Distinctly Montana Magazine

W W W. D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A . C O M 61 Never mind that Frank James Burke — most often referred to as "Brownie and best known for standing just four feet, seven inches — started out as a mascot. Despite his small stature, the Marysville native ended up making a big impact on the national pastime. Perhaps it's fitting that Montana's first contribution — and one of its most memorable connections — to Major League Base- ball would be so unusual. It almost had to be. e Treasure State is far from a hotbed of major league talent; its ball fields are still under snow when pitchers and catchers report to spring training in Florida and Arizona every year, and those fields often remain buried well into the first months of the Major League Baseball season. is sort of geographic disadvantage is part of the reason so few players ever jump from Big Sky Country to the big leagues — 22 over the last 143 years — or former major leaguers retire to this remote part of the northwest. In fact, when a baseball Web site called FlipFlopFlyin.com researched the American town farthest from a Major League Baseball team — it led to Turner, Montana, population 192, situated about four hours north of Great Falls. But that's why Burke's story is so perfect. Born in 1893, less than four years after Montana achieved statehood, he was the fourth of eight children in a large Irish-American family. His father worked as a carpenter and his mother as a housewife, but the community of Marysville revolved around the gold- and silver-rich Drumlummon Mine. When the mine started to dry up, the family moved to Helena, where Brownie thrived. According to his biography by the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR), Burke "managed the routes of the two competing Helena daily newspapers and, once, when a popular play arrived in town, he purchased all of the tickets to then resell at profit." As an 11-year- old in 1905, he began the first of at least four winters as a page in the Montana senate. He also served as a drum major in Butte's celebrated Boston and Montana Band, with which he traveled throughout the West to perform in competitions. In 1909, the precocious Burke was working as a bellhop at West Yellowstone's Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel when he caught the eye of Cincinnati Reds president August "Garry" Herrmann. T he first Montana native to make it to the majors did so in a way that would make his home state proud. Players called him loyal and hardworking. Beat writers respected him. He was so admired in the game, he ended up meeting with three different presidents during the course of his career — with eodore Roosevelt before a game in 1910, with William Howard Taft during a campaign stop in 1912, and with Woodrow Wilson in the White House over a casual conversation about baseball in October 1913. Mike Mansfield playing baseball with John F. Kennedy and "Scoop" Jackson. Courtesy of the Uni- versity of Montana. by SKYLAR BROWNING & JEREMY WATTERSON

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