June 1947 Billings City Council meeting , Mearl L. Fagg, a state softball commissioner, said softball also promoted Americanism. Locally, 40 to 50 teams, which had at least 750 players, played the sport, he said.
Fagg said the softball association was only “asking crumbs from the rich man’s table” in requesting use of part of Athletic Park.
“We are not asking a great deal, and we are not taking anything away from anyone,” he said, pointing out that the northwest section of the park remained idle for about ten years as an unsightly weed patch. Then, it was “given” to softball people for their use in 1946.
“All we ask is what we had be given back to us,” he said. Fagg said he was aware the city park system was “overburdened and woefully lacking in adequate facilities,” but that it was “unfair to deny use of property improved at the expense of taxpayers.”
Mayor H.E. Biddinger compared the Athletic Park dustup to Billings’ post-World War II housing situation. The city faced a shortage of both housing and recreational facilities, so “we have to make use of the facilities we now have.”
Francis B. “Red” Welsh, secretary-treasurer of the softball league, said many players “are war veterans who have been away four years and we want to play.”
He gave the council a written statement saying the league, acting in “full confidence in arrangements made in 1946 with regard to our use of this corner of the park,” had invested $365 to install light poles there. The group did that because it planned to schedule a full season of play for both boys and girls softball teams.
“There are a selfish few who are trying to fog the issue by stating that this park was to be solely a baseball park,” the statement said. It explained that the late Elroy H. Westbrook, chairmen of the group that sponsored purchase of the Athletic Park property, said it had requested that the city “erect a modern baseball plant, kittenball (another name for softball) field and tennis courts on the grounds.”
“In other words,” the statement asserted, “the entire park was to be dedicated to the people of Billings as a recreational field.”
The softball group further claimed that when the city gained possession of the park property, the deed contained no exception. Also, former mayor Arthur Trenerry, who chaired the commission that plotted the park and planned its use, said the corner of the park in question “was to be reserved for a grade A softball field so that all the citizens of Billings could share alike in this program supported by the taxpayers.”
The softball group said it didn’t want to encroach on the baseball diamond; all it wanted was that the city allow softball on the field planned for that purpose. Officials had promised the use of that section to enthusiasts, who then improved the area, the group said.
Their argument, however, failed to sway the council. It voted, 4–3, to eliminate softball from the park. Newman was one of the dissenters.
After the vote, the council unanimously passed a motion that the city’s assist the softball league in locating and building a lighted, top-tier softball field.’
But, as Fagg told the council, “the $64 question is where are you going to find a field?”
He said suggestions that it be placed inside Terry or South parks would encroach on recreational facilities needed by children in areas where juvenile populations were projected to double.