Local Ballplayers: Past and Present

When thinking about the hometowns of professional athletes that the state of Iowa has and will produce, one thinks of cities like Des Moines, Iowa City, or Cedar Rapids. Small towns like Ollie and North English are not ones that come to mind, but as it would happen, each of these towns have produced extreme talent; good enough talent for Major League Baseball. Two men, separated by 70 years, have emerged from humble beginnings to carve a path for themselves in professional baseball. One of them is Mace Brown, who retired in 1946. The other, Keaton Winn, is just beginning his career with the San Francisco Giants.

Winn, a product of Pekin High School, was a standout athlete in multiple sports. He was a member of the 1A 4×200 meter relay state championship team in 2015, was a 2x 1st team All-District and All-State wide receiver in football, and was a 2x 1st Team All-Conference and 1x 1st Team Sub-State in Basketball. But it was in baseball that Keaton shined the brightest. As a senior for Pekin, he had a record of 3-1, pitching 33 innings, striking out 66, and holding batters to a .081 batting average. He even struck out 20 batters (out of 21) in a perfect game vs Lone Tree in his junior year in 2015. By the time his high school career wrapped up, it was clear that Winn had a future in baseball.

In two years at Iowa Western Community College, Winn was a stalwart in the bullpen. In 24 appearances, he racked up 84 strikeouts and only 34 hits and 15 walks in just 57 innings; good for a 2.37 career ERA and .86 WHIP. What is even more impressive is that he struck out an average of 13.26 batters per seven innings, more than half of all the outs he recorded! He was picked in the MLB draft twice, in 2017 and 2018, both by the Giants. Instead of signing with the Giants in 2017, Winn stayed for his sophomore year at Iowa Western where he dramatically raised his draft stock, being drafted in the 5th round rather than the 20th as he was in the year prior. His signing bonus was $500,000, so it’s safe to say that he made the right choice in returning to Council Bluffs for another year. His high school coach, Curtis “Pie” Reighard knew how good he was, both as a player and as a person. After Winn signed with the Giants in 2018, Reighard was interviewed by the Ottumwa Courier saying, “What’s nice is he had a professional organization that drafted him a year earlier, kept an eye on him for an entire year and took a chance on him again by drafting him 15 rounds earlier,” Reighard said. “I’ve said this several times, but Keaton Winn is a better man than he is a baseball player. It’s always great to sit in the dugout and just talk with him. He is a down-to-earth person that is so driven.” Without the support of his coaches, family, and teammates, Winn may have had a more difficult road into the majors.

He spent several years in the minors, moving up the Giants farm system, before making his major league debut against the St. Louis Cardinals on June 13th, 2023. Until the day before, he had never set foot inside a professional ballpark. He pitched 4 innings and recorded a save in the win against the Redbirds. He even became the first Giants pitcher to record a save in their major league debut since saves became a statistic in 1969. After the game, manager Gabe Kapler had this to say about Winn: “He’s going to be good. He’s got a chance to be even better than he was tonight. He pitched well. He can pitch better.” Winn appeared in nine games last season, starting five and had an ERA of 4.68. He ended the season with a 1-3 record. His first career win was picked up at home vs the Colorado Rockies on September 10th, 2023. He has started 9 games this season for the Giants, picking up a decision in each one. His current record is 3-6 and his ERA currently sits at 6.17. At the writing of this article, Winn has been placed on the 15 day injured list because of a right forearm strain. It is believed that after he is eligible to pitch again on May 30th he will be right back in the Giants rotation. If that is the case, his next appearance could be on June 3rd because no Giants pitchers are slated to start that game yet.

So far in his career, Winn has pitched against some of baseball’s best. He has pitched to future hall of famers Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, and Freddie Freeman – all from the Los Angeles Dodgers. He has pitched to Paul Goldschmidt, Bryce Harper, Fernando Tatis, Manny Machado and Juan Soto, several other great players. As Winn heals from his injury and gets more experienced as a starting pitcher, he will only get better. All of us are rooting for him!

80 years before Keaton Winn began his baseball journey, a young boy in southern Iowa County dreamed of a career in the majors of his own. The boy’s name was Mace Brown, and he grew up in North English, where there wasn’t a baseball team at the local school. He threw the javelin in track, where he received a scholarship at the University of Iowa, and spent his summers playing baseball for the North English town team. Although he was exceptional at the javelin toss, his true passion was baseball. Any chance he could, he would be on Iowa’s baseball field when it was unoccupied. He eventually came under the radar of longtime Iowa coach, Otto Vogel. Vogel permitted Brown to switch sports while keeping his scholarship. Mace started his career with Iowa as a catcher in 1928, the position he had played back home. Before the 1929 season began, Vogel moved him to the pitcher position after seeing him throw. It wasn’t his fastball that impressed the coach, but his curveball. Brown had no problem throwing it, saying, “It was just a natural pitch for me.” He started the season with a shutout against Rice on two hits. He would catch the next game for the last time before becoming a permanent starting pitcher for Iowa. He won almost half of Iowa’s wins that year (9 of 21) and helped guide the team to a second place finish in the Big Ten Conference, only half a game behind Michigan. He played for a semi-pro league that summer in Marshall, Minnesota, but when the Big Ten learned that he had accepted money, he was barred from ever pitching for Iowa again. He then spent four years in the minor leagues before making his major league debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates on his 26th birthday on May 21st, 1935. Four days later though, he had an even more memorable experience. His Pirates were hosting the Boston Braves in the final game of a 3 game series. On the Braves was a man at the end of his career: Babe Ruth. In that game, Ruth hit three home runs, one leaving Forbes Field for the first time in the field’s history. After hitting his third home run and last of his career, Babe exited the field but had to do so through the Pirates dugout. As he entered the dugout, he decided to sit down next to the young rookie, Mace Brown. This experience stuck with Mace. He remembers Ruth saying, “Boys, that last one felt good.” For something like that to happen to any player would be exceptional, but for a rookie in his first week in the majors, it would be like something of a dream.

Mace was also a participant in a few other historic moments. Referred to as the “Homer in the Gloamin,” this moment is regarded as one of the greatest home runs ever hit and involved Mace Brown on the pitcher’s mound. It was September 28th, 1938. The Chicago Cubs were riding the wave of an 8 game winning streak and sat a half game back of the National League leading Pirates. In a back and forth game, it was tied 5-5 in the bottom of the ninth. Darkness had begun to engulf Wrigley. Without lights, the game would have to be called soon. Mace Brown was pitching for the Pirates. He recorded the first two outs and with only minutes of light left to play, Gabby Hartnett, catcher and manager for the Cubs, stepped up to the plate. Brown threw the first pitch to a big swing but a big miss from Hartnett. Brown threw another, this time a foul from Hartnett. Gabby was now down to his last strike. In any game, his odds of reaching base would not be good, but with barely any light to see the pitches coming in, he was surely done for. Brown considered throwing Hartnett some junk to get him to swing in the dark but decided to give him his money pitch. Brown gave him his best, but so did Hartnett. As Gabby made contact with the ball, it was quickly launched up in the air and over the ivy. He had hit a home run! For a moment, none of the spectators in the stands reacted, but then cheers exploded in the area where the ball had landed, it became clear to everyone that Hartnett had just done the impossible. Fans sprinted onto the field and surrounded Hartnett, who was still rounding second on his way around the bases, to show their amazement for what he had just done. The Cubs gained the lead in the National League pennant race and never looked back. They would go on to be swept in the World Series by the Yankees but to Hartnett, his unfathomable home run would always be, “the happiest moment in my life.”

Although Mace lost out on the pennant and the rights to play in the world series that year, he would play in baseball’s championship in his final year in 1946. He was now playing for the Boston Red Sox and was joined by fellow Iowa County native, Bill Zuber of Amana, in the Sox’ bullpen. In a 12-3 loss in game 4, Zuber pitched the 6th and 7th innings, allowing one run. Mace Brown followed him in the 8th and 9th innings, allowing three runs and recording one inning of work (he was relieved in the ninth after allowing several base runners). It is believed that by both of them pitching in the same game that this was the first time that two players from the same county in the same state pitched in the same game for the same team in a World Series game. If you want to be even more specific, you could say it’s the first time that such an occurrence happened with the pitchers pitching back to back. The Cardinals did win that game and would go on to win two of the last three to capture their sixth world series championship, leaving Brown and Zuber without a championship.

By the time his career had ended, Mace, along with other relievers, had ushered in a new era in baseball: the regular practice of relief pitching. Before then, starting pitchers were expected to pitch an entire game, even in extra innings. As the game evolved, it became apparent that this was no longer sustainable. So, players like Brown would come into games for starters tasked with closing out the game. For his career, Mace had an ERA of 3.46 and record of 76-57. In 1938, his best year and the year he pitched in the All-Star game to Jimmie Foxx, Joe DiMaggio, Lou Gehrig, and other American League greats, he was ninth place in MVP voting.

Mace Brown died on March 24th, 2002 at his home in Greensborough, North Carolina at the age of 92. He was buried in his Boston Sox uniform. He has been survived by his daughter Carolyn McKinney, along with many grandchildren and great grandchildren. His family, along with many other people, have taken great care in preserving his memory. Carolyn Elwood of North English is a great niece of Mace’s and along with the members of the English Valleys History Center have curated a display case dedicated to Mace. Dave Foubert has been infatuated with Mace Brown for many years and has a large collection of memorabilia, including a baseball signed by Brown. Carolyn McKinney, Mace’s daughter, is also dedicated to honoring her father. She, along with Dave Foubert and Carolyn Elwood, were extremely crucial in providing information that was used to write this article. Ollie and North English may not be producing one professional player after another but each of these towns can feel proud in the roles they performed in the journeys of Mace Brown and Keaton Winn. Perhaps the story of Brown and Winn’s perseverance will become an inspiration for local ballplayers hoping to step in their shoes one day.