maly, too: Same old stuff at the paper. As has been the case for the past 15 years, the news is being distributed Pony Express style. Jack Dittmer died last Saturday, and his obituary--all 6 paragraphs of it in small type under the heading IOWA SCENE--was in Tuesday's paper. People at the paper should be ashamed of themselves for short-changing Dittmer, a member of the paper's Hall of Fame. Jack Dittmer, from small northeast Iowa community Elkader, was a rare athlete. The guy was awarded a phenomenal nine letters in three sports at the University of Iowa. Something like that is unheard of now. He also was a major league baseball player for more than 5 seasons. A truly amazing person. I'm very happy I was able to spend a day with him 26 years ago in Elkader. I'm glad I was able to hear him tell his story. I'm glad I was able to write his story.

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Same old stuff at the paper. As has been the case for the past 15 years, the news is being distributed Pony Express style. Jack Dittmer died last Saturday, and his obituary--all 6 paragraphs of it in small type under the heading IOWA SCENE--was in Tuesday's paper. People at the paper should be ashamed of themselves for short-changing Dittmer, a member of the paper's Hall of Fame. Jack Dittmer, from small northeast Iowa community Elkader, was a rare athlete. The guy was awarded a phenomenal nine letters in three sports at the University of Iowa. Something like that is unheard of now. He also was a major league baseball player for more than 5 seasons. A truly amazing person. I'm very happy I was able to spend a day with him 26 years ago in Elkader. I'm glad I was able to hear him tell his story. I'm glad I was able to write his story.

Here's my 1988 story on Dittmer when he became the 117th member of the paper's Hall of Fame:

By RON MALY

Jack Dittmer

Elkader, Ia. -- When Jack Dittmer was a second baseman for Milwaukee in the 1950s, no player knew him better than Ernie Johnson.

Johnson, a pitcher, was Dittmer's roommate when Milwaukee, not Boston or Atlanta, was the home of the Braves. Because the two spend so much time together, Dittmer said Johnson was his best friend on the club.

Dittmer, 60, now sells automobiles in Elkader, and regularly listens to Johnson talk about the Braves on television. Johnson is a commentator for the Atlanta games carried by cable station WTBS.

"Dittmer was a good, bear-down ballplayer," Johnson recalled when told his old roommate was becoming the 117th member of The Des Moines Sunday Register's Iowa Sports Hall of Fame.

"I don't know how many people realize it, but he also was quite a prankster.

"I'll never forget an incident that happened one night in St Louis. While 'The Star-Spangled Banner' was being played, the stadium lights were turned out. Dittmer than gave Manager Charlie Grimm a hotfoot by setting fire to his shoelaces.

Born in a Small Town

"Grimm let out a yell, saying, 'Dittmer!' when he felt the firse. He knew right away it was Jack who did it."

Small-town Jack Dittmer a hotfoot artist? Jack Dittmer, the kid with the flat-top haircut from Elkader, causing a stir in a big-league dugout? Jack Dittmer, who won a record 12 letters at Elkader High School and a rare nine at the University of Iowa, torching Charlie Grimm's shoelaces during the national anthem?

Well, just because Dittmer was a product of small-town America doesn't mean he didn't know how to have fun in the big city.

***

On a hot, dry afternoon in this picturesque northeast Iowa community of 1,500, Jack Dittmer is as far removed from a major-league dugout or a major-college football stadium as he could be.

His only connections with professional baseball are the telecasts he watches and the occasional games he sees in person in Milwaukee. Every fall, he makes the drive to Iowa City for two or three Hawkeye football games, and he watches most of Iowa's basketball games on TV.

He's still a Hawkeye fan, still knows who's doing what in the National and American leagues.

But today, he talks about how this town he has always called home needs rain. On a typical busy afternoon, he drops off the mail, pays a couple of bills, then makes a brief stop at home. He comes across as anything but a dugout hotfoot specialist as he shows a visitor the baseball caps, autographs in his recreation room.

Braves Dissatisfied

They are reminders that Dittmer was an outstanding baseball and football player at Iowa, and that he spend five years and three days as a major-league baseball player -- four of the seasons with Milwaukee.

Dittmer's first year in the majors was with the then-Boston Braves in 1952. In 93 games, he hit .193. But improvement came quickly.

His best season was 1953, after the franchise was moved to Milwaukee. It was his first season as a regular, and he hit .266, belted nine home runs and 22 doubles and had 63 runs-batted-in.

You would have thought that would be enough to install him as Milwaukee's second baseman for at least several seasons. But that's not the way it happened.

"I think the Braves made a big mistake after that season," Johnson said. "Dittmer had enjoyed a good year, and was only 25 years old. Then, all of a sudden, the club dropped a bombshell and got Danny O'Connell from Pittsburgh. The deal didn't help either Dittmer or O'Connell. Danny played a little more than Jack, but I could never understand why the Braves thought they needed to make a change."

O'Connell hit .279, .225 and .239 in his years with Milwaukee.

Dittmer played in 66 games in 1954 and hit .245. He appeared in 38 and 44 games the next two seasons before winding up his major-league career at Detroit in 1957.

No Bitterness

His final two seasons in Milwaukee he hit .125 and .245. With the Tigers, he hit .227, leaving him with a composite major-league average of .232.

Dittmer spent half the 1957 season at Detroit, then was sent to the minors at Birmingham, Ala. He played for Phoenix in 1958, Seattle and Sacramento in 1959, then retired.

Dittmer displays no bitterness at the way things went.

"I guess the Braves wanted a second baseman who could hit better than .266," he said.

"But that .266 average could make a lot of money for a player now."

We hear a lot about the millionaires who play the game today.

Dittmer wasn't one of them.

"I got a $6,000 bonus when I signed with the Braves," Dittmer said. "The minimum major-league starting salary then was $6,000 a year, and the most I earned was $13,000 in my one season with Detroit."

Dittmer supplemented his income by working for his father at the Dittmer Motor Co. in the offseason. He took over the business after his father died in December 1962. He sold the company in 1985, but still manages the dealership.

***

Although Dittmer came from the corn belt, he said he had no problem adjusting to the fast lane of major-league baseball.

"I was traveling all the time when I played two major sports at Iowa," he said. "Our football team played UCLA in Los Angeles before about 80,000 fans. Being in big cities ans playing in front of big crowds, wasn't anything new to me once I got to the Braves."

Dittmer attended Iowa on a football scholarship, and lettered four times on Coach Eddie Anderson's teams during the 1946 through '49 seasons, playing end. He also earned four letters in baseball and one in basketball before graduating in 1950 with a degree in general science.

Nine-Letter Hawkeye

Surprisingly, he says basketball was his best and favorite sport. But, even in the 1940s, the demand wasn't great for 6-foot 1-inch centers.

Dittmer said the last Hawkeye athlete before him to earn nine letters was Erwin Prasse, who got three each in football basketball and baseball in the late 1930s and early-1940s. Dittmer said no University of Iowa athlete since him has earned nine letters.

That Dittmer played on just one Hawkeye team that had a record above .500, was on no Big Ten championship squads and went ot no bowl games didn't dampen his career.

He was chosen Iowa's Most Valuable Player in 1949, and was in the school record book for a long time as the career leader in touchdown catches with 13. As a senior, he set a Big Ten Conference season record for yards gained in pass receiving with 333.

Dittmer had good hands and adequate speed.

"If the quarterback could get the ball to me," he said, "I could catch it. And if I got into the open, no one caught me from behind."

Despite his light weight (165 pounds), Dittmer never backed away from a collision on the football field. Following a rare Iowa victory over Ohio State in 1948, Dittmer was asked about a run-in with the Buckeyes' 220-pound Joe Whisler.

Although Whisler had steamrolled him, Dittmer said: "Did you see me take him on? I wonder if he's out of the hospital yet."

Dittmer's nickname was Skinny. The years have added bulk to his body, and the nickname no longer fits. He plays an occasional round of golf, and it's his goal to trim a few pounds soon.

He and Darlene, his wife of nearly 38 years, are the parents of three children -- daughters Lisa, 32, and Jan, 30, both of whom are married; and son, Doug, 17.

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.